It's Official: GOP Ticket Now "Winky and Wrinkly"
Sarah Palin proved last night she's more qualified to host a game show than be Vice President of the United States.
She looked directly into the camera and delivered one canned line after another with nary an "um" or an "uh," but her complete inability to do anything other than insert prepared speeches into more or less appropriate places became clear when Gwen Ifill asked the candidates about their personal limitations:
IFILL: Let's talk conventional wisdom for a moment. The conventional wisdom, Gov. Palin with you, is that your Achilles heel is that you lack experience. Your conventional wisdom against you is that your Achilles heel is that you lack discipline, Sen. Biden. What id it really for you, Gov. Palin? What is it really for you, Sen. Biden? Start with you, governor.
PALIN: My experience as an executive will be put to good use as a mayor and business owner and oil and gas regulator and then as governor of a huge state, a huge energy producing state that is accounting for much progress towards getting our nation energy independence and that's extremely important.
But it wasn't just that experience tapped into, it was my connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills? About times and Todd and our marriage in our past where we didn't have health insurance and we know what other Americans are going through as they sit around the kitchen table and try to figure out how are they going to pay out-of-pocket for health care? We've been there also so that connection was important.
But even more important is that world view that I share with John McCain. That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism. And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are unapologetic here. We are not perfect as a nation. But together, we represent a perfect ideal. And that is democracy and tolerance and freedom and equal rights. Those things that we stand for that can be put to good use as a force for good in this world.
John McCain and I share that. You combine all that with being a team with the only track record of making a really, a difference in where we've been and reforming, that's a good team, it's a good ticket.
IFILL: Senator?
BIDEN: You're very kind suggesting my only Achilles Heel is my lack of discipline.
Others talk about my excessive passion. I'm not going to change. I have 35 years in public office. People can judge who I am. I haven't changed in that time.
She does not know what "achilles heel" means. Watch it. She Does. Not. Know. What. It.Means.
Forget the tight stripper skirt, forget the metallic eyeshadow inappropriate for anyone over the age of 40, forget the cloying sitcom delivery, the lies, the cruel and calculated needling of Biden by calling his college professor wife a "school teacher" and saying "she'll get her reward in Heaven" (to a man whose first wife died in a car accident) -- she's an idiot.
I cannot believe that we are seriously thinking of placing this dodo bird within reach of the Presidency.
Jane Hamsher blogs at firedoglake.com
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Good idea for a bumper sticker: W + W '08 (Brought to you by the Winky and Wrinkled campaign)
I like Maher's nickname for Palin: "The Avon Lady"
He stole that from a Huffington Post commenter, who called Palin "a pushy Avon lady."
Didn't anyone see the footage from the debate that showed a thick black wire behind her right shoulder? I saw it on a YouTube clip and wondered if it had been doctored, but then last night, CNN showed footage and there it was. Her "non answers" were so canned that I cannot believe any self-respecting viewer would deny that she was prompted! This woman is a very poor joke!
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that wire is likely from the lapel mic she was wearing. That's why we heard her say "hey, can I call you Joe?" before they walked to the lecterns.
If she had been prompted, her answers would have been somewhat related to the questions. My guess is that she memorized her responses. It wasn't hard because it's pretty much the same as her speeches -- lies and all -- with bonus winks and nose twitches. ick!
After we have driven a stake through the heart of the McCain-Palin candidacy, and only then, we can have a good laugh and maybe a new parlor game called "what was the question?".
Now, however, everyone needs to do whatever they can to make certain that Sarah Palin becomes only a footnote in history to the story of the demise of the Republican Party suicide.
Thirty days left to talk some sense into our friends and neighbors for are still falling for this moose-flop. Get on the phone, or better yet, go to your local Obama campaign office and volunteer to help. A couple of hours of your time could salvage your future, and that's the best investment you'll find this year!
Obama-Biden '08!
The fact that everybody missed Joe Biden's beautifully delivered message for change, real policies and everything (truly) wrong about McCain is something thats absolutely mind-boggling. Everybody is focussed on what Palin did and how she distracted us from all things relevant. That to me means that Palin won, no matter what the 'elite' yet stupid media says .... She's stupid, artless, political, pitbull, lipstick and all that and will make a ideal stupid VP for a stupid nation! ... The NYT said she did well beyond expectations! Is that a standard! f%^*#*@&
"That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism"
Typical, a WORLD view that only sees AMERICA. I hear there's a vacancy in a village somewhere.
That world view has dissapeared. If she'd been out of the country before this year she'd know that.
By "world view" she would refer to the global perception of America, which is pathetically low these days. Obviously, Palin does not travel nor read otherwise she would know how the rest of the world has spent 8 long years standing by bewildered by GOP antics and lies that have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, who have driven not only our economy into the ground, but possibly theirs as well. The McCain/Palin ticket only reinforces the perception that Americans are myopic, shallow, and I would go as far to say "delusiona
Palin is definitely exceptional, and that' s not a complement
never underestimate the appeal of exceptionalism to the stupid
Did anyone else feel they were being hood-winked?
Alaska just loves her apparently, so I'm sure they'll be delighted to have her back on November 5 when the good ship USS McCain sinks into the annals of history.
" cannot believe that we are seriously thinking of placing this dodo bird within reach of the Presidency
WE aren't. THEY are.
Who would not know what that means? it just blows me away.
She knows what "Achilles heel" means (unless teaching Greek mythology in Alaska is akin to teaching evolution), but chose not to answer the question. Instead she inserted one of the canned responses that have been programmed into her head over the past month in its place. She should have been called out on this, but the time frame of the debate was too narrow.
Sarah may make the teaching of Greek Mythology illegal in Alaska if intelligent design can't be taught as a valid theory, just as valid as evolution. That could mean that there would be strict limits on discussing Christianity or observing Christian holidays such as Xmas & Easter in Ak. Kids could be in school on Dec 25 in Ak as they were in the Ma Bay Colony when Puritans ran Ma. That's what can happen with a 2 year campaign for POTUS. Maybe limiting the campaign for POTUS to 180 days would be a good idea in 2012., if the USA still exists in 2012.
No, you can't call me Joe. That's SENATOR Biden to you, young lady. Who taught you your manners?
yeah, but "Say it ain't so Senator Biden" isn't as catchy a soundbite.
Palin's inability to grasp the meaning of Achilles Heel is the inability of a thing to grasp its own nature.
Seems like her antics of what everyone else is calling the "folksiness" did not hit home after all. As I was watching the debate I cringed every time she smiled coyly (ugh!). Frankly Tina Fey's play on SNL was coming to mind and my body was recoiling at the horror of what this women was doing on the world stage!!!
Here we are trying to break the glass ceiling...
I am relieved that there are many people who are seeing her for who she is.... BUT, who are the voters supporting a McCain/Palin ticket?????? Do they not understand the gravity of the economic crises the country is facing today??? About where we stand in relationship to the rest of the world and how that can impact us for generations to come???? How our health care is in peril, so are our children's and grandchildren's education.
Oh, come one now! Can Bush even spell Achilles?
Wonderful posting.
To me, Joe Biden came off as warm, caring person, with a great intelligence, knowledge, and a sense of humor. Palin struck me as cold, calculating, ruthlessly ambitious, and, well, just about any
antonym for "warm, caring person..."
He is and she is what you say they are. Can't fool all of the people all of the time.
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