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Thursday, October 02, 2008

The gotcha sound bite



Things I have learned from Sarah Palin's latest interview with Katie Couric:

She is a feminist who believes in equal pay for equal work. It really is too bad that laws to ensure equal pay for equal work would only benefit lawyers.

It would be sexist if the media didn't question her about her qualifications. That's why she gets upset whenever they ask. It's reverse sexism, you see. She reads every newspaper and magazine she can, but she can't remember any of their names. What, you think there's no media in Alaska? You are so bigoted!

She talks to every American she can. Unfortunately, those conversations are "gotcha" journalism when she misspeaks. It's gotta be the media's fault somehow.

She and John McCain disagree about drilling in ANWR. I am happy to hear this: it's a sign that they have both thought about the issue. It happens that I agree with Mr. McCain.

President Clinton was a governor of a small state and had no experience, either. Either? A slip, of course. Also, I feel that I must point out that Arkansas has 2.8 million residents. It might also be relevant that Mr. Clinton had been governor for a total of 12 years and had been Attorney General for two years before that. I'm no fan of the Clintons, but this is a ridiculous comparison.

It does not matter what's causing climate change, and she's not sure how much of it is man-made. What's important is that we have to deal with it. I am not sure how we could deal with it without knowing what's causing it, but that is clearly because I'm not a maverick.

She is pro-life but respects other people's opinions. She will speak only about the choices she personally would make: for example, she would not use the morning-after pill. I am not sure how this relates to public policy; it appears to be all about her own personal preferences, which are really irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. She does not think people should go to jail for having abortions. It sounds to me like she's saying abortion should be legal, which is not what the "base" is saying she believes. This is confusing me, but a dear friend of mine has tried to explain it. This is apparently a pro-life thing to say. I trust my friend, so I'm sure this is the case. Ms. Palin is clearly fighting against all of the people who want there to be MORE abortions. The Institute for Abortion Increases, perhaps. Those liberal elites. It's tough to be a maverick.

Science should be taught in science class. Local people should decide what's in the curriculum.

People choose to be gay (yet again with the "choice" talk), but she's not sure if praying will make them change their minds. She's not going to judge them, though. I'm not clear on whether she thinks they should have rights.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

McCain's campaign is imploding, thank God. He just pulled out of my state because, ahem, he doesn't have enough money to continue in the face of certain defeat (yeah, I guess all the unemployed auto workers aren't feeling his empathy). Palin is a sideshow--she showed herself to be mean and spiteful, just like McCain. Oh and yes, it's all the media's fault and she's not going to talk through their "filter" anymore. Altho she does "believe" in the first amendment. God, these Republicans are so stupid I can't take it anymore. I did try watching the Can. debate on the CBC--what a snoozer. I was in a chatroom with my Can friends, and they were all watching the American debate. Hmmm.

Megan said...

Well, she did prove that she can memorise two-minute speeches and deliver them. Too bad she forgot to match the speeches with the right questions.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Elisabeth Hasselbeck was right and Palin didn't want to endorse ANY magazines or newspapers so she didn't name any.

(insert sarcastic, liberally-biased smirk here)

Megan said...

Ezra Klein had an interesting take:

(Y)ou have to appreciate the bind the McCain campaign has put Palin in. By launching an overwhelming attack against "media elite," they effectively walled off leading publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post. Palin couldn't name them, because to legitimize them would undercut the campaign's rhetoric from recent weeks. At the same time, the fear is that she's really just a parochial, small town mayor and small state governor who's unready for the national stage. She can't name the Anchorage Daily Post or whatever and risk someone reporting that her primary information source doesn't even have a foreign bureau. And meanwhile, she's not actually so fluent in the ideas and information infrastructure that she'd think to name a safe elite choice like "The Economist" or wrest some generational cred by pointing towards a news aggregator.