Defending Sarah Palin (really!)
November 7, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Can you name all the countries in North America? I’m the sort of geek who always chooses geography questions in Trivial Pursuit, but I’m not sure I could do it off the top of my head. Let’s see:
- Canada
- United States
- Mexico
- El Salvador
- Honduras
- Belize
- Nicaragua
- Costa Rica
- Panama
How did I do? (Whoops — I just looked at a map, and I missed Guatemala.)
Since Carl Cameron reported on Sarah Palin’s ignorance, the media have been having a field day with this. Trouble is, we don’t know whether she committed the equivalent of missing Guatemala or if she told Steve Schmidt that Antarctica is the capital of Siberia.
I’m more interested to know who’s leaking this stuff, and why.
“I’m more interested to know who’s leaking this stuff, and why.”
Exactly. Well said, Sir.
It’s not hard to figure out who’s leaking this stuff- follow the money. The professional campaign managers have a vested interest in making Palin look bad; otherwise, they get the blame for a lousy campaign, and will never work again. Their only chance to continue their careers as political hired guns is to make everyone believe they could have won the election with a different runningmate.
**we don’t know whether she committed the equivalent of missing Guatemala or if she told Steve Schmidt that Antarctica is the capital of Siberia.**
We don’t know if it happened at all.
As Joel said, everyone is looking to cover their rears.
Plus, the $40k spent on silk boxers for Todd is a better story – all about ethics, not passing pop quizzes.
Then again, McCain’s campaign managers may have faced an impossible task in preparing Palin for public scrutiny, and they may harbor resentment toward McCain for choosing her.
But we don’t know.
I would bet, though, that there are many sensible Republicans who are none too pleased with Kristol et al for foisting such an ignoramus on the party and the country.
I think Palin snookered a lot of people, especially male ones and including McCain.
You apparently picked a harder geography question than you realize. I always thought NA was just Canada US and Mexico, and that everything south of Mexico was “Central America”. Wrong! I also thought perhaps Nunavet was sovereign, but that’s also incorrect.
Wikipedia includes not only Central America but also the island nations of the Caribbean, as well as Greenland. So maybe you missed more than Guatemala. I guess it depends on who’s keeping score.
“Can you name all the countries in North America?”
Governor Sarah Palin should have been able to get away with answering – Canada and the United States.
All those other countries, including Mexico, are from *Central America* aka MesoAmerica. Central Americans don’t call the U.S.A. and Canada as “El Norte” for nothing. . . I really don’t know who decided that they are now part of North America but, if my memory serves me well, they were not considered to be part of North America when I went to school. I expect this recent revisioning* of North America has a lot to do with NAFTA aka the North American Free Trade Agreement.
I agree however that some of these allegations about what a dim bulb Sarah Palin is might be appropriately described as unsubstantiated rumours. I much prefer substantiated facts about her performance myself. ;-) Of course, in light of her Katie Couric interviews and her recorded six minute conversation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy*, these rumours sound all too believable. . .
* as it were
**Plus, the $40k spent on silk boxers for Todd is a better story – all about ethics.**
The clothes are all getting donated to charity.
She doesn’t own any of them.
(Nor does Todd.)
I would put them on Ebay for a charity auction…I’ll bet they’d raise a lot of money.)
Yeah, I heard that Palin has a lot of experience selling things on e-bay for profit!
;)
I thought that the point raised about Palin was her lack of knowledge about what countries are part of NAFTA, not North America.
If so, then the correct answer is three countries, not the long list provided.
Regardless of ones feelings toward Governor Palin, the fact that she is still big news in the midst of a historic Democrat victory confirms that she is an established force on the national scene.
With “gay marriage” soundly defeated in every state where voters have been allowed a say, and Obama running as a conservative for the past several months (tax cuts, death penalty, traditional marriage, off-shore drilling, nuclear power, right to life for surviving babies in botched abortions, etc.) clearly conservatism is alive and well. As Ann Coulter wrote this week, moderate, maverick Republicans never win and right wing Republicans never lose. Freed from the constraints of McCain’s people, Palin could well be the next President to break a major barrier.
Surely there wouldn’t be such an effort to inflict catastrophic damage on Palin from Hollywood, to the media, to moderate GOP’ers if she wasn’t a legitimate threat. Here’s hoping she takes Ted Stevens’ Senate seat and gets the requisite 180 days under her belt in order to truly qualify for the Presidency.
I agree with fish, and I believe that Palin was poorly served by the McCain campaign. If she is, indeed, a valuable conservative Republican commodity, they should have protected her from herself; she clearly wasn’t ready to be tossed onto the national stage under such close scrutiny. If conservatives are serious about her future, they should run her for Stevens’ seat and spend the next four years–if she’ll go along–educating her on national and international issues. Now she knows what to expect.
bill h.,
Palin herself could have declined McCain’s offer to be VP on his ticket because she wasn’t ready.
. . . and if Guatemala were to disappear, what would we lose? Hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens?
I wonder if it is true at all or if McCain’s team is just making this up because they blame him choosing her for the loss. Then again, these are probably the same people who suggested that he NOT pick Joe Lieberman, the guy he wanted. And what about the “walking around in a towel thing …” like it is really, REALLY that unusual … If you are getting out of the shower and the campaign staffers are in your room, what the heck are you supposed to do? If Mitt Romney did this in his hotel room while talking to staffers, no one would say boo about it. They would think they were in the locker room or something. Were they uncomfortable because she was attractive in a towel? If she didn’t care, why should they? This entire thing seems ridiculous.
O-fish-l wrote: “Regardless of ones feelings toward Governor Palin, the fact that she is still big news in the midst of a historic Democrat victory confirms that she is an established force on the national scene.”
She’s an established force in much the same way Anne Coulter or Al Sharpton or Amy Winehouse or Lindsay Loahn are, which is to say people are curious about what wacky thing she’ll say or do next.
In terms of long-term political viability, she’s about where William Miller was the last time a Republican from Arizona decided to pick a vice presidential nominee from obscurity. Anyone else remember his American Express commercial?
Bob in Peabody
fish, don’t inflate what’s not there. She’s no bigger news than anyone else is when presidential elections come to a close. Pundits abhor a vacuum. She’s just fodder for the current news hole, nothing else.
Come Christmas, no one will remember her name.
“Regardless of ones feelings toward Governor Palin, the fact that she is still big news in the midst of a historic Democrat victory confirms that she is an established force on the national scene.”
Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that she is an established farce on the national scene. . . ;-)
(Off topic) Hey Mike – why the new Riley Freeman-esque icon? Are you getting edgier because you’re tired of Dot Lane flipping everyone off?
Michael: That’s what I thought until I went back and watched the Carl Cameron clip again. He says both — that she couldn’t identify the countries in NAFTA, and that she couldn’t identify the countries in North America.
According to Wikipedia, there is no universal definition of "North America", but geophysically the southern terminus is the "Isthmus of Tehuantepec", which is the narrowest point between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean…it's relatively close to the southern border of Mexico with Guatemala & Belize. Countries south of there, and also countries in the Carribean, are considered "Central America". Hell, the UN even considers Mexico part of Central America. So I sure wouldn't begrudge Palin for not naming any of the "banana republics" (so to speak).
However, what gets most people on the "What countries are in North America?" is Greenland. Most people, for whatever reason, just forget that Greenland is right next to Canada.
Of course, most folks also forget St.Pierre & Miquelon – the island territories just south of Newfoundland, which oddly enough are sort-of part of the EU. And folks forget Bermuda…which is about 1000 miles out into the Atlantic, so I'd accept an argument that it's not really part of any continent.
However, it's pretty unforgivable for Palin not to know what countries are in NAFTA. It's three lousy countries Sarah! USA, Canada and Mexico. Pretty darn easy even for a lipsticked hockey mom. Considering that she can "see" two of the three countries from her back door, you'd think she'd know them. :-)
I'm willing to forgive a Presidential/VP candidate for not knowing how much a gallon of milk is…how often do those people actually do their own shopping?!?! But this is a high-level diplomatic trade deal; I expect my elected officials to know the details of those.
Aaron: This can get really hairy. I’d say “Canada, the U.S. and Mexico” is an acceptable answer to the question “What countries comprise North America?” But it’s not an acceptable answer to “What countries comprise the continent of North America?,” because there’s no way that Central America can be construed as a continent.
Dear GOP:
Once you fellas get done explaining to the good Governor of Alaska where Africa is, perhaps you could explain to her the difference between a “republic” — which the US is — and a democracy — which the US isn’t.
At least not the lower 48.
Your friend,
mike_b1
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081107/ap_on_el_pr/palin_clothing
Mikeb_1 said: “fish, don’t inflate what’s not there. She’s no bigger news than anyone else is when presidential elections come to a close.”
—
That’s debatable Mike. I recall the damning Newsweek post-election expose on the internal Kerry PRESIDENTAL (my emphasis) campaign in 2004, but little if anything on losing VP candidates like Edwards, Lieberman, Kemp, Quayle, Bentsen, Ferraro etc. The focus on Palin during and after the election is different than what I remember. I’ve barely heard a mention of McCain, the actual Presidential candidate, since Tuesday other than what Democrats hope he will do to help Obama in the Senate.
Steve (off topic): Nah, Dot Lane’s middle finger doesn’t bother me, especially since it’s not aimed my direction.
Now that my man Obama is in, I’m going to show my true color(s) and go all Rev. Wright on the rightwing nutjobs. Gotta get ready for the Apocalypse!
I’m imagining that Palin didn’t realize that Mexico was part of NAFTA, and that when someone pointed out her error she compounded it by indicating that she hadn’t realized Mexico was part of North America. Just my imagination, no seance or ouija board.
Mikeb_1: We’ll explain to Palin that the USA is a republic while you explain to Obama that there are only 50 states, not 57 with two to go.
If you missed that priceless audio, you’re not alone.
Hmmm…you don’t recall all the grousing over how Lieberman wasn’t truly committed to the Gore ticket because he ran for his Senate seat in addition to running as VP? Or how Quayle was going to kill the Bush ticket in ’88 because he was too inexperienced? (That was happening during the race, btw, much like your Palin friend.)
You may not want to face facts, but choosing Palin was a huge mistake, second only to choosing McCain.
And I wouldn’t expect him to do much in the Senate. He never did anything in his first 27 years, so why should we expect him to now? Every once in a while he’ll throw a hissy fit at some defense contractor, pick up his check and go home. And sooner or later, he’ll die.
o-fish: It’s one thing to be brilliant and misspeak. It’s another to be ignorant and never know.
P.S. My three-year-old just saw McCain on TV and asked if he is a good ghost, like Casper, or a scary ghost, like on Scooby Doo.
I said he’s more like Casper, but he does occasionally scooby doo in his pants.
Forget about the towel incident and the cloths. McCain should be asked–point blank–could she or could she not, answer basic questions about government like what the VP does, for example?
If the answer is no she can’t, then McCain should be asked why voters should not have considered him brutally cynical in nominating Palin.
$$$ Nicole Wallace’s appearance on “Today” was an embarrassment. One lie after another. She must have got the word from somebody to clam up and praise Palin.
This isn’t so much off-topic as off-the-wall, but I was wondering if there is mileage to be gotten out of the idea that just as Tina Fey’s Palin is a faux-Palin, the real Palin is kind of a faux-something — kind of like a character one might encounter in the original Star Trek series.
Dan:
I heard the same thing from the Cameron report, but I understood his language to mean a referral to NAFTA, not North America. CNN is also, for example, reporting on this as a reference to the countries in NAFTA.
Anyway, you can throw this one issue into the trash heap and still have plenty of leftover trashing of Palin from those anonymous sources. I bet it keeps coming and coming for weeks — if not a year or two when books about the campaign start to appear.
Don, American, one of the first US troops killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom was a man named José Antonio Gutierrez. He was an illegal immigrant from Guatemala.
So please don’t tell me that illegal Guatemalan immigrants have nothing to contribute to the United States, because at least one of them contributed everything.
Whatever your beliefs about the invasion of Iraq, I think it’s wrong to casually disregard the sacrifices of fallen US servicemen like you just did.
Michael: Not to keep beating a dead campaign, but Jon Stewart and Margery Eagan are just two commentators who picked up on the “she doesn’t know what countries are in North America” report. Cameron said it, others noticed — what can I say?
“Are you getting edgier because you’re tired of Dot Lane flipping everyone off?”
Fine Steve. In the spirit of bipartisanship, I offer a kinder, gentler, Dot Lane.
Let’s consider the 2006 election of Bob Casey, a conservative Pennsylvania Democrat who decisively beat incumbent senator and arch-conservative Rick Santorum. Both men oppose abortion rights, but Casey’s record on economic issues, taxes and regulation is solidly Democratic.
I’m sure that the left in the Democratic party complained bitterly when Schumer et al helped finance Casey’s 2006 campaign, but by backing Casey, the Democratic party reaped big rewards in the 2008 presidential election. Casey stumped for Obama in conservative western and central Pennsylvania and helped Obama win a majority of the Catholic vote.
The bottom line is that Democrats’ pragmatic, if controversial choice to invest in Casey’s campaign yielded real dividends in a swing state that Obama needed to win and robbed the Republican nominee of a significant political ally.
The GOP should remember Rick Santorum as it seeks to ‘purify’ its brand.
Doug, I enjoyed your post but based on your first three paragraphs couldn’t your conclusion just as accurately have been “The Democrat party should remember Bob Casey as it seeks to “purify” its brand”?
If it’s controversial to Democrats to invest in a proven winner like Casey merely because he is pro-life, then I think that’s saying as much if not more about the Dems than it is about the GOP.
In mentioning abortion, economic issues, taxes and regulation in your analysis, you leave out Santorum’s support for and Casey’s opposition to the war, which was going badly at the time and the drag on Santorum caused by President Bush’s sub 40% approval rating in PA in 2006.
—
Mikeb_1, I will let your invective speak for itself. You impeach your own integrity in ways that I couldn’t dream of. At least Obama quickly apologizes after taking a gratuitous swipe at a great American.
O-Fish: Just what is the Republican brand, anyway? Dick Armey wrote today that “In 1992, Republican backbenchers including Newt Gingrich, myself, Bob Walker and John Boehner rose up to challenge the Clinton administration’s agenda on taxes, spending and government-run health care.”
I seem to recall the deficit and the size of the government shrinking under Clinton, while Republican leadership passed a huge expansion of government-backed health care (into prescription coverage) while deliberately suppressing the actual costs from the American people.
Just what, exactly, would your Republican brand stand for?
Before you respond, I’d suggest you review the links behind this blog post.
I don’t see that the Democratic party is purifying its brand. If anything, it’s becoming more pragmatic, more tolerant, if not embracing, of candidates who don’t follow liberal orthodoxy.
Democratic party support for Casey’s candidacy is even more remarkable given the party’s refusal to permit his father, a late governor of Pennsylvania, to speak at its 1992 convention because of an opposition to abortion rights that he shared with his son.
Witness also the 2006 election of Webb in VA, who beat the conservative GOP favorite, Allen. Webb no doubt helped put his state in the blue this year for the first time in decades.
My belief is that after the 2004 presidential election, Democratic party leadership made a conscious decision to field candidates who can appeal to moderate conservatives as well as attract traditional Democratic voters.
George Bush and the rigid ideology he avows have been useful to Democrats in this endeavor.
Backing up for a minute, I have to assume that McCainiacs throwing Palin under the bus makes sense, not just because of spite…but also because, let's not forget, McCain is now the most famous Republican member of the US Senate. So it makes sense to lay as much blame as possible on Palin to keep McCain looking better. A lot of reeeeeally hairy stuff is about to get shoved into the House and Senate, and no doubt McCain will be looked to in a very specific way regarding a lot of it.
As in, either he'll be looked at to stay far, far away from the discussion…or he'll be looked at to wade fully into it – either to kill it or to "embrace the true spirit of bipartisanship", because what could be more genial than a former competitor for the Presidency working with the party that beat him? (gag)
BTW, is it just me or is the speculation, that Lieberman's past sins are about to catch up with him, just positively delicious? I grew up in Connecticut and I never liked Lieberman (nor Dodd or Shays, actually…they all felt the state began in Greenwich and ended in Fairfield). But he doesn't see to "get" that running as a VP for the Dem's and then campaigning for McCain is a sin beyond pale. He'll be lucky they don't change the locks on his office door, never mind a chairmanship.
The odd thing is that in many ways, Joe is a pretty classic Democrat. So I have a hard time imagining him becoming a Republican. Not without the state of Connecticut demanding a special election to dump his ass…Ned Lamont came pretty close to beating him in 2006, after all.
And on that note, has anyone constructed a guide that explains the various permutations to what Obama & Biden leaving the Senate, McCain staying, Emmanuel leaving the House, Lieberman potentially switching parties, the handful of contested Senate races, and all that stuff? I mean, the Dems did just pad their margins somewhat but I think if the stars line up a certain way they could be right back to a very slim lead in the Senate and not a huge one in the House.
O-fish, you can’t possibly be referring to Nancy Reagan. She’s a lot of things, but “great” ain’t one of them.
Oh my, Sarah’s feelings are hurt.
Is it a little callous for me to think that Palin needs to grow the hell up, shut the hell up, and get the hell back to Alaska and stay there? I mean, she was a star player in the biggest game there is and lost…that means you’ve gotta take your lumps. If you whine about it, it just looks like you think you’re still playing the game well after the buzzer has sounded and the crowd has gone home.
The lingering McCain-Palin hatred here is sad but also comical. McCain will retire and fade away at the end of his term if not before and Palin will at best be a freshman Senator or at worst remain an obscure Governor for some years to come.
To my Democrat friends here, I can’t help recall the words of legendary football coach Paul Brown (sometimes attributed to Tom Landry and Joe Paterno) “When you get into the endzone, act like you’ve been there before.”
You and your candidate have earned a historic victory. Savor it. At best they only come every four years, or in the case of an African American, once in 230+ years.
For one Dem here to be teaching his child that McCain occassionally defecates in his pants, and another to be accusing Palin of bad conduct for defending herself against smears that even Dan Kennedy is skeptical of, makes me wonder what your goal is.
Then again, perhaps the comments here combined with Obama’s unprovoked swipe today at a 90 year-old, ailing first lady is the “change” we’ve been waiting for. Stay classy Dems!
Really she has pulled off what once we thought was impossible. She’s made GWB look intelligent.
The good news is, Palin’s McCain Campaign captors have finally released her back into the Great Alaskan Wild:
http://stonecipher.typepad.com/the_stonecipher_report/2008/11/sarah-palin-is-finally-released-back-into-the-alaskan-wild.html
The great attraction of SP is that she’s laughingstock.
An unprovoked swipe at an ailing first lady? Nancy Reagan used an astrologer to help determine her husband’s schedule. Her own husband (that would be Saint Ronald Reagan) wrote about it. Barack Obama is not using an astrologer. Perhaps it isn’t the best attempt at humor but it is in fact true. I’m glad the right-wing blogs have something substantive over which to get themselves exercised.
Palin amuses me to no end. Her overreaching combined with her ineptitude makes her newsworthy, especially after two months of being lectured about how qualified she was–don’t forget, she had the most executive experience of any of the four! Now, you might argue that it is wrong to be amused by the political equivalent of watching someone fall down a flight of stairs and I can accept that. But the longer conservatives occupy themselves with the trivial and try to defend Sarah Palin so they can run her again in 2012, the longer it will take them to do the self-analysis to actually remake their party and that’s a win-win for everyone concerned.
Sarah Palin could have stayed in Alaska, remained popular, and waited for Ted Stevens to die or be convicted and then taken over his Senate seat and no one would have said boo. Instead, she lacked the basic common sense to realize that she was going to be put into a position way over her head (where is that press conference, by the way) and damaged her party and her political prospects by rashly accepting McCain’s offer. She charged ahead with a true believer’s zeal and when Americans finally got to know her because, you know, she spoke straight at ‘em, they overwhelmingly said “no thank you”. It’s hard to imagine a VP pick being one of the deciding factors in an election, but it is quite clear that her presence on the ticket considerably weakened it.
As to the claims of her ignorance in private, we’ve enough evidence already on the record. The thought that she might not know the signatories to NAFTA is simply the after dinner mint to a buffet of idiocies she provided during the campaign.
I’m pleased to see that some conservatives are forming their own enemies list of people who dared insult La Palin, thus ensuring the continued weakness of the conservative movement. Palin 2012 or bust!
Dot Lane,
Well put.
I do think, though, that our at least two-party system could use a (Republican?) party to challenge the Democrats thoughtfully on substantive issues — sometimes you get better ideas out of a discussion that includes diverse opinions.
Dot (btw, your new icon is very nice): “she lacked the basic common sense to realize that she was going to be put into a position way over her head”.
I agree, but really – what politician would really say “no” to an offered VP spot? She *is* a sitting governor. Getting there requires a huge ego and a can-do attitude. No one would say no, at least no one I can think of.
Steve,
I believe the accepted strategy, when you're not quite ready for prime time, is to raise your national profile by using friends in the media (i.e. Kristol) to keep your name in the VP discussions, then privately decline the offer and accept a high profile speaking slot at the convention.
Palin complains that the McCain camp botched her product roll-out but the truth is that her product wasn't quite ready to come out of R&D.