Feeling a bit under the weather, I haven't blogged as much as usual this week, but I can always count on Sarah Palin to pull me back in...
Yes, Sarah Palin, the most amazing living American, who, appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show Wednesday -- where she knows she won't be asked any tough questions and where she can pretty much say whatever she wants without being challenged -- made a rather significant gaffe:
Co-host: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? [...]
Palin: But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty --Co-host: South Korean.
Palin: Eh, yeah. And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.
Now, Think Progress' Alex Seitz-Wald is right that "malapropisms can and should be forgiven for frequent public speakers." Everyone makes mistakes. Think about Joe Biden, for example, who frequently needs to extract his foot from his mouth.
But Biden's problem is that he is sometimes too honest (for a politician) or just says embarrassing things. In Palin's case, her problem is that she's lazy and unserious. Time and time again, what she reveals is that she doesn't think, let alone think seriously, about... well, about pretty much anything other than the marketing of the Palin brand.
Think back, for example, to that Katie Couric interview during the '08 campaign. As I put it back then:
[H]ere's Palin, running for vice president, on the national stage, saying silly and stupid things and at times unable even to answer Couric's questions in any coherent, let alone meaningful, way, and showing a complete lack of experience, engagement, expertise, and even basic understanding of the issues.
Whether it was her comment that she had foreign-policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia, her general incoherence in response to any and every policy question, her inability to name a single Supreme Court case, her cluelessness on the separation of church and state, her ridiculous claim that she'd been "hearing about" Biden's speeches since she was in the second grade, or her inability to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, she exhibited not a tendency to commit malapropisms but a general ignorance about policy, politics, and, well, pretty much the entirety of the world around her.
Is it any wonder that Palin later accused Couric of "badgering" her, even though all Couric did was ask some fairly innocuous questions and, treading softly, give Palin every opportunity not to embarrass herself? Is it any wonder Palin recently said she won't "waste time" with Couric if she runs in '12?
Nothing has changed. The Sarah Palin of '08 is the Sarah Palin of '10. The only difference is that her brand is bigger -- with a couple of best-selling (ghost-written) books, a (phony) reality TV show, an even bigger ego, a place of prominence in the Republican Party, and the tantalizing allure of a presidential run.
So back to her latest gaffe. Should we make anything of it? On its own, maybe not -- I suppose anyone can confuse North and South Korea in this context, and she probably knows that the North is the totalitarian one (surely she knows at least that?) -- but it's just one more piece of evidence, and a vivid reminder, that her public utterances are really just a string of shallow talking points and ignorant assertions; that is, that she speaks without thinking, and without ever having thought about what she's talking about (including on rather serious issues like this one).
Is it any wonder the vast majority of Americans, including no less an authority than George W. Bush himself, think she's unqualified to be president?
Cross-posted from The Reaction.
Follow Michael J.W. Stickings on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjwstickings
Democrats for Sarah
Liberal Democrats for Sarah
Thank you for your attention.
First, "Barracuda" as she used to be called, is most certainly not lazy.
Granted, she tends to say whatever expedient thing enters her head and then says something else a few hours later -- unlike our president who has never gone back on his word, not even once.
Granted, her speeches and proposals are carefully managed sound bites gleaned from public opinion polls by her corporatist managers who will actually be running the country. How unlike our president who for three years has been repeating our own words back to us gleaned by his corporatist Chicago promoters from opinion poll sound bites and handed to his teleprompter.
How unlike our president who's corporatist Chicago promoters convene gaggles of Nobel Prize winners and vaunted experts, let them speak at length, then do whatever suits their corporate friends.
Obama has done his great work -- he has consolidated all the innovations of Bush/Cheney, engaged the first two years of McCain's hundred years war, demoralized Democrats and the people into numb passivity, just as Orwell accurately imagined, strengthened our new electronic police state in ways Orwell could not have imagined,
-- in just two years. The Cheney/Obama revolution is complete.
We need elect a new pretty face for our corporate lords who is not a Democrat, so that we as Democrats can feel a little less defiled, a little less dirty, when we hear our President speak.
bu-bye
Beyond that we all of us, white, black, gay -- all -- are going to sink together in the same rudderless boat, frying in the same boiling oil.
It is time to let Mr. Obama go. He achieved one thing, the rest is a disaster.
"...not even Thanksgiving is safe from Sarah Palin's desperate attempts to win the news cycle at all costs, and that the only thing you need to know is that the media is unremittingly evil should it ever reveal that she is less than a goddess. She takes to Facebook to perform the Turkey Day political equivalent of your Aunt Edna getting smashed on a box of wine at the family dinner and then declaring that none of you ever really loved her anyway.
Everybody makes gaffes. Ask Joe Biden. It's how you respond to them that counts
and Sarah Palin only seems to be worried about petty recriminations and looking to blame everybody but herself. Bob Cesca continues to say it best: Palin is nothing more than a tween girl on the internet who thinks life is a giant high school popularity contest.
I don't think Palin is completely unqualified to be President because she makes mistakes. I think she's completely unqualified to be President because she's the kind of person who takes a day of reflection and gratitude and instead turns it into a national hissy fit like the spoiled brat she is."
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/360246/sarah_palin_spends_thanksgiving_writing_petty_facebook_rant/#paragraph4
On Beck's show Sarah says "We're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do," The way Palin has used the word "sanction", in this context, it's meaning is to "approve of". This was followed a few seconds later by the "Obviously, we gotta stand with our North Korean allies." quote which is receiving all the attention.
At this point Beck corrects Palin & says "South Korea". Now, instead of stopping & acknowledging her misstatements, Palin doubles down & gives us twice as many allies when she fumbles out "Uh, yeah, and we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes." So now we have allies in North AND South Korea?
The second thing that makes this noteworthy is that Sarah compounds her mistakes by lying about exactly what happened. Of course, in classic take-it-personal, hold-a-gruÂÂdge-forevÂeÂr style Sarah has to respond to her mistake on FB. During her subsequent excuse-post she says "...that I corrected myself seconds after my slip-of-thÂÂe-tongue.Â.Â.". Beck corrected her, she didn't correct herself. But Sarah's beauty-pageant mentality won't let it be. She has to fire back, putting her own spin on it, even lying to try & salve her ego.
Because her lack of understanding foreign affairs and directly NC/SC issue, just shows us that she is not a right fit to deal with such a major issue or anything remotely!
Good points faved.
1.Money
2.Smart, Educated, Intellect
3.Attraction/Attractive
4.Done something famous or a first
5.Criminal action
It would be interesting and I wonder why no one has taken a survey of some world leaders or people of powerful positions or public eye to see what they think of her in general or as a possible US president? Yeah, I know they got more important thing to do and deal with. But even they make various appearances, so catch'em then!
We've already had Barbara Bush say "she needs to stay in Alaska". The more that people hear from other prominent people outside the local folksy world you'll see she's not viewed very highly. I "betcha"!
call them unpatroitic for some Sarah reason. She might pace and rant about it for days.
Then she might go home and write a book about it. Sound familar?
Cece of ceceandmark.com
Sarah's right, she is a pitbull. I wish she was a pitbull living in Canada as it's against the law to breed pitbulls in Ontario Canada and they HAVE to be muzzled by law in public. Now this is a law that we should have in the US and maybe, if the muzzle is tight enough, it would silence her hateful and ignorant screed. And if she takes the muzzle off, we get to euthanize her. Ha, awesome! A death panel she can finally believe in.
Anyway, she may be a "brainless hillbilly" -- the Wasilla Hick, I've often called her -- but we just can't ignore her. She's all over the place and has become a de facto leader of the GOP.
And isn't it good to keep reminding people that she isn't just a crazy conservative but that she's a star in the Republican Party?
People should know what they're getting when they vote Republican.
I hate that Republicans somehow managed to buy the 2010 elections but I don't think they'll be able to buy a presidential election and they won't be able to do it if Palin is their candidate. A pretty high percentage of Republicans, up in the mid to high 60% range and more than 80% of the left think she is incapable.
I think the thing that makes Palin think she has a chance is her huge ego that doesn't allow her to see or hear reality. I think it's wise to keep an eye on Palin but I honestly don't believe she has a chance in a presidential race.
Thank you for such eloquence.
How can anyone, in all seriousness, even ask, consider, or entertain the thought of her running for president when she quit halfway through governing a small state?
Aside from all the other numerous reasons she is not qualified, why is the obvious so ignored.
Where are all the adults????!!!!