Why is Sarah Palin a candidate for vice president of the United States? This is the real story of the 2008 campaign that remains to be told - how someone so uprepared and ill-equipped for high office ended up in this position.
It is a shame that Katie Couric's interview yesterday with Palin is not getting more attention. I am no conspiracy theorist, but I am beginning to buy into the notion that John McCain's theatrics yesterday were designed mostly, if not entirely, to run interference for Palin with regard to the interview.
The sad truth is that if this was what people were talking about today, McCain and Palin might as well pack up and go home.
The question was provocative, but hardly unexpected given recent events. Couric asked Palin, "Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?"I disagree with Steve on point only. Palin's answer was not largely incoherent. It was completely incoherent. She was literally reading from a set of talking points, either unaware or unconcerned that they had nothing to do with the question she was supposed to be answering.
Palin, in a rambling and largely incoherent response, responded, "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."
I'm sorry, what? Did she even hear the question?
She gave no sense that she understood, or even heard, the question. She might as well have started singing show tunes.
Palin's response to Couric's question was the political equivalent of this.
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our...If the stakes were not so high, Sarah Palin's candidacy would be funny. Under the current circumstances, it is alarming.
John McCain has placed this woman in a position to take over the presidency should he win and then die or become incapacitated. She is not prepared for that responsibility. She is, frankly, no better prepared for it than Miss Teen South Carolina, 2007.
