even if they weren't familiar with the exact terminology:
Charles Gibson: "Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?"
Sarah Palin: "I'm not exactly familiar with the precise defition of that term"
Charles Gibson: "The Bush Doctrine is...blah blah blah"
Sarah Palin: "As I understand the United States has always held the right to self defense as well as the right to attack to prevent an imminent attack. The Bush Doctrine, as you state it, speaks to preventative war as opposed to pre-emptive war, and there is a difference..." And then she could go on to reiterate her neocon talking points that were force fed to her for the past 10 days in her tutoring sessions.
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Instead what Palin tried to do was bluff her way through the interview because she was so afraid of her real ignorance and lack of true confidence being revealed. She dug herself a deep hole.
Of course, dickheads like Charles Krauthammer rush to the little neophyte neocon's defense (like many others) acting like Gibson was some kind of bad guy just for asking questions in you know, an interview:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457_pf.htmlHe states, "There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine," and then goes on to bloviate about his own spin on what it means.
Now that's all fine and dandy, however Sarah Palin didn't know that either. If she did, she could of said so.
But instead she tried to bluff, wink, and smirk her way out of it with some sort of bullshit about the greatness of American elections and how we get to replace the blundering George Bush with John McCain who, of all things, wants to double down on George Bush's erroneous policies.
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To me this highlights several things:
1.) Sarah Palin is a very beautiful and clever spokesmodel. She is standard Republican fare for what passes for a telegenic talking head. However, she lacks some very serious depth to her knowledge base. For all her staring the Russians down across the Bering Straits, she hasn't learned much.
2.) Sarah Palin isn't really thinking for herself. Again, she is just a spokesmodel and will remain so, just like all the other gorgeous Republican spokesmodels that have made careers out of repeating the "talking points".
3.) Sarah Palin is a test of just how far the Republican string pullers can go with the spokesmodel format. If Palin wins, do not be surprised with an expanded Orwellian effort to further infiltrate all levels of government with bombshells that are willing to do as told, say as told, and stick to the script.
4.) Guys like Krauthammer will say and do anything to help their side keep and expand power. Truth and integrity mean nothing. We briefly saw behind the curtain with Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan. It didn't take one day after Noonan's moment of truth until she tried to pitifully cover her tracks. All this "Palin is qualified" crap is just pure and utter crap.
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Well anyway, this is a real crossroads for the country and given that Sarah Palin has gotten this far, despite all her egregious scandals, is testament to the fact that Barack is really pushing a heavy rock up a steep hill.
My heart goes out to Michelle Obama because I think if anyone is being torn up about all of this smoke and mirrors, it is her.