When I heard about the Sarah Palin interview, I went to YouTube and watched it. Not that bad I thought, and posted. Then I saw John Stewart showing a Couric interview with Palin. I had earlier only seen a clip. The clips Stewart showed were a complete and utter disaster of an interview. I take back everything I said about it being low grade passable. Frankly, a drunk in a diner could have done better talking about national politics. I’ve heard them. How could I have been taken in by that clip? I am once again, proven to be an idiot.
The clip I saw was her answer to the Supreme Court rulings she disagreed with.
A few simple answer to Couric’s question would be, “Gee, sorry, but I’m drawing a blank here” or, “I don’t know” (when was the last time you heard a politician say, “I don’t know”?). Not that it is a perfect answer, but it was painful watching her sweat out the one she gave. Shouldn’t someone have coached her on what to say if she doesn’t know an answer to a question?
The Second Stone: Don’t be so hard on yourself. As Hitchcock tells us, the audience tends to sympathize with the protagonist regardless of what story is being told. Plus, now you know you have to get news from multiple sources, an important lesson.
I just saw the clip tonight with Couric regarding the Supreme Court rulings. Her answer having to do with Roe v Wade was fine. But when to talk about other decisions—YIKES!
I’ve been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, but if she performs near that badly tomorrow night, she really does have to go.
Her staying or going isn’t really the salient point. She’s not a hideously bad person, bless her heart, she means well. The salient point is what it says about McCain, how he decides stuff. Johnny Mac is a risk-taker, a gambler. He throws the long bomb, he raises, and then he draws to the inside straight. Now, if you like that sort of thing, well, there you go.
Myself, I’ve had quite enough of bold, innovative presidency. I’m entirely up for a plodding, thoughful, even rather dull, policy wonk. And if I never again have a President who is a ball-scratching and aggressively witless poster child for testosterone poisoning, it will suit me right down to the ground!
Look at it this way, you’re smarter today than you were yesterday. Hell, once, for about six weeks, I thought Herman Hesse was really,* really *deep. Then I noticed that all his heroes had long eyelashes. Uh oh.
…unless you cross her.
The Roe v. Wade part bothered me more than the second half–she thinks we have a right to privacy, but that individual states get to decide whether or not to give it to us? She didn’t seem to be speaking about abortion specifically there, but about the right to privacy in general. She could have said “yes, there’s a right to privacy, but the fetus’s right to life trumps that” or something. Instead, she left the strong impression that she thinks state’s rights trump individual rights. Which I don’t think she actually believes–she’s an Alaskan Republican, for god’s sake–but it shows she’s never really thought about these issues in an abstract sort of way.
Sarah Palin, in one of her other interviews with Couric: Palin To ‘Get Back’ To Couric About McCain And Regulations
Sure, it is an option to say “I don’t know” - but what does that say about your qualifications for high office, if you’re saying “I don’t know” about your running mate’s positions, or about Supreme Court decisions?
Probably better than getting them wrong entirely, but then McCain gets his own positions wrong with surprising frequency, so I don’t think the bar is set too high for Palin.
Yeah, except for that whole thing about opposing Roe v Wade while agreeing that there is a fundamental right to privacy (the cornerstone of Roe v Wade). Fine, other than that. :rolleyes:
Fine? She said that she believes in the Constitutionally guaranteed right to privacy on which Roe v Wade rests and that the abortion issue should be returned to the states, without noticing that the statements are mutually exclusive.
Sarah who? I think I’ve heard this name mentioned before, but who is she?
Lee. She makes PIE.
Many politicians are good at saying absolutely nothing in answer to direct questions. Sarah is not. However, I do not believe she’s as dumb as she sounds. It’s impossible to be that dumb. I can believe she had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was. I can believe she has no idea what sort of legislation McCain inacted in his decades of public service. But I cannot believe she can’t name a newspaper or magazine she’s read or cite 2 supreme court cases.
Palin gets herself in trouble by overthinking her non-answers. It’s especially bad when she tries to non-answer completely innocent questions. She starts to spew word salad without any thought as to what all these words mean when strung together. Does anybody remember The Prison Philosopher character played by Damon Wayans on In Living Color? That’s who Palin reminds me of.
Well, in my view…
States have plenary police power. The federal government has limited, enumerated powers. There is no federal right to privacy defined in the Constitution.
So what about her summary is wrong? We have a right to privacy if it derives from state law. What we have under federal law are specific rights to privacy in specific areas (no searches without a warrant) but not a generalized, fuzzy, undefined “privacy” right. And certainly not such a right that somehow morphs into the holding in Roe that the first trimester of pregnancy is sacrosant and no law may forbid abortion during it.
Now, it’s true that a more informed person could have said: *Well, I disagree with Griswold v. Connecticut a little bit, because although I certainly have no problem seeing contraceptives sold to married couples, I disagree that there’s a federal constitutional right addressing the subject. And I disagree with * Roe, Casey, and all of Griswold’s privacy progeny as they attempted to carve out specific and detailed rules that all supposedly are mandated by this vague and unwritten right to privacy in the federal constitution. Even if I thought the rules themselves were wise, I’d be opposed to having those rules created by the judiciary, a group of unelected, lifetime appointed people unaccountable in any meaningful way to the electorate.
But what she said wasn’t wrong.
The statements could hypothetically be reconciled by supporting an abortion-specific constitutional amendment (as much of a pie-in-the-sky idea as that is). I assume she did not mention anything about a new amendment.
EDIT: Bricker’s answer works, too 
She wasn’t saying that [the fuzzy general] right to privacy derived from state law. She said it derived from federal law, and that states had the general power to abrogate it. You know very well that states can guarantee more individual rights and/or civil liberties (than those provided for or “read into” the Constitution), but not fewer/less.
I agree that the crux of her position is reasonable and can be supported by argument. I do not agree that her argument is reasonable and qualifies as logical support.
For the record, I’m pro-choice, but anti-Roe (ie. the fuzzy penumbral right to abort as an extension of the general right to privacy).
Much the same thing as it says when you freely admit that you don’t know what the qualifications and job responsibilities of said high office are, after accepting a nomination for that office, I should think.
Ah. As in “when come back, bring”. I see now. Ignorance Fought!
I always get the impression that she is trying to find the “right” answer. I have a feeling she has been tremendously over-coached. Not that she would be better having not been coached, it’s just that I can see the wheels in her head turning as she tries to determine what is the proper right-wing response to an question.