Palin's embarrassing interview

Okay, now we know why McCain/Palin wanted the interviews to be "deferential". I already posted an excerpt in which she nonchalantly admitted that the policies she advocates (or, more accurately, has been coached to advocate) could lead to a war with Russia.

But here's her answer on the merits of the Bush Doctrine and cross border raids into Pakistan:



Mrs. Mooseburger clearly had no fucking idea what the Bush Doctrine even is. And clearly she didn't realize that McCain has been mocking Obama for months for his position on attacking terrorists within Pakistan, with or without Pakistani approval. Or did she? If she did, I guess we can add this to a long list of McCain flip-flops. Either way, it doesn't reflect too well on her.

Publius from Obsidian Wings has a good rundown of the interview and what it signifies:

But even beyond the specifics, the entire interview was like watching a bad actor spit out memorized lines that she had learned only a few nights ago. You could almost hear her mental gears grinding, trying to retrieve the talking points and forcing them into her answers. Nothing came from her — or if it did, she certainly fooled me. Reagan and Clinton — governors both — would never have appeared that ignorant, largely because they weren’t. They were engaged with the issues of their day and wrestled with them intellectually. Today’s interview reflected an unprepared, uninformed person cast into the spotlight far before her time.

And that’s what’s so absurd about the whole thing. The Palin selection is, above all else, a reflection on John McCain’s willingness to let the country be run by an unvetted and woefully unprepared person. And if she’s that uninformed, it means that someone else will effectively be running the country if she’s president — just like Bush and Cheney. Who would that be? No idea, but I'll go with the odds and guess "a Kagan." I actually have a decent sense of what a McCain or Biden or Obama foreign policy would look like. I have no idea what Palin would do — or whom she would listen to.

The Palin craze is also a poor reflection on the social conservative base, which has so uncritically embraced her. They embrace her not because they know anything about her, but because they think the world is out to get them, and that Palin is “one of them” who also faces liberal attacks. The truth, though, is that they’re just projecting their preferences onto a blank canvas. At the end of day, they’re apparently not all that interested in qualifications or ability to govern.

Hell, McCain might as well have campaigned over the past 2 weeks with a cardboard cutout with a wind-up string that gave the same (dishonest) speech every time. It’s just a joke — no interviews, no engagement with the issues, no qualifications whatsoever. Can you imagine what Drudge/Hannity/et al. would have said if Kaine had been picked and gave that blabbering interview? They'd talk about it for a month.

I know the new conventional wisdom is that Palin was a genius pick. Well, it may well be the pick that costs McCain the election. And if it did, it would certainly be well deserved.

And lest we forget about McMaverick himself, watch him stumble mightily trying to explain Palin's awesome national security credentials:



"Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States."

He actually said that. Think about that for a second. He thinks Sarah Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in the United States? WTF, McCain? Just because she's the governor of a petro-state, she's the country's biggest expert on energy policy? Are you fucking kidding me?

Oh, and she "understands Russia", because Alaska is right next to Russia. I can't believe that's caught on as an official talking point! Does McCain really think people are that stupid?

This is just an unending stream of bullshit. It's unbelievable.