Charlie, isn’t that right, Charlie?
Wow — until I saw this quote, I didn’t understand just how much of a Bush-clone Palin is:
“We must not, Charlie, blink, Charlie, because, Charlie, as I’ve said, Charlie, before, John McCain has said, Charlie, that — and remember here, Charlie, we’re talking about John McCain, Charlie, who, Charlie, is John McCain and I won’t be blinking, Charlie.”
Thanks to Maureen Dowd’s Sept 13 NYT column for that entertainment.
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That interview was a total hack job on ABC’s part, it’s not suprising she came off looking bad. From Gibson’s judgmental attitude (not to mention his own inaccuracies regarding the Bush Doctrine) to the… “creative” editing done by ABC, the whole thing was set up to attack Palin. The hostility was palpable. Compare Gibson’s interview of Obama when he asked such “tough” questions as “How does it feel to break a glass ceiling?” to him grilling Palin about the territorial integrity of Georgia. I’m not saying that tough questions shouldn’t be asked but interviews should be approached with at least some objectivity.
True, I also agree that Gibson did seem particularly and hostile. However, if the McCain/Palin camp is touting Palin as one with more experience and better suited to the White House than both Obama and Biden combined, then perhaps those questions regarding international incidents and relations are quite fair.
That being said, it doesn’t excuse Gibson for being “soft” on Obama, and that certainly displays a bias. I need to watch the Obama interview though, I haven’t yet.
Two points:
(1). I totally agree about Gibson. It was maddening. He asked gimmicky, gotcha-type questions that were calculated to make Palin screw up.
(2). Point number one does not excuse Palin’s performance.
What matters more to me is not what Palin knows and doesn’t know, or whether she was able to answer Gibson’s stupid questions, but rather how she chose to respond to the situation.
In my opinion, a more down-to-earth person would have approached Gibson’s questions by saying something like:
“Look, Charlie, I think this is turning too much of a pop-quiz. We can continue like this, but I’ll tell you right now that I’m not yet a foreign policy expert. But a good president is like a good CEO. Even the best CEO doesn’t have all the answers, and isn’t an expert on everything. What’s more important is that a president or a CEO surrounds herself with good people, seeks good advice and good information, and makes a wise decision. Should I have to step up and become president, that’s what the American people will want: a wise person who could make wise decisions, not just a person with a head filled with facts and data.”
That’s how Palin should have handled this. So, why didn’t she?
I think there are really two reasons:
(a) Palin didn’t know enough about what she didn’t know to know when Gibson’s questions were unfair and gimmicky. Had she known enough to better recognize just how unfair and stupid Gibson was being, she would have been able to respond in a better way.
(b) This suggestion would have been so foreign to Palin that she never would have thought of it. That is, Palin (like Bush) has not learned to surround herself with competent people to make the best decisions possible, and Palin has not learned to admit when she needs help or doesn’t know something.
Palin’s record demonstrates this, by the way. In the New York Times, yesterday, there was an article on how Palin filled Alaska’s cabinet posts and state offices with friends of hers from high school, and how she often lashed out people who disagreed with her. Unfortunately, this reeks of a George-W-Bush style of management.
all i keep thinking about is
“Charlie, bit me and that really hurt!”
ahhh…i’m really intelligent at 3 o’clock in the morning.