Home > Donny Pauling, Election 2008, John McCain, Katie Couric, Politics, Sarah Palin > How Do You Feel About Palin's Latest Interviews?

How Do You Feel About Palin's Latest Interviews?

After all the controversy that has been stirred up by the political posts I’ve made recently, I’d really like to give it a break.  The problem is that I have enough time on my hands to actually listen to the candidates speak, and Sarah Palin is really baffling to me.   I can’t help but write about her.

When she was first introduced I thought she was a good choice for McCain.  Her first speech was fiery.  She had a list of “accomplishments” and was said to have fought the “good ol’ boy network”.  But it turns out those accomplishments aren’t what they were portrayed to be.  She didn’t, for example, oppose the “Bridge to Nowhere” until after it was a dead issue.  She had, in fact, been in favor of it at the beginning.

After seeing her latest interviews I’m baffled that she’s even considered a candidate for Vice President.  Sure, she’s a “good person”.  Sure, she’s “one of us”.  And I’m positive she was great in the PTA.  But she doesn’t belong in this country’s second most powerful office.

Did you see her interview with Katie Couric?  She is in WAY OVER HER HEAD.  She tries to sound intelligent on issues, but instead makes herself look very foolish.

When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:

“It’s very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state.”

Sarah publicly stated that being sandwiched between Russia and Canada gave her foreign policy experience.  The exact quote was, “Our next door neighbors are foreign countries”.  Puhleeze!  Tell me you’re joking, Sarah!  Unfortunately, she wasn’t joking.  If you don’t believe me, click here to watch for yourself (you’ll have to watch a 15 second commercial first).

I think John McCain needs to apologize to her for bringing her into this race.  The woman who would have been known as a decent Governor of the State of Alaska will now be forever remembered as the butt of “stupid politician” jokes.

Even conservatives are starting to publicly state she isn’t the right person for the job.  Read Kathleen Parker’s column:  Kathleen Parker:  The Palin Problem

Some quotes from this article:

Prominent conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, an early supporter of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, said Friday recent interviews have shown the Alaska governor is “out of her league” and should leave the GOP presidential ticket for the good of the party.

It was fun while it lasted,” Parker writes. “Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who is clearly out of her league.

“If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself,” Parker also writes. “If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.”

Parker’s comments follow those by prominent conservatives David Brooks, George Will, and David Frum who have all publicly questioned Palin’s readiness to be vice president.

“Sarah Palin has many virtues,” Brooks wrote in a recent column. “If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.”

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there.

Saturday Night Live, as you know, often pokes fun at candidates.  I get a laugh at such skits.  Have you seen the last skit poking fun at Sarah Palin?  At one point, instead of making up amusing dialogue, Sarah is quoted word for word because what she said was so absurd a writer wasn’t needed to make it funny.

A few more stories on the Palin interviews (PLEASE do yourself a favor and read them):

How can anyone defend this decision?  Stubborn allegiance to the Republican Party, perhaps?  Please enlighten me.

  • http://theeccentricphotography.com/ Dalen

    I think I’ll vote for the Squarepants / Starfish ticket. They’ve done quite a bit to turn around Bikini Bottoms economy.

  • http://theeccentricphotography.com Dalen

    I think I’ll vote for the Squarepants / Starfish ticket. They’ve done quite a bit to turn around Bikini Bottoms economy.

  • DT

    Glad to see the truth is finally surfacing on this issue. I dont blame Clinton for this mess either, his general plan of making home ownership more accessible was a good idea that if properly executed would not have caused this mess. It did in fact help many millions of people own a home who were deserving. What happened and where the failure was in the greed of the raines and johnsons and those senators who were in their back pocket who ignored common sense and allowed them to manipulate the system for their own gain. The housing crisis was not caused by low down payment loans or even lowering the credit score standards, it was caused when they started ignorning common sense to line their pocketbooks by doing stated income loans, not verifying any income, allowing interest only loans etc that allowed people to purchase homes above their means. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a home at 100% even if you have had some credit issues as long as your income supports it. Foreclosures were caused by the adjustable rates, interest only and stated income loans that allowed people to get in over their head.
    What is most troubling is that Obama was in their pocket more than anyone else in his short time and if you dont believe that just look at him having Raines and Johnson as advisors. Also, the bailout or rescue planned proposed basically was also filled with fluff for groups like acorn etc with hidden spending when the govt received taxpayer money back. Personally I support them coming up with legislation that would not buy the bad loans(after all how can the govt keep track and service them) but instead they would get preferred stock in the company with guarantees of being the first paid back and having to be paid back before ceo bonuses. Also, was anyone else as disgusted by Pelosi and her actions? Can anyone be more out of touch than her? Or the parade of people on tv later blaming the 63 I think it was republicans who voted against it for killing the bill and being partisan when over 90 democrats voted against it.

  • DT

    Glad to see the truth is finally surfacing on this issue. I dont blame Clinton for this mess either, his general plan of making home ownership more accessible was a good idea that if properly executed would not have caused this mess. It did in fact help many millions of people own a home who were deserving. What happened and where the failure was in the greed of the raines and johnsons and those senators who were in their back pocket who ignored common sense and allowed them to manipulate the system for their own gain. The housing crisis was not caused by low down payment loans or even lowering the credit score standards, it was caused when they started ignorning common sense to line their pocketbooks by doing stated income loans, not verifying any income, allowing interest only loans etc that allowed people to purchase homes above their means. There is nothing wrong with purchasing a home at 100% even if you have had some credit issues as long as your income supports it. Foreclosures were caused by the adjustable rates, interest only and stated income loans that allowed people to get in over their head.
    What is most troubling is that Obama was in their pocket more than anyone else in his short time and if you dont believe that just look at him having Raines and Johnson as advisors. Also, the bailout or rescue planned proposed basically was also filled with fluff for groups like acorn etc with hidden spending when the govt received taxpayer money back. Personally I support them coming up with legislation that would not buy the bad loans(after all how can the govt keep track and service them) but instead they would get preferred stock in the company with guarantees of being the first paid back and having to be paid back before ceo bonuses. Also, was anyone else as disgusted by Pelosi and her actions? Can anyone be more out of touch than her? Or the parade of people on tv later blaming the 63 I think it was republicans who voted against it for killing the bill and being partisan when over 90 democrats voted against it.

  • Jean

    Wow, yeah, yippee, Donny, you’re finally listening to reason instead of emotion!

    Still voting for Nobama????

  • Jean

    Wow, yeah, yippee, Donny, you’re finally listening to reason instead of emotion!

    Still voting for Nobama????

  • Jeremy

    It’s moral hazard and adverse selection all over again. Insure (via implicit [now explicit] guarantee) that mortgage-backed assets will be covered by Freddie/Fannie (i.e. government-backed) buying them up at a price disproportionately low to the risk level, and we end up with people (via banks which had unsustainable low rates for real [i.e. unsubsidized] market conditions which drove up the value of homes) taking more risk than they should at that price level and failing to mitigate the loss. What do we get? “Toxic” assets.

    I remember an article in The Economist over 3 years ago that predicted all this. Why? Securities have their current value based on what investors predict their future cash flow will provide (e.g. dividends). For more info on this, look up net present value (NPV) or individual rate of return (IRR) for a primer on what that looks like. A similar measurement can be used for housing by looking at historical rent (i.e. cash flow) and the market value to purchase the rented properties (i.e. the value of the security). This was historically stable, but it showed a bubble where rents were not nearly high enough to justify the high value of homes. To correct this, rents go up (that initially happened with this bubble), housing prices come down, or both result (not necessarily at the same timing as one drives the other). That was the widely accepted natural conclusion for that breed of beast.

    The good news is that we aren’t nearly as bad off as Japan was with a similar problem starting in the 90′s. They had the mother of all housing bubbles where the market value of all the land in Japan was higher than the market value of all the land in the United States. Japanese land is not particularly valuable in itself with its mountainous backbone; even with the Rockies, California should be worth more than Japan (land only). Their rent/value ratio was similarly out of proportion to the historical trend. Japan saw 10 years of decreasing property values as a result.

    I know this is probably localized, but I’m happy to hear silence on the “affordable housing crisis.” One of the central justifications for having freddie/frannie soak up so much debt at unrealistically low rates was to solve this problem. In the process of “solving it”, it not only created another problem set, but backfired on the initial one it was trying to solve (until now…) In fairness to the folks who set this up, home ownership is linked with lowering crime and other social ills to the point where ownership is widely believed to have a causal relationship. They were well-intended but misguided in subsidizing it like this.

    Anyone who tries to move the market’s invisible hand will end up getting slapped by it. The farther we try to move it, the harder the slap.

  • Jeremy

    It’s moral hazard and adverse selection all over again. Insure (via implicit [now explicit] guarantee) that mortgage-backed assets will be covered by Freddie/Fannie (i.e. government-backed) buying them up at a price disproportionately low to the risk level, and we end up with people (via banks which had unsustainable low rates for real [i.e. unsubsidized] market conditions which drove up the value of homes) taking more risk than they should at that price level and failing to mitigate the loss. What do we get? “Toxic” assets.

    I remember an article in The Economist over 3 years ago that predicted all this. Why? Securities have their current value based on what investors predict their future cash flow will provide (e.g. dividends). For more info on this, look up net present value (NPV) or individual rate of return (IRR) for a primer on what that looks like. A similar measurement can be used for housing by looking at historical rent (i.e. cash flow) and the market value to purchase the rented properties (i.e. the value of the security). This was historically stable, but it showed a bubble where rents were not nearly high enough to justify the high value of homes. To correct this, rents go up (that initially happened with this bubble), housing prices come down, or both result (not necessarily at the same timing as one drives the other). That was the widely accepted natural conclusion for that breed of beast.

    The good news is that we aren’t nearly as bad off as Japan was with a similar problem starting in the 90′s. They had the mother of all housing bubbles where the market value of all the land in Japan was higher than the market value of all the land in the United States. Japanese land is not particularly valuable in itself with its mountainous backbone; even with the Rockies, California should be worth more than Japan (land only). Their rent/value ratio was similarly out of proportion to the historical trend. Japan saw 10 years of decreasing property values as a result.

    I know this is probably localized, but I’m happy to hear silence on the “affordable housing crisis.” One of the central justifications for having freddie/frannie soak up so much debt at unrealistically low rates was to solve this problem. In the process of “solving it”, it not only created another problem set, but backfired on the initial one it was trying to solve (until now…) In fairness to the folks who set this up, home ownership is linked with lowering crime and other social ills to the point where ownership is widely believed to have a causal relationship. They were well-intended but misguided in subsidizing it like this.

    Anyone who tries to move the market’s invisible hand will end up getting slapped by it. The farther we try to move it, the harder the slap.

  • DT

    The senate passed the bill today but I for one would just like to say it was used as an excuse for special interests once again. Items that have nothing to do with the current situation were put in this bill to get votes. Items like money for rural schools, disaster aid for certain states, tax deductibility in certain states only. You know there is a fundamental problem with the system when our so called leaders are out there patting each other on the back saying government worked like it should for the people. So in their opinion hiding pork spending into bills that have nothing to do with what they are voting on in other words paying each other off for votes is how it should work. This is why the issue of taxes is mute. What we need is someone who will try to stop this and who will out these people. McCain and Palin have said they would and on top of that have said they would name names. McCain has also said he would veto as much as he could. It honestly makes me ill that these people, dems and republicans have the nerve to get on tv, tell us how we need this bailout and its going to be good for us, promise to be bi-partisan, take credit for working for the people and in reality they have used this as an excuse to spend money on their pet projects trying to win votes and contributions.

  • DT

    The senate passed the bill today but I for one would just like to say it was used as an excuse for special interests once again. Items that have nothing to do with the current situation were put in this bill to get votes. Items like money for rural schools, disaster aid for certain states, tax deductibility in certain states only. You know there is a fundamental problem with the system when our so called leaders are out there patting each other on the back saying government worked like it should for the people. So in their opinion hiding pork spending into bills that have nothing to do with what they are voting on in other words paying each other off for votes is how it should work. This is why the issue of taxes is mute. What we need is someone who will try to stop this and who will out these people. McCain and Palin have said they would and on top of that have said they would name names. McCain has also said he would veto as much as he could. It honestly makes me ill that these people, dems and republicans have the nerve to get on tv, tell us how we need this bailout and its going to be good for us, promise to be bi-partisan, take credit for working for the people and in reality they have used this as an excuse to spend money on their pet projects trying to win votes and contributions.

  • Jean

    This is our Senate in action, folks, that’s what they get paid the big bucks to do….

    Sadly, they will return home to their states and get elected again, so who’s ultimately to blame for this???

    The President and Vice President do not have any contol over the Senate or House. That’s OUR job to put in the better people. Presidents can only veto so much junk….

    God help us be wise.

  • Jean

    This is our Senate in action, folks, that’s what they get paid the big bucks to do….

    Sadly, they will return home to their states and get elected again, so who’s ultimately to blame for this???

    The President and Vice President do not have any contol over the Senate or House. That’s OUR job to put in the better people. Presidents can only veto so much junk….

    God help us be wise.

  • Dave C

    intresting article about Sarah I found..

    gives her history in Alaska and what she went up against..

    There is more to her than what you see on the alphabet networks..

    http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2008/10/politics_the_in_1.php

  • Dave C

    intresting article about Sarah I found..

    gives her history in Alaska and what she went up against..

    There is more to her than what you see on the alphabet networks..

    http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2008/10/politics_the_in_1.php