The Masked Avengers from CKOI in Montreal (I confess I was always a CHOM and that AM station that Dino was on, girl) called Sarah Palin, pretending to be Nicolas Sarkozy. They kept it up for six minutes, and she gave no indication that she suspected anything amiss, even when this supposed head of state talked about how his wife is hot in bed…article and transcript at the Globe and Mail.
Her response: c’est la vie. I reckon she said a few other things, um, unofficially, though.
Lawrence Eagleburger on whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President (via HuffPo):
“It is a very good question,” he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: “I’m being facetious here. Look, of course not.”
Eagleburger explained: “I don’t think at the moment she is prepared to take over the reins of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice presidents who were not particularly up to it either. So the question, I think, is can she learn and would she be tough enough under the circumstances if she were asked to become president, heaven forbid that that ever takes place?
“Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. I can’t say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year… well I hope not… get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested.”
Adequate. Not a genius. Maybe, you know, better than…Joe the Plumber at the job.
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And an update. Secretary Eagleburger has utterly abased himself (do they have compromising pictures of the guy or something?!) in his turbo backpedal. I can’t find a proper transcript, but it was to the effect that he made a serious mistake, and wasn’t thinking when he said it, and was just plain stupid. He calls Obama a flim-flam artist <_< Personally I’d say the only purveyor of flim-flam is Bible Spice (thanks, Alec Baldwin).
“She didn’t know anything about foreign affairs, nor should she have,” Eagleburger says…well I’m no expert, but I know a couple of things about foreign affairs. I don’t know why politicians, even city or state-level pols, should be held to a lower standard than a generally well-informed citizen (and I’m on the low end of that arc, as well). There’s that New Republican Lowest Common Denominator thing again. The leader of the country should be as myopic and ignorant as the least-informed member of the party, cause they’ll be able to learn anything they need to know really quick! Makes about as much sense as “trickle-down economics.”
Gov. Palin was asked to name other US Supreme Court cases with which she disagreed, in addition to Roe.
Her hedging answer was designed more to avoid letting anyone know what her opinion might be about anything potentially controversial than anything else, I think.
I don’t know what her GPA was out of University of Idaho, but I’d give her an A in prevarication, obfuscation and disillumination.
She was on a conservative radio show today, and said:
“I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago,” Palin said when asked by Hewitt whether the Gibson and Couric interviews felt like “pop quizzes designed to embarrass” her. “I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it.”
Emphasis mine, obviously. Quoted here. Just leave aside the peculiar grammar. I mean there’s no way she could be less clear or less articulate, is there? Is there? while speaking English?
I also apparently should go back to school, because I don’t see how it is unethical for a journalist to ask a political candidate what newspapers and magazines she reads. Is that a gotcha? I don’t see how. I doubt she reads much of what I read (she would be able to speak more coherent English, if she did, I imagine, from the better examples before her), but I don’t think my reading list should be everybody’s reading list…of course, that’s one of the big differences between Gov. Palin and me.
DB: Pop Quiz, Governor!
PALIN: Well OK! that’s OK! ask away!
DB [grins maniacally]: What shampoo do you use?
PALIN: Oh, I really couldn’t say, now, db, probably, in my lifetime, you know–well, I’d have ta say, you know, that if John McCain and I, we’re so privileged to be blessed and elected to govern this great nation, that would be a way to create jobs and cut taxes on ordinary people. Job creation is so important.
DB: But, Governor, you didn’t answer my question. I see you have very shiny hair, and I wondered what shampoo you use.
PALIN: … I’m gonna have to get back to ya on that, db.
There’s about as much sense in fudging the newspaper answer the way she did.
That’s the latest on Gov. Palin. Katie Couric was asking her about Supreme Court decisions, and apparently, the only Supreme Court case she could come up with was Roe v. Wade.
Unlike Sen. Obama, I’m no ConLaw scholar, and while I worked in a US law firm for several years, I was only assigned to the litigation department for a matter of days when I was a floater. So I’m not particularly knowledgeable about the Supreme Court or its landmark decisions.
Off the top of my head, I was able to think of: Miranda, the case that required arresting law enforcement to advise those being arrested of their rights against self-incrimination (under the Constitution, right?); Brown v. Board of Education, which forced integration of public schools; and Hustler Magazine v. Robertson, which was immortalized in the movie The People vs. Larry Flynt. I suppose if I thought a little harder and longer, I might be able to come up with a few more, but I think those are sufficiently well-known if even a somewhat-informed Canadian knows about them. Right?
Edit: I mean SHIT! we studied stuff like that in high school! don’t they teach American History in Wasilla? I learned it in Philadelphia. She and I must have been in Grade 10 at nearly the same time, since I was a grade ahead…It’s EMBARRASSING. Her history teacher must be mortified.
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The new Katie Couric clip where Katie asked a simple question, “What newspapers and magazines do you read?” (which is a pretty benign question, isn’t it? it’s not a trick, GOTCHA question!!) and at the end of the nonresponsive answer, the whole “you people act like Alaska is another country or something” defensive thing. I don’t think anyone would have been surprised to hear that she doesn’t subscribe to The New York Times and The Atlantic and The Economist and Mother Jones…neither do I, unless my NYT RSS feed counts. But perhaps the Anchorage Daily News? the Juneau daily? the Wasilla weekly? the Seattle Post-Intelligencer? how about Time or Newsweek? Ladies Home Journal or Redbook? The Sporting News? People at the hairdresser, like the rest of us? I bet Alaska even has CABLE TELEVISION! do you suppose she watched CNN, even occasionally, before greatness was thrust upon her? maybe FOX NEWS! LOL
This line has been floating around my head for weeks now, and given the revelation of her cheating on her husband with his business partner, it’s only the truth: Jane, you ignorant slut.
Obama is a really smart guy.
Contrary to Sen. McCain’s repeated assertions, he understands. ( I keep belabouring this point, but just because McCain and Palin say it doesn’t make it so. Hell, even the Republicans don’t know what Sarah Palin is talking about.)
Obama’s not a cowboy, thank Christ. He’s a scholar and a professor of Constitutional Law…remember the Constitution? that precious piece of paper that Bush cleaned his boots on? There’s hope for the rule of law, if Obama makes it to Washington. There’s hope (well I sure hope) that the appalling breaches of the Bush/Cheney years (politicizing the entire DoJ? the utter corruption at the Department of the Interior? the terrifying effort to rush rush rush and install the most conservative people possible at every single level without regard to qualifications, and fire those whose politics don’t fall into line…violent response to peaceful, First Amendment guaranteed protest of an illegal war…the torture, the extraordinary rendition, habeas corpus, illegal wiretapping…) I mean there’s SO MUCH that is SO WRONG, and I think it’s really important to prosecute the offenders, lest anyone think that it’s acceptable behaviour.
It isn’t. No matter what all you cowboys, mavericks, and moose-hunters think, it isn’t.
There’s so much material, the blogosphere may explode…for sheer hilarity, not much beats Sarah Palin talking to Katie Couric. Alas, poor Couric….Katie seems to have valued politeness over the facts, or perhaps she was afraid of Gov. Palin’s possible response if confronted by the spectre of the Gray Lady. Gov. Palin also apparently was not briefed on Sen. Obama’s six-point economic plan, and I don’t think the wet finger is going to catch its vibrations, either.
Sen. McCain wants to suspend his campaign in order to lend his vast, vast economic expertise to the Senate while it hashes out the bailout. Senator Reid says don’t bother, Senator Photo-Op, we’ve got this.
Sen. McCain also wants to, uh, postpone the Presidential Debate set for Friday…perhaps using the VP Debate slot. I can totally understand that, since the VP debate will be a massacre. The VP debate would be a massacre with a well-informed 8th Grader going up against Gov. Palin, let alone Sen. Biden.
On a more sober note, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that masses of Democrats are being sneakily disenfranchised.
Every time she ascends a podium to read the web of lies and misleading statements off the teleprompter…
Ha, ha! I said Thanks but no thanks! wink
I saw a human footprint in a dinosaur fossil! wink
No earmarks! wink
Reform! wink
I’m a maverick! wink
In what respect, Charlie? wink
I did not blink. I winked.
I wonder if she’s going to wink at Henry “coup d’état” Kissinger.
First in-depth article by the NYT.
Thank you. Now my visceral mistrust has some concrete reasons to latch on to.
I have had a couple of hmmmm moments today, or of late.
Saw some of the John McCain bio on CNN, largely softball, although it made several unflattering points. What creeped me out the most, though (OH and creep/creepy/creeped are the words of the week), was when Jon King asked McCain about the breakdown of his first marriage (he cheated on his first wife with the current Mrs McCain, if somehow you didn’t know this). He said “I accept full responsibility for the breakdown of my marriage” or words to that effect, full responsibility in any case. Then he smiled. And it was the creepiest thing! teeth and everything! Gave me chills.
(Also, I don’t think I will ever get used to the way that Republicans are allowed to break any code, any law, lie, cheat, steal, drive drunk, frolic with hookers and blow, you NAME it, and all they have to do is “accept responsibility,” appear suitably contrite, mention God a few times, and they are off the hook. Democrats do half of that stuff and they are unsuitable to lead this great nation (that great nation–you know what I mean). How does that work, exactly? I don’t know that I will ever understand.)
There’s another Palin family rumour out there, which is inserting a Palin child into what is patently a true news story. I don’t know that the child belongs there, but it’s certainly plausible, and there are some respectable people out there who seem to think it’s true. If it is, then no doubt the liberal elitist news media who are currently swarming all over Alaska should be able to verify it, and it will be another big fat question mark about the VP candidate, whose mothering skills are supposed to be such a big chunk of her “qualifications.” I don’t envy those kids, and if fate sends them to Washington, I really won’t envy them. The Obama girls seem to be pretty non-controversial, and the Biden kids are all grown, aren’t they? The McCain kids I don’t know a thing about, but I guess since nobody else is running as a hockey/soccer/basketball/ballet/whatever mom/dad, their kids don’t invite as much interest. Also the other campaign kids haven’t been thrust so often before the cameras, that I’ve seen. Or maybe it’s the Palin kids’ names that makes everyone want to know about them. I don’t know.
Also, Canada is having an election! it will all be over three weeks before the US one. Ha!
It’s all making me go hmmmm, though.