Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sarah Palin is W Light

I watched Sarah Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson on Friday night. She didn’t’ do badly. She didn’t do well. Her performance was mostly confident and self-assured but she hesitated at crucial moments when questioned about the Bush doctrine or when Gibson pressed her about her support for the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it. As he pointed out the various discrepancies in her statements, she either glossed over them or sought to change the topic. All in all a skilled performance that managed to side skirt her deficiencies to all but the most critical eye. Expect no major melt downs from this canny politician. An occasional flub here or there, which even the most polished might trip up on.

But her self-assured performance left me with an eerie feeling of déjà vu. What other self-confident small state governor, in his first run for the presidency, was also too cocky to know what he didn’t know going into office?

Maureen Dowd, of all people, nails it here.
The really scary part of the Palin interview was how much she seemed like W. in 2000, and not just the way she pronounced nu-cue-lar. She had the same flimsy but tenacious adeptness at saying nothing, the same generalities and platitudes, the same restrained resentment at being pressed to be specific, as though specific is the province of silly eggheads, not people who clear brush at the ranch or shoot moose on the tundra.

Just as W. once could not name the General-General running Pakistan, so Palin took a position on Pakistan that McCain had derided as naïve when Obama took it.
I’m not really a big fan of Dowd’s but I think she’s really spot on in this column with this observation:
She tried to finesse her previous church comments about Iraq, asking worshipers to pray “that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.” Earnestly repeating after her tutors, she said she had meant to echo Abraham Lincoln, that in war we must pray that we are on God’s side rather than that he is on ours. But her original comments sounded more W. than Abe — taking your policy and ideology and giving it the hallowed mantle of a mission from God.
So, now you have it. Sarah Palin is even more like George Bush than John McSame is.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

You do know, of course that the interview was drastically edited by ABC/Gibson. Do yourself a favor and read the full transcript.

As for the Bush Doctrine, even The Washington Post noted there were seven different "Bush Doctrines" (none of which, I believe, were labeled that way by the Bush Administration). The general consensus is that Gibson doesn't even understand what the Bush Doctrine is.

I understand you're not a McCain-Palin fan, and I'm not going to change that. But unless you saw the unedited version, you're not giving her a fair shot.

Karen Duncan said...

Please, she was not familiar with the Bush Doctrine and all the spin by Republicans is not going to change that. If she were familiar with the term, she'd ask, "which one do you mean; there are several versions." She was unfamiliar with the term and her puzzlement was obvious.

Furthermore, Gibson and others in the media have been calling her and McCain out for obvious lies, like her support for the Bridge to Nowhere - which she supported before she opposed it. And there was her support for earmarks, even hiring a lobbyists to bring home the bacon to Wasilla.

A transcript doesn't give you the flesh and blood reactions of a person nor their body language. I'm going to guess that the latest spin is the liberal media hates John McCain because they are biased. But even he used to joke that the media was his base.

If they've turned against him it's because they don't like being lied to and they are disillusioned by the former straight talker, who now distorts his opponent's record and is waging a campaign of distraction from the real issues. And they are just plain annoyed at Palin's provably false claims.

Unknown said...

Keep attacking her, and be louder about it, please.

Anonymous said...

I bet she knows how many States are in the United States, unlike Obama. I bet she also knows that children are not a punishment unlike Obama who does think that.

I bet she also does not think people cling to religion or guns.

Karen Duncan said...

I bet she doesn't actually know much, or the McCain campaign wouldn't be keeping her under such tight wrap from the media.