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When I try to get a job, I am required to go through several rounds of interviews. If I refuse one of them, odds are very slim that I’ll get hired. This makes sense. After all, interviews are an important way to determine the qualifications that one has to perform a job well.
Yet Sarah Palin announced in a Hannity interview last night that she won’t do interviews with Katie Couric anymore. In the interview, she says
I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation that the public has for truth to be reported. And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.
Presumably, she doesn’t consider the questions asked by Couric to be in the interests of reporting on the “truth.” Having seen the interviews, I’m having a hard time understanding this.
Is it unreasonable to ask what media influence a candidate’s political positions? Or is the issue that she was asked about foreign policy? Or about what Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with other than Roe v. Wade?
Have we reached the point where asking basic questions about American political history, particularly those directly relevant to stated positions, is considered by the general public to be irrelevant to finding the truth?
I don’t want to hire anyone without a thorough interview. It is the media’s job to perform those interviews on my behalf for candidates with whom I won’t have direct contact. If we are to obtain the truth, we need as many interviews from as many perspectives as possible. If the only facts reported to us are ones favorable to a particular candidate, then we will be completely unable to determine the qualifications of that candidate.
So why is it appropriate for political office candidates to choose their interviewers, when candidates for other jobs don’t have this luxury? What makes them so special? And why are we seeing this so much from Republican candidates, particularly Tea Party candidates?
Related Videos
- Sarah Palin: Katie Couric Interview ‘A Waste Of Time’ (huffingtonpost.com)
- Palin Won’t Talk to Couric Again (politicalwire.com)
- Palin: No time for Couric (politico.com)
538 Refugees 
After the plainly partisan gotchya interviews by Couric and Gibson back in 08 compared with the puff pieces they both gave Obama, who can blame Palin?
Palin is hardly alone in seeking a media comfort zone. Obama not only studiously avoids Fox News, his administration attacks it on an ongoing basis.
Perhaps its in her contract with her Faux News sponsors – no interviews with competing infotainment corporations.
Perhaps she just can’t handle the hardball questions such as:
COURIC: And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?
The Couric interview was as softball as it gets.
Except in the dePalma-Palin alternate universe.
You all sure have a victim mentality.
Spare me the hypocrisy until you’re willing to criticize Obama as he dodges Fox News as if it’s an F5 tornado and how his administration has been openly condemning and derogatory towards Fox and other conservative media sources.
The hole in your argument is that Obama REALLY DID get elected and now we have to put up with him. On the other hand, there are no guarantees that Palin will be anything more than Reality TV star and Republican cheerleader. In other words, in the position she’s in now, she ain’t hurtin’ nobody. If she somehow miraculously is elected to some higher office by weaseling around interviews, then we can talk.
Until then, the entire premise behind this post is hollow.
drfunguy:
Couric’s ambushing Palin as she came of a stage giving a speech with a BS question about what magazines she reads and then highlighting Palin drawing a blank while editing out questions on actual news is not softball.
Couric is about as objective as Fili when it comes to Palin. When on commercial break, Couric was caught trashing Palin and even her kids right after McCain’s VP announcement:
Couric does not hold a candle to Gibson, though. Gibson edited out snippets of Palin’s answers for the broadcast and left the rest on the proverbial cutting room floor. However, ABC made the mistake of publishing the full transcript so folks rapidly caught onto the deception. In contrast, 60 Minutes is notorious for using that technique, but it is smart enough to make sure the edited parts never see the light of day.
The Dem media will never give her a fair hearing and Palin draws bigger audience share, so Palin should skip the Dem media and speak directly to the American people.
The Daily Beast offers an interesting stream of thought why Palin so terrifies progressives and the political ruling classes.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-11-23/palin-paranoia-decoding-barbara-bush-frank-rich-attacks/
How is this any different then the entire slate of Dem nominees backing out on Foxnews Debates?
What ambush?
What is wrong with asking someone where they get their news?
Palin blew that interview all on her own.
Palin has to this day never had an unscripted press conference.
Fox News commentators continue to support the birther conspiracy, Fox New Corp donated over $1,000,ooo to Republicans and has most of the potential presidential candidates on its payroll.
I am amazed that anyone considers them a legitimate news organization.
Giving them interview time would be like inviting the RNC to do so.
robert,
Because, unless you are batshit crazy, Katie Couric is not a left-wing partisan, whereas virtually every panel on Fox is dominated by right-wing partisans.
Oh, and also, the way the Democratic candidates backed out of Fox debates was screechingly criticized by the right — but that Sarah Palin won’t even to interviews — let alone debates — with middle-of-the-road folks like Couric raises nary a peep out of the right, exposing their blatant hypocrisy.
Couric is the poster child of The Great Media Dumbing-down. We’re long past the age where anyone expected a news anchor to have even one iota of intelligence. I doubt that anyone under 30 remembers when anchors were promoted from the ranks of well-respected journalists. Compared to those who came before her, Couric has the intellectual capacity of a soapdish or a very small dead tree stump.
That said, it’s not Couric’s fault that Palin is even dumber than that. I expect that by 2012 the collective IQ of the major network telepromt readers will be noticeably lower than it is today. Even Palin’s hired collective brains know that, and I expect they’re already priming Palin in rehearsals so that the Mary Hart interviews go well.
drfunguy:
When you are putting in 18 hour days at work and are leaving a business meeting, see how you would do answering an off the wall completely unrelated question. Couric never badmouthed Obama and never ever pulled an ambush on Obama.
Gibson acted like a frigging groupie around Obama. When interviewing Obama after he won the nomination, Gibson gushed: “Senator, I’m curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk in yet?”
After Palin obtained her historic nomination, Gibson sneered down his reading glasses and asked her to define “the Bush Doctrine,” which no one here could define because it has no real definition.
No amount of spin is going to hide this bias.
How is this any different then the entire slate of Dem nominees backing out on Foxnews Debates?
Because FOX is not a news organization. It is the propaganda arm of the Republican party. Democrats would much prefer to be asked legitimate policy questions by Jim Lerher, than fluff questions like ‘why won’t you provide us with your birth certificate?’ by Chris Wallace.
Bart- deflect, deflect, deflect,
You brought up Gibson, I never mentioned him.
Asking what I read for my news is as softball as it gets; on a par with what is your favorite color or do you have any pets.
No amount of spin is going to hide this.
Isn’t cute to see Bart using his Limbaugh talking points like gotchya and ambush?
Sarah Palin is a word salad shooter. If I showed up to a job interview and regurgitated random answers strung together like she does, I wouldn’t hire me either.
And she’s supposed to have a Journalism degree (albeit from five colleges) but she speaks with teriible grammar. I mean, look at the fragmented sentece in the example above. It’s really annoying.
Sarah at an interview:
Katie: What’s your favourite colour?
Sarah: I just think, you know, the American people understand the cornerstone of democracy and they’re tired of the lamestream media, you know?
Katie: Yes, but what’s your favourite colour?
Sarah: I’ll have to get back to ya on that one.
@drfunguy,
The question was meant to be condescending and anyone with half a brain know that.
Has Couric or any other news anchor ever asked a presidential or vice presidential candidate what magazines they read to get their information? In the history of US politics, has this question ever been asked?
The question had demeaning overtones and that is why Palin was miffed at the question.
This is why the coming year or two is going to be so enjoyable for progressives. Just look at Bart. He is normally a well-informed, reasonably intelligent person whom (I think) most of us tend to look on as a worthy debating opponent, whether or not we agree with his politics.
But when he feels compelled to defend Sarah Palin, he instantly trivializes himself. He looks silly, know-nothing, politically shallow and kind of emasculated. He is WEAKENED. It’s like being forced to seriously discuss whether or not Miss Piggy really should win an academy award for her acting. It’s just SILLY. But it is going to be the fate of serious Republicans all across the nation for the foreseeable future. No matter how smart, well-read, politically savvy and knowledgeable they are, they must all plod off on the symbolic trek to Wasilla and offer humble homage to the ignorant woman who controls the idiot fringe, because they can’t win the nomination without the idiots.
By the end of this adventure, the Republican party is going to be a national joke.
@Grog
I disagree. The interview was Palins first big opportunity to introduce herself to the US public and Couric was giving her a chance to do so. It was a softball from the interviewer to try and get the interviewee comfortable. It didn’t come across to me as condescending at all. More like, tell us about yourself.
Since she blew it (and the rest of the interview) so badly it has become the stuff of legend and conservatives, ever eager to play the victim, try to spin it into something more. Didn’t fly then, doesn’t now.
@fili
“By the end of this adventure, the Republican party is going to be a national joke.”
We can only hope. But I remember thinking that of Reagan and Bush II. And what disasters those turned into.
DOC… Reagan and Bush II were both miles ahead of Sarah Palin.
A statement which, though true, is really quite staggering. They are probably going to field (and be forced to defend) a candidate who makes Dubya look like a statesman and a scholar. The mind boggles.
This is what GROG and Bart are defending… and proposing to support as leader of the free world. Watch it right to the end, Bart. I dare you.
Anybody who defends this woman is minimized by every word they speak or write in her favor. Think how infinitesimally tiny the Republican party will look after she’s dragged them through a whole year of this.
Cafferty almost bit U-Boat Captain Wolff’s head off.
I take it back. Sarah Palin is a word salad cusinart.
Since there seems to be some question about this…
I don’t think any candidate should refuse an invitation to go on Fox News either. For any refusal, I can accept scheduling issues, but that’s pretty much it. A blanket refusal to be interviewed by a news reporter is unacceptable to me.
I don’t see anything wrong with potential voters seeing a candidate get hit with gotcha questions, either. Presumably, voters are intelligent enough to recognize it when they see it, and make their determinations accordingly.
I assume that Bart isn’t calling the voters stupid, right?
Barted:
When you are putting in 18 hour days at work and are leaving a business meeting, see how you would do answering an off the wall completely unrelated question. Couric never badmouthed Obama and never ever pulled an ambush on Obama.
In reality, this happens to me all the time. I’m called upon to make critical decisions after working long hours with little sleep.
You might even expect something like that in, I dunno, a Vice-President of the United States? Someone who is aspiring to be President should the unthinkable happen?
Why does Saint Sarah get a pass on this job requirement, when everyone else must meet it? No one is allowed to shell South Korea on her watch, so she doesn’t have to bone up on the history of the Korean Peninsula but only after she has a good night’s sleep?
@fili,
And you elected him President?
@Michael
” A blanket refusal to be interviewed by a news reporter is unacceptable to me.”
One if the “reporters” company is heavily funding the opposition candidates?
Are they still a news organization if they hire most of the conservative presidential contenders and give a million bucks to the Republican (Or Democratic for that matter) Governers Association?
@Monotreme,
In reality, this happens to me all the time. I’m called upon to make critical decisions after working long hours with little sleep.
You might even expect something like that in, I dunno, a Vice-President of the United States? Someone who is aspiring to be President should the unthinkable happen?
At least listen to Obama in the first video.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2010/11/23/palin-on-american-idol.aspx
GROG,
I’ve heard the video. I voted for him. End of story.
@montreme,
His excuse was “I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”
And he’s not jsut the Vice President. He’s the actual real lifePresident of the United States.
@GROG,
You’re not making much sense. Have you been getting enough sleep?
Honestly, she spits out nonsense about 90% of the time she speaks. We can play “find the YouTube gotcha video” game all day, but when it’s all said and done, what percentage of the time does she actually form a declarative English sentence?
GROG… there are goofs, gaffes, and garbled words… and Obama certainly makes his share of all of them. Then there is deep, profound, sweeping ignorance of the issues… and that moves us into Sarah Palin territory.
The fact that you are apparently unable to distinguish between verbal goofs and profound ignorance marks you as a Palin supporter (and makes you look silly.)
Sadly for your side… the public IS demonstrably able to distinguish between the two. And you can be sure that they will.
Come on GROG,
I’m pretty sure there aren’t too many people who don’t know there are 50 states in the United States. You really want us to believe that President Obama actually thinks there are 57? The guy graduated from ivy league schools.
Haven’t you ever had a brain fart where your mouth said something other than what your brain was thinking?
You’re really reaching here, GROG.
@filistro,
Sadly for your side… the public IS demonstrably able to distinguish between the two. And you can be sure that they will.
I sure hope you’re right.
Of course we can play the “find the YouTube gotcha video” game all day long. That’s my point.
Palin was obviously nervous during the Couric video. It was her first time on the national stage and she wasn’t prepared and she came off badly.
But I can post videos all day long of Obama coming off badly. So if you want to talk about issues you disagree with, fine. She was the governor of a State in the United States of America. Attack her record, fine. But you all look like childish idiots when you call her dumb.
Like Monotreme said, we can play the juvenile “find the YouTube gotcha video” game all day long if you want.
Just so we’re clear Grog, you are saying that Sarah Palin come off in her speech as intelligent and well-versed in the issues of the day?
Just wondering.
As to her record, what did she accomplish in her partial term of office as Governor of the State that receives the most federal aid? (And the only state that gives welfare to every adult resident) Aside from quitting halfway through and lobbying for the bridge to nowhere?
GROG,
My issue with Palin (and it appears to be shared by others here) is that she could not (at least in 1998) do an interview that wasn’t fully scripted. Simply. could. not. do. it. She had superficial talking points, but it was all papier mâché. It’s one thing to have opinions that differ from mine. It’s another thing entirely to have differing opinions without being able to articulate the reasoning behind them.
Are you really incapable of distinguishing the difference?
While we’re putting lies from the right to rest, I want to put the lie of the “bridge to nowhere” to rest as well. The bridge connects the Sitka airport, which sits on an island, to the city of Sitka, which sits on the mainland of the panhandle. Without the bridge, you have to take a ferry to get to the airport.
I can see why it shouldn’t have been paid for with federal funds, but the bridge wasn’t a boondoggle. It serves a legitimate purpose.
@drfunguy,
I never defended her record as governor. My point was to show how meaningless it is to show a video clip from her first ever interview on a national stage and use it to prove she’s unqualified.
If you think she’s unqualified debate her record and her beliefs.
@MW,
No. I’m not incapable of distinguishing the difference.
@mw
apparently there are several bridges to nowhere, even in Alaska:
Gravina Island Bridge (never built), a proposed road bridge over the Tongass Narrows to the town of Ketchikan, often cited as an example of politicians’ spending on projects that are intended primarily to benefit particular constituents, and a controversial topic of the 2008 U.S. presidential election campaigns from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Nowhere
the bridge you mention on sitka is not mentioned
nor is one I crossed near Cordova this fall that the residents were convinced was _the_ bridge to nowhere
@Grog
“If you think she’s unqualified debate her record and her beliefs.”
Thats what I was doing.
And I’ll repeat:
Just so we’re clear Grog, you are saying that Sarah Palin comes off in her speech as intelligent and well-versed in the issues of the day?
Just wondering.
Its not one video clip, it is every refudiation of the Americanese langugey-thingy
😉
@drfunguy,
Just so we’re clear Grog, you are saying that Sarah Palin comes off in her speech as intelligent and well-versed in the issues of the day?
No. I just said above that she came off badly.
@ Mr. Universe
I’m pretty sure there aren’t too many people who don’t know there are 50 states in the United States. You really want us to believe that President Obama actually thinks there are 57? The guy graduated from ivy league schools.
No, no, no. He was talking about the 57 Islamic states. Because he’s a secret Muslim that hates America.
MW said:
My issue with Palin (and it appears to be shared by others here) is that she could not (at least in 1998) do an interview that wasn’t fully scripted.
Did you mean 2008? Hey, everyone makes mistakes.
@drfunguy
Oops. Ketchikan, not Sitka. My mistake.
@GROG,
Yes I did. Course, it was probably true for 1998 as well, but I did mean 2008.
Busy week. Too many balls in the air.
fili,
re: But it is going to be the fate of serious Republicans all across the nation for the foreseeable future.
It may be the fate of teapers and teavangelicals all across the nation for the forseeable future. They truly don’t see Sarah as a problem, so will readily jump on her bandwagon. They are the “idiot fringe” you refer to and they have hijacked the Republican party, so they’re on board with Sarah.
But it will NOT be the fate of “serious” Republicans (definition: those most likely to be primaried by teapers in 2012 and Republicans like Colin Powell, David Frum, William Buckley Jr., etc. – still a fairly influential crowd in Republican circles ) and the independents who turned away from McCain/Palin in 2008, mainly because of Palin. It will be pretty uncomfortable for that “traditional” (or shall I say non-idiot) crowd and they will be working behind the scenes to make sure Sarah goes nowhere. There is no way those true independents, right-leaning Dems and traditional Republicans will support Palin in 2012. Because what they found most abhorrent in 2008 will be front-and-center abhorrent in 2012: This time Sarah would not be just a “heartbeat away” from the Presidency, but would instead be the potential Presidental candidate.
By the way Bart and GROG, could you put up Sarah Palin’s current favorability ratings?
Palin did virtually nothing as Governor; she basically just stayed out of the way. I’ve heard Alaskan Republican politicians say that she could have spent her (half) term in a coma and it wouldn’t have impacted anything in the State.
Even with months of coaching, she was not able to become “ready for prime-time” for the Presidential campaign. So it’s not just one bad interview.
Frankly, her appeal is based on her being very much like the average person.
When those on the Right try to portray her as a misunderstood intellectual, they are really undermining her. To Republicans, she is someone who strikes them as easy to get along with, and who believes the right things. Those two things are very important to Republican voters, especially when it comes to female candidates. Facts and knowledge are not very important. False facts and zombie lies can be created so easily – and Republicans know this – that facts are generally seen by Republicans as something akin to opinions.
This is one of the many pernicious things about FNC: they convey an impression that there is no such thing as facts. There are merely opinions that one chooses or rejects, and they become ‘facts’ by believing in them.
This is integral to the magical thinking and quasi-religion that has enveloped the current Republican Party. Palin’s “policy statements” are so broad and vague that they should be scrawled in crayon on a piece of brightly-coloured construction paper.
The important thing, however, is that she believes them, and that mystically imbues those “policies” with credibility and validity in the minds of Republicans. Any attempt to examine those “policies” for specifics, or any implication that the “policies” are extremely simplistic, merely marks someone as a non-believer – and thus, as hostile. Once you are marked as a non-believer, nothing you say matters any more.
Conversely, once you establish yourself as a believer, you can say pretty much anything without being called on it.
An example:
During the 2008 campaign, when McCain strongly implied that Spain was in South America and was our enemy, a wingnut I work with said that “maybe Spain is in South America. How do you know?”. Eventually he conceded that my geography was ‘probably’ correct, but the important thing is that Spain is our enemy, so it didn’t matter where it was. I pointed out that Spain was in NATO, had sent troops to Iraq, etc. He then said, “We fought a war against them. If that doesn’t make them our enemy, then I don’t know what does”. Facts were reduced to “matters of opinion”.
It was my fault for lacking faith, not McCain’s fault for being loose with facts.
You don’t see this with Democrats. Nobody here argued that there really are 57 states. Nobody re-defined the word “state” or “visited”. Nobody implied that there is something subjective about the statement where it could be considered true if one looked at it a certain way.
Jean wrote:
“It will be pretty uncomfortable for that “traditional” (or shall I say non-idiot) crowd and they will be working behind the scenes to make sure Sarah goes nowhere.”
I agree, but I have serious doubts about how much influence the Party organisation has anymore. This isn’t the same Party that locked out Ron Paul in 2008. What can the “non-idiots” really do at this point? They can’t make her look bad. She thrives on the victim mentality; the more she is criticised, the more her supporters defend her.
The only thing that can stop her is for her to lose, and lose big.
re: This is one of the many pernicious things about FNC: they convey an impression that there is no such thing as facts. There are merely opinions that one chooses or rejects, and they become ‘facts’ by believing in them.
The belief that “facts” are matters of “opinion” and merely subsets of ideologies is a common feature of revolutionary thinking and a symptom at how revolutionary the American right has become.
The subordination by the right of what “is” to what they believe “is” to be, is something that conservatives used to complain about when it was done by the old Soviet Union or by radicals in the 60s but is now part of the standard mindset of the far right today.
Todd Dugdale,
This is one of the many pernicious things about FNC: they convey an impression that there is no such thing as facts. There are merely opinions that one chooses or rejects, and they become ‘facts’ by believing in them.
The belief that “facts” are matters of “opinion” and merely subsets of ideologies is a common feature of revolutionary thinking and a symptom at how revolutionary the American right has become.
The subordination by the right of what “is” to what they believe “is” to be, is something that conservatives used to complain about when it was done by the old Soviet Union or by radicals in the 60s but is now part of the standard mindset of the far right today.
Is there any evidence that Couric wants to interview Palin again? Didn’t think so. The refusal is grandstanding.
Are there any voters who are still undecided about whether they would ever vote for Palin under any circumstances? Didn’t think so.
@Jean,
Do you also go by Ted Frier?
filistro says:
This is what GROG and Bart are defending… and proposing to support as leader of the free world. Watch it right to the end, Bart. I dare you.
:::chuckle:::
Palin would make an awful lawyer.
This is what you get when you put an honest conservative in the position of defending John McCain on the campaign trail. Palin and nearly every conservative thought TARP was an awful idea. Yet, as VP, Palin was tasked with defending what conservatives thought was indefensible. The McCain campaign admitted that they did not have the time to get Palin up to speed on their talking points, so it is no wonder that she did an awful job trying to justify something she would normally oppose and could not justify on her own.
Take the teleprompter away and then ask Obama to defend supply side tax cuts. I guarantee that you will get 25 uhs, 2-3 “well both sides have points” and an otherwise complete hash because he not only opposes supply side as “tax cuts for the rich,” he has no earthly idea what they theory actually states.
Stay classy, Palins.
http://www.movieline.com/2010/11/bristol-palin-loses-dancing-with-the-stars-national-order-restored.php
@drfunguy,
Sorry I missed this yesterday. As I said last night…busy week.
Anyway, even under the circumstances you outline, they should do the interviews. After all, let’s look at the possible outcomes:
1) You’re a Democrat who goes on Fox for an interview. This is going to be a case where the interviewer is likely to be openly hostile, as will the viewing audience. Are you likely to change any minds that way? No. But the meta-reporting will show that you had the courage to appear on the obviously conservative network, and handled yourself with dignity (assuming you can).
2) You’re a Democrat who refuses to go on Fox for an interview. Now the meta-reporting will show that you are only willing to appear in “safe” venues, which implies that you have something you’re trying to hide.
It’s annoying to have to deal with Fox if you’re not “one of them,” but it provides valuable information to everyone when you do.
So much for the idea that Fox News is a conservative monolith of support for Sarah Palin. Fox News contributors Judith Miller (formerly of the NYT) and Liz Trotta took turns ridiculing Palin’s Alaska series on the Fox set when the network was on commercial:
I believe that Palin’s Alaska series/campaign commercial drew about 5 million viewers of the first show, which is probably about 4.5 million more than the daytime Fox News show from which the leaked segment was taken.
I seem to notice most of these leaked segments feature upper middle class or wealthy women making catty attacks on Sarah Palin.
Fili, what is it about Palin that drives your class of women nuts in a high school clique sort of way? Married with kids? Doesn’t come from the right side of the tracks or the right schools? Her accent? The fact that she is prettier than you and your friends?
Do you understand that a substantial portion of Palin’s popularity in middle America is that she is like them and these catty attacks only reinforce that empathy and thus her popularity?
@Bart.. Fili, what is it about Palin that drives your class of women nuts in a high school clique sort of way? Married with kids? Doesn’t come from the right side of the tracks or the right schools? Her accent? The fact that she is prettier than you and your friends?
I don’t know if this question is tongue-in-cheek or not… but I’ll proceed on the off-chance that it’s serious. By “my class of women” I presume you mean well-educated professional women?
What infuriates “my class of women” about Sarah Palin is that she’s just another of those bimbos we’ve watched all our lives who skate by on looks, winks and sexual innuendo when other women are busy acquiring actual skills and qualifications for jobs. Except that she aspires to the most powerful position on earth, based on the flimsiest of resumes. She makes the rest of us look bad. She reinforces the stereotype of the “casting couch” and all the women who get to a position of power by trading on their sexuality instead of using their brains. How can women be taken seriously in a world where Sarah Palin is busy trivializing and negating the seriousness of women everywhere?
Republican men like you want women back in their “place” (which you think is the kitchen, not the boardroom) and Sarah Palin helps you accomplish that goal by letting you openly reduce women to the level they clearly occupy in your mind… people who would actually evaluate another women based on her “prettiness.”
Are you REALLY that juvenile, Bart? Please, tell me you’re just kidding.
Stay classy, Bart. What utter crap. Palin’s popularity, pure and simple, is that she’s not “one of them” (although it is beyond obvious that she really wants to be). She’s seen, wrongly in my opinion, as socially conservative. She’s seen, again wrongly, in my opinion, as fiscally conservative. These are the current cachet which ensures popularity. Unfortunately, political life is not a popularity contest except for the first few encounters. After people get to know you, they expect results — and that’s one of the things, alongside a coherent demonstration that she understands politics, literature (whether non-fiction or fiction), science, or finance, that she’s incapable of delivering.
Fili:
What infuriates “my class of women” about Sarah Palin is that she’s just another of those bimbos we’ve watched all our lives who skate by on looks, winks and sexual innuendo when other women are busy acquiring actual skills and qualifications for jobs. Except that she aspires to the most powerful position on earth, based on the flimsiest of resumes. She makes the rest of us look bad. She reinforces the stereotype of the “casting couch” and all the women who get to a position of power by trading on their sexuality instead of using their brains. How can women be taken seriously in a world where Sarah Palin is busy trivializing and negating the seriousness of women everywhere?
VERY revealing. Thank you for being so honest.
Has it ever occurred to you that you and your class of women are engaged in the worst type of gender stereotyping by pigeon-holing Palin as a bimbo because of her looks?
Do you have any actual evidence that Palin is among “the women who get to a position of power by trading on their sexuality instead of using their brains?”
One does not win election to mayor than governor on looks alone or the country would be run by beautiful women.
One cannot negotiate successfully with Big Oil based on looks alone.
One cannot run a city and then a state on looks alone.
“[T]he flimsiest of resumes?” It is an interesting double standard you have for women like Palin. Obama had less executive experience (none) than Palin and yet you did not accuse Obama of getting by on looks or gift of gab alone.
Time to take a long a serious self examination in the mirror, my dear. What you are posting is the worst kind of bigoted class-based sexism. It is ugly to say the least.
fili said:
By “my class of women” I presume you mean well-educated professional women?
Now we’re getting somewhere! We’re getting some insight into the elitist mindset of the left.
If you’re not a well educated and professional woman, you’re not the far left’s “class of woman”.
Palin resonates with woman who may not be “well educated” or “professional”. With the waitress who “only” has a high school diploma, or the stay at home mom who gave up her professional career to raise her children, or the factory worker, or the construction worker who takes the first week of hunting season off every year.
These are not far left’s “class of women”, but they relate very well to Palin. Thanks for the illustration fili.
@Bart
Has it ever occurred to you that you and your class of women are engaged in the worst type of gender stereotyping by pigeon-holing Palin as a bimbo because of her looks?
Seriously? You imagine people think Palin is playing the bimbo because of the way she looks? Honestly, Bart, you’re a lot more interesting when you aren’t pretending to be stupid.
No, Palin clearly plays the bimbo. (Personally, I don’t find her attractive at all, but that’s another thing …) The winking and cutesy mindless you-betcha act. If she has a mind, she’s careful to hide it.
Do you have any actual evidence that Palin is among “the women who get to a position of power by trading on their sexuality instead of using their brains?”
Other than the fact that she plays up her attractiveness and gives the impression of being brainless? You mean other than that?
One does not win election to mayor than governor on looks alone or the country would be run by beautiful women.
Only if Republican men were the only ones who voted.
One cannot negotiate successfully with Big Oil based on looks alone.
Have you evidence Palin did this?
One cannot run a city and then a state on looks alone.
“Run a state?” You’re kidding, right?
“[T]he flimsiest of resumes?” It is an interesting double standard you have for women like Palin. Obama had less executive experience (none) than Palin and yet you did not accuse Obama of getting by on looks or gift of gab alone.
For me, it’s not a matter of experience or resume. (And by the way, I notice the Republicans stopped carping on Obama’s “experience” the moment they nominated a totally unqualified Palin, showing this Republican meme to be just another empty and cynical rhetorical tactic.) Palin has made it clear she has no interest in facts. Whether she is capable of learning or not, she has no interest in it, and has exhibited contempt for people who do. That’s the factor that bothers me.
Time to take a long a serious self examination in the mirror, my dear.
Good advice for you. Seriously, you think Palin is not intentionally playing to your gonads instead of your brain? Or are you pretending to be stupid?
What you are posting is the worst kind of bigoted class-based sexism. It is ugly to say the least.
HA HA HA HA HA!! You kill me 🙂
GROG:
If you’re not a well educated and professional woman, you’re not the far left’s “class of woman”.
Tell me, would you prefer that the person in the most powerful office on Planet Earth be something other than a well-educated professional? Is that what you’re saying?
Or are you merely objecting to Filistro’s depiction of herself as well-educated and professional? Are you perhaps calling her a liar?
Or are you intentionally misinterpreting and misrepresenting what Filistro said? Are you, in other words, being purposely obtuse and dishonest?
@GROG… If you’re not a well educated and professional woman, you’re not the far left’s “class of woman”.
No, GROG, wrong again. Bart, in speaking to me, referred to “your class of women.” Since Bart knows nothing about my pedigree, social status or family background, I assumed he was referring to what he DOES know about me… that I am a professional writer and obviously an educated person. It was all about ME specifically… not some generic “far-left woman.”
And Bart… One cannot run a city and then a state on looks alone.
Yes, that’s so true. She got there on her looks and found the job was too much for her… so SHE QUIT. Just as anybody does when they use their looks to parley themselves into something they are not qualified to handle. (You do remember the QUITTING part? 😉
But seriously, you both puzzle me. You’re so confusing. It appears Bart and GROG want the leader of the free world to be a “waitress, or a construction worker, or somebody who goes duck hunting.” Just an ordinary Joe… or more accurately Josephine.
In that case, why did the right raise such a stink when Dubya nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? You all howled that she was “unqualified” and raised a movement from within the Republican party that forced Bush to ditch the nomination.
So what’s the deal with you guys? Miers wasn’t qualified, but somehow Palin passes that test? Is there a higher bar for SCOTUS than the presidency? Or…. could it be that Miers was just not “pretty” enough?
Let us not let pass without comment the statement that Palin “ran a city”. Wasilla, Alaska. Now a bustling metropolis, with a population of 5,469 (2000 census), which, when Sarah Palin was elected and immediately got the city in trouble, removed much of the decision-making from the mayor’s office.
So “ran a city” is a bit of a “construction upon the facts” (that’s a nice way of saying it was a complete and utter lie).
To: Filistro
Re. Grog: “We’re getting some insight into the elitist mindset of the left.”
Filistro,
Congratulations on your promotion to spokesperson for the entire elitist mindset of the left! You win an all expense paid trip for two to Wassilla. There you will learn to wink and drawl mav’rick with a smirk and shoot wolves from helicopter.
@Grog,
Now we’re getting somewhere, insight into the ignorant little minds of the ordinary right. You do speak for all of them, no?
filistro,
You can speak for me. All I require for representation is an intelligent, articulate, reasonably-well-educated and thoughtful person. I’d also prefer honest, all other conditions being met, but people who are thoughtful and well-educated tend to be honest, so…
That lets Palin out on all four counts but you, filistro, are definitely qualified.
@doc.. Congratulations on your promotion to spokesperson for the entire elitist mindset of the left! You win an all expense paid trip for two to Wassilla. There you will learn to wink and drawl mav’rick with a smirk and shoot wolves from helicopter.
LOL… I would never shoot something as lovely as a wolf. But I did, at one time in my life, shoot 72 gophers (not all at once, it took a while ) and skinned them, then smoked, tanned and stretched their little hides using instructions from an Outdoor Life magazine, and painstakingly sewed them together to make myself a cool vest that was the envy of all the kids at school.
Which proves, GROG, that I’m pretty damn high-class 😉
I don’t know Sarah Palin. I am very familiar with her public persona.
Therefore, Occam’s Razor says there are two likely possibilities.
1. She’s a talentless bimbo who acts like a talentless bimbo.
2. She’s a talented smart woman who acts like a talentless bimbo.
Bart and GROG, let me know which you pick, then we’ll talk.
shortchain… this is just so delicious, isn’t it? The more they are forced to defend this ridiculous women, the smaller they get. Every single day, she DIMINISHES them.
By the time we’ve had another year of this nonsense, the Republicans will be a party of Lilliputians. We’ll have to examine them through magnifying glasses… (and be careful to avoid doing it in sunlight, making them sizzle and pop unpleasantly… 🙂
filistro,
Gophers? Hey, when I was a kid on the farm, my grandparents paid us a bounty of 5 cents for every gopher tail we brought in — until they discovered what we had already figure out, that the flickertail gophers out there have a tail that detaches and will grow back (eventually) and we were preserving our breeding stock by snaring them, de-tailing the little critters, and releasing them, wiser but tail-less.
Now that I live in Minnesota I have to be careful of admitting to a history of gopher mistreatment, though.
Now that I live in Minnesota I have to be careful of admitting to a history of gopher mistreatment, though.
Are Minnesotans fond of gophers? I didn’t think there was anything good to say about gophers. Prairie dogs are almost human, but gophers are just vermin. We hated them because they dug holes that tripped our horses, causing nasty spills and occasional broken legs. My brothers and I spent long creative hours thinking up efficient ways to kill gophers, but they always seemed to work better on paper than in actual fact.
I think any kid who grew up on the prairie probably has unsavory tales to tell about rodent abuse.
Monotreme,
It’s not merely that Palin acts now like a brainless bimbo — it’s that she has a history of acting like she’s got smoked salmon where most people have brains. So the choice is whether
1) she’s lived her whole life acting like a dim bimbo getting by on her looks and luck or
2) she’s a dim bimbo who has gotten by on her looks and luck.
Occam’s razor gives us an obvious choice…
filistro,
Minnesota is the gopher state. I have to imagine that they didn’t have many choices left, after Michigan got the wolverine, wisconsin got the badger, and so on. You left out cannibalistic in the description of the gopher. All in all, a fine choice, but hey, I wasn’t around. I was in South Dakota (coyote). Personally, if it came down to a choice of gopher or rat, I’d pick gopher, but with a qualm.
@filistro
So what’s the deal with you guys? Miers wasn’t qualified, but somehow Palin passes that test?
Meyers isn’t pretty. They think Palin is (I don’t see it, but then I’m not a rightwing Republican). You’ve hit the nail on the head. Palin appeals to their hormones. They found Meyers not at all appealing.
It’s pretty clear when the right likes Palin.
The thing about Minnesota (gophers notwithstanding) is that it produces so many first-class political minds. Many of the smartest commenters at this blog are from MN. I don’t know why this is… something in the water down there?… but I find it interesting.
And speaking of Palin, I’m often bemused by the description of her “accent” as Minnesotan or Dakotan. I don’t hear it… in fact I don’t think she has an accent at all, more an odd, jerky, disjointed manner of speaking. It sounds dyslexic to me, as if she is unable to “see” the structure and rhythm of sentences within her own speech. As a one-time professional educator (oops, I did it again.. sorry GROG 😉 I would be very surprised if she is able to read with comprehension or write anything more cogent than a 140-character tweet. She seems severely dyslexic and shows many of the attributes… including compensatory mechanisms.
shrinkers… I wonder if Bart and Grog will ever tell us exactly why Miers was unqualified for SCOTUS but Palin is qualified for POTUS.
I suspect we will just have to add this to the long, long list of Questions Bart Chooses To Avoid.
filistro,
She sometimes affects an accent that sounds like something out of the movie “Fargo” — which you won’t hear many people speaking even outstate in Minnesota. This was explained by the story that Wasilla was settled by ex-patriots from Minnesota who moved to Alaska (to get the government handouts, I guess). Personally, I’ve always found that a person who moves picks up the local patois in a few years, which indicates that she’s faking it. And it sounds fake to me. I think she picked it up from Fargo (the movie, not the locale — which is in ND, BTW).
But pretending an accent is an old and honorable tradition in politics. I don’t fault her for her accent. It’s rather that what she says makes no sense.
@shortchain,
Exactly. I should’ve used the perfect tense, because her bimbohood existed in the past and continues to exist to this day.
@to whom it may concern,
I find Sarah Palin physically attractive, in the same way I find a Victoria’s Secret model physically attractive. Not someone I would consider as a partner for more than, oh, five seconds, but my middle-aged male mind can construct a few choice fantasies in that brief period.
Give me Sarah Palin over Jillian Michaels any day.
Of course, I have a longstanding fanboy crush on the Secretary of State, which (I hope) originates from a different part of my brain. Smart women are just so, je ne sais quoi.
And…
It’s just not Thanksgiving without this tender, heartwarming moment.
Enjoy, my dear friends 🙂
Sarah zings the media and Obama in a double standard and gaffe twofer.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=463364218434
You go girl!
Bart,
I doubt that even you are credulous enough to believe Sarah Palin wrote that herself. I’m just savoring the delicious irony of a personal facebook page being used to disseminate what other people write and pretending that it’s her own.
It’s interesting that this latest gaffe is a bridge too far even for some of the Freepers. For the very frist time I’m seeing criticism of Sarah over there this morning. The Tea Party site manager (who fanatically supports her) will soon put an end to it.. but for now it’s quite telling. There are a handful of posts along this line:
To: (redacted)
I am a huge Sarah fan. Having said that I cringed when she had this brain freeze on Beck and it is an indication that she has work to do. I do not know who is advising her but my advise would be, slow down, fully engage brain then engage mouth. Speed of response in not an indicator of thoughtfulness. Its pretty clear she hasn’t thought about the Korean issue and her answer was incoherent.
If she learns to overcome her urge to to respond, then think, she will kick their butts all the way to the white house. if not, she will be easily marginalized.
26 posted on November 25, 2010 10:04:52 PM by (redacted)
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To: (redacted)
The slip of the tongue is meaningless.
The real issue is (or should be) that her response to a very specific question on an issue of global importance was sophomoric smoke and lacking any substance that would indicate a grasp of the long on-going situation.
“Stand by our allies” just doesn’t cut it…not from somebody who says she could beat the incumbant.
29 posted on November 25, 2010 10:06:52 PM by (redacted)
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And her Facebook rant on this topic (the one that gave our wee Bartie such a thrill) actually did not go over well with a few of the more serious Freepers. As one of them just commented a few minutes ago … I wish Sarah would stop doing this stuff all the time. We’ll never win by constantly saying “the other guys are just as bad as us.” We have to be BETTER than them.
But it’s too late to stop this juggernaut. The wingers built Sarah Palin and set her in motion, and all their nervous handwringing and buyer’s remorse is not going to save them now. They are probably doomed to field this silly, ignorant, narcissistic reality-TV star as their presidential candidate.
Good times 🙂
Sarah Palin sent me a link to her Facebook post via her Twitter account. Since that’s her preferred mode of discourse, I sent her the following:
@SarahPalinUSA It’s not the gaffes. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s the willfully ignorant and hateful things you say on purpose.
I breathlessly await her response. Since she listens to the people and all that.
Another comment from a 12-year Freeper…
To: (redacted)
… we must still defend Sarah Palin…
Why “must” we defend her? She’s a big girl who claims she can beat the incumbent president. If she wants to take on the biggest job in the world, she need to prove to us that she’s capable and up for it. It’s up to her to defend herself by acquiring the knowledge and — dare I say it — gravitas for the job.
I won’t defend her just because she’s a conservative. In fact, just the opposite. I expect more of her; not only her, but any candidate on my side of the political aisle. I want to be proud of them, not run around defending indefensible drivel about a critical foreign policy matter.
It doesn’t matter what Obama, Biden, the MSM or anyone else did or said or flubbed up. What matters is that our candidates be far better than the opposition.
152 posted on November 26, 2010 1:37:14 AM by (redacted)
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Something definitely going on here. There have been brief anti-Palin outbursts at Freeperville in the past, but never this overt. And the guy who posted this is one of the founding Freepers, a staunch conservative and a powerful voice at the website.
Hmmmm….
But I’m still afraid it’s too late for them. They started this prairie fire, and I think it’s going to consume all of them no matter who tries to urge caution at this point. I’m going to be anxiously awaiting mclever’s on-the-ground reports from Iowa in coming months.
From Nate Silver’s Twitter feed:
@fivethirtyeight
Things like Palin’s Facebook post yesterday make me think her political instincts are overrated.