If you could point to a Democrat who has done something comparable, I promise to be outraged at him/her.
I’m beginning to wonder about that.
Although you do have to admire the cojones it takes to argue, I’ll assume with a straight face, that lobbing softball questions at a conservative is proof of that evil liberal media bias.
Cojones, nothing. You’re asking me to argue against a nonexistent assertion.
If you really and truly believe that Couric was trying to softball Palin, well, I’ve got this bridge…
I remain impressed by your inability to see reality. “What magazines do you read?” and “Can you name one?” are not weighty matters requiring deep insight and extensive cogitation. Anybody (or almost anybody) with a few gray cells and vocal chords should be able answer that pretty easily, let alone the VP candidate for the Republican Party. I’d really like to know how you are managing to spin this to not be a softball question.
Here’s the transcript:
Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious: what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?
Palin: I’ve read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.
Couric: But, like, what ones specifically? I’m curious.
Palin: All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too. Alaska isn’t a foreign country, where, it’s kind of suggested and it seems like, ‘Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska?’ Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.
Now keep in mind that it was Palin who originally volunteered the idea that she acquired her knowledge of the world through reading: “The way that I have understood the world is through education, through books, through mediums that have provided me a lot of perspective on the world.” So asking her what she reads should have been a softball question.
I think it’s clear from the transcript that Palin didn’t want to name any specific magazines because she knew that the media would try to cast her in a negative light no matter what her answer. And I think it’s clear by Couric’s continuing to press the issue that she had an agenda of sorts behind her questions. Palin could have said she read the WSJ and NYT and the media would have found some way to turn it around on her: "Vice Presidential Candidate claimed on The Today Show with Katie Couric today that she believes reading newspapers has given her foreign policy expertise!"
There is no one in the world who becomes either sufficiently or accurately informed enough through newspapers and magazines to be able to contend with foreign policy issues. Just like someone can’t learn to play football by reading magazines about it, they have to get into the game to play it effectively, and where they have the benefit of experienced advisors and inside information as to the complexities and complications and areas of sensitivity involved.
The mere fact that Couric was trying to set Palin up in this way shows that she was out either to ambush her or to allow her to portray herself in a negative way. Giving her enough rope to hang herself, in other words. But Palin knew there was danger in giving specifics and so avoided doing so. The real problem was that she lacked the polish to avoid them seamlessly.
And then we have to come back to asking why the media never asked such probing foreign policy and worldview questions of Democrats like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, neither of whom had any more foreign policy qualifications than Palin had.
In fact, I can’t think of any other time in the history of American presidential campaigns where a candidate seemed to be expected to be up to speed on world issues and foreign policy before running for office. So asking those questions was based on an inherently unfair premise, and could have had no result other than to make Palin look bad no matter what she said. And Couric perfectly well knew it.
But she’s read ALL of them.
What Couric did was like demanding that Wilt The Stilt list the names of all 10,000 women he’d banged.
-Joe
Before I go on a search to find some foriegn policy and worldview questions that “the media” asked of candidates Clinton and Carter, I need to know what you are prepared to do specifically when I find some. Apologizing abjectly would be a start, but I’ll need something more than just a perfunctory apology. Are you prepared to stop posting for a month? Because without such a reward, I’ll just let this laughable assertion stand.
Starving Artist, just what questions would you consider legitimate for Palin or any other candidate you supported?
Why would she think that? This was her first interview. Prior to that, she hadn’t gotten any media treatment at all. On what was she basing her assessment that a sane, intelligent answer would have been attacked?
But remember when some mayor of her hometown of Wasilla tried to ban some of the more thought-provoking material in the city library? You should feel sorry for Palin that that mayor made it MORE difficult to keep up on current affairs through reading.
Yeah, you’re right…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/us/politics/02obama-transcript.html
Do you honestly think that those interviews were softer than Couric’s? Asking what books and newspapers you read is tougher than explaining the difference between a united and divided Jerusalem, or a time-table for withdraw in Iraq, or no-fly zones over Darfur?
SA, is there anyway you would call it a gotcha question if anyone asked Obama what newspapers he reads? Would you think poor Barack was a victim for being asked that?
Christ, He and Hillary got asked far tougher questions than that on a regular basis. I remember Hillary being asked to name the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia during a debate. She came up with it (Dmitry Medvedev), but stumbled slightly pronouncing the name, and got jeered for it by the right. I don’t remember any righties claming that question was unfair to poor Hillary, but if Palin was asked that eaxct same question, you’d all lose your minds (and there’s no way in hell that Palin would come up with the answer).
What a total load of shit.
After Palin said that being close to Russia gave her foreign policy expertise, I wish someone would have asked her to name the governor of Chukotka (the Russian province directly across the Bering Strait from Alaska) just to see if she had even the slightest idea of what was going on over there. My guess is that she would have answered, “What’s Chukotka?”
For the record, it’s Roman Kopin, though I had to look that up. Interestingly, the previous governor had been Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire who owns the Chelsea Football Club.
Cite for an example of mainstream media, not a blog or opinion piece, doing anything of the sort to her, please.
Also, I’d like to see some cites that demonstrate Biden has more gaffes in a month than Palin has in her entire career. Note that I’m not denying he has gaffes.
Trying to blame the media to mitigate Palin’s pathetic answers is just sad. Any candidate, whether conservative or slightly less conservative (which is pretty much all the choice we ever have in the U.S. for major party candidates), has to be able to work the press. Failure to do so surely indicates a likely failure to be effective in office.
I still would like Starving Artist to provide an example of what he would consider an acceptable question. I’ll add the restriction that the question should not be a yes/no or multiple choice question - the person being questioned must actually provide an answer.
“Could you explain what makes you so totally awesome,” perhaps?
[QUOTE=fish42]
Although you do have to admire the cojones it takes to argue, I’ll assume with a straight face, that lobbing softball questions at a conservative is proof of that evil liberal media bias.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Starving Artist, Earlier in this thread]
The nature of the questions she gets asked, like “What newspapers do you read?” or “What did you learn today?” are condescending and intended to portray her in a negative light no matter what the answer. They may as well be asking her what 2+2 is.
[/QUOTE]
So it’s your contention that “What is 2+2?” is in fact a hard-hitting question?