Sep 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Zakaria: “Put Palin Out of Her Agony”
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria is not impressed with John McCain’s choice.
49 Responses to “Zakaria: “Put Palin Out of Her Agony””
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September 28th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Well, I’m impressed with her. I mean, look, she’s smart, pretty, has a nice tush, and bustline. She has a nice smile, a twinkle in her eye, and photographs well. You can’t possibly ask her to be an instant expert. No one can be that. Trust Sarah. She’s smart and will deal with any crisis with speed and determination. She and McCain will shake things up in Washington. That’s why the media is so intent on tearing her down.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
But…she can see Russia from her house. What else do these media elites want from her?!
September 28th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Palin is so smart that she speaks in sentences even Bush and McCain would be incapable of diagramming.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Generally speaking, I’m not all that impressed by Fareed
Zakaria.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I know one thing about Sarah. She is SEXY! I’m voting for her! No questions.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
I’m with Gina, of the Nice Tush and Bustline Party. Democrats think they’re so smart! We need more dumb in the White House. Dumb and sexy! Good!
September 28th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
This is the take-away part for me. McCain is running on the “I need no on-the-job training” idea. And that’s what we need in power right now. However, Palin needs a LOT of training to be brought up to speed. Maybe with a lot of study she can get there, but we need officials who are capable now, not those that can get there eventually.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
If it becomes clear that Palin has to be replaced, then I suspect it will be part of a package: McCain and Palin both step down to be replaced by Romney/Huckabee. I suspect that whatever grown-ups are left in the Republican Party are focus-grouping this and otherwise working on a backup plan. Clearly it would mean conceding the election to Obama but that would leave Obama/the Dems taking the blame for clean up the mess that Bush/Cheney will leave behind and position Romney for 2012.
Cranky
September 28th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I’m thinking up to a 1/3 or so of McCain’s recent polling woes are attributable to Palin (along with the economic crisis and McCain’s disasterous suspension stunt). And this is probably the last week she has any shot at redemption, because once we are past the VP debate I am pretty sure people’s impressions of the VP candidates will be more or less fixed.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
I suspect that whatever grown-ups are left in the Republican Party are focus-grouping this and otherwise working on a backup plan.
And I think it involves a moose hunting trip with Dick Cheney.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
“Put Palin out of her agony.” More achievable goal: Put ME out of my agony.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
> And I think it involves a moose hunting
> trip with Dick Cheney.
I see your point, but by all accounts Gov. Palin actually hits what she shoots at so that might not be such a smart plan!
Cranky
September 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Looks like the fake “random Internet people” paid McCain surrogates are out in force today. Give it up, guys, its transparent.
Oh and Palin is clearly completely ignorant of the world outside of Alaska. The most gracious thing that can be said about about her is that she may not actually be stupid, just astonishingly (given the job she’s pitching for) provincial.
But given die-hard Republicans’ apparent willingness to vote a man who clearly isn’t above average intelligence into the highest office in the land – twice – I wouldn’t be surprised if she did turn out to be an imbecile.
Republican politics in the last 8 years has borne a striking resemblance to the 14th century Roman de Fauvel.
Signed,
A non-American who knows a lot more than the Republican vice-presidential candidate.
September 28th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“Looks like the fake “random Internet people” paid McCain surrogates are out in force today.”
? Who are you referring to? You know the people saying they’ll vote for her ‘cuz she’s hot are just kidding, right?
September 28th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Oh. No I didn’t.
I don’t post here very often and didn’t recognise the people. My bad
September 28th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
EL is on the right track, in that the title has the wrong pronoun; Palin agreed to take the job, thereby disqualifying herself from my sympathies, so I’m not terribly interested in HER agony. But I think it’s terribly important that she or McCain see sense and put Palin out of OUR agony.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Can I just chime in here and say that I don’t even think she’s all that hot? I mean, maybe for a politician, but I can think of plenty of professional-looking women her age who are better-looking.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I think that Condi Rice is much hotter!
September 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
You know the people saying they’ll vote for her ‘cuz she’s hot are just kidding, right?
I think Gina was serious. That means she probably huffed paint as a kid, but I bet it was serious.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I really think Palin is putting on an act. She must be. No one can be that dumb. She’s playing dumb to lower expectations. Watch at the debates, She’ll sound coherent and come off sounding like she knows what she’s talking about.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Adam Villani,
She’s plenty hot. She looks young for 44 too. I guess hunting moose in the Alaska weather keeps you nice and fit. I also think her accent and general demeanor are kind of endearing.
On the main subject of the thread- I don’t think a huge portion of the electorate votes based on perceived ‘competence’ or experience. Not even for a president, and particularly not for a vice president. People vote, to a large extent, based on ideology. There are those who would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican, and there are others who would prefer to vote for a purple cow than a Democrat. If you share Palin’s views on abortion, the Iraq war, global warming and so forth, and even maybe if you share her general world-view, then it makes a certain sense to vote for Palin regardless of how experienced she may be. It’s not as if presidents, and vice presidents, don’t have Cabinets stocked full of some of the smartest men and women in America to keep them informed.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
There are those who would rather vote for a yellow dog than a Republican, and there are others who would prefer to vote for a purple cow than a Democrat.
This is how I always felt. That’s why I voted for Bush (and I think he actually did a decent job in his second term, so I don’t regret it). But Palin’s worse than a purple cow. A purple cow, at least, wouldn’t be consulted. Palin, if McCain were to die or become incapacitated, really would have to make decisions.
September 28th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Well, I heard a rumor that sarah has some piercings. Now THAT makes me hot just imagining where they are!!!
September 28th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Anyone seen my paint can around? Seriously, as much as I would LOVE to play with her in bed, I just can’t really vote for her. Love her body; but can’t do it (unless she agrees to sleep with me!
September 28th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I really think Palin is putting on an act. She must be. No one can be that dumb. She’s playing dumb to lower expectations. Watch at the debates, She’ll sound coherent and come off sounding like she knows what she’s talking about.
It’s certainly possible, but strategically, this would be an epic miscalculation.
By now, people’s views of her have pretty much crystallized, and her favorables are at minus 10. Her debate performance is unlikely to shift that significantly.
Let’s assume she comes across as halfway-competent during the debate. People who now view her very skeptically will just assume that she managed to become very well-rehearsed for it. I know that’s what I would assume. American voters aren’t rational thinkers. We view events through the lens of our own notions, and rationalize.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Please put Palin out of OUR misery!
God above, can’t you feel for the woman. In the space of a month, she has gone from zero to hero to clown. And its all the fault of one man – John McCain.
It is actually McCain’s team who have completely undermined the poor woman by keeping her in some kind of sequestration from the media. At this point, her own confidence must have completely ebbed. I have seen remarks in other blogs about anonymous McCain aides letting people know how awful she was in mock debates, and mock press conferences.
Someone compared her to a rookie who gets under a really tough coach and can’t hack the pressure. He loses his natural ability & freezes in the big games.
Palin should put her own foot down and threaten McCain she will resign and publicly accuse him of having “strategic differences” with her. If she heads back to Alaska saying he won’t let her campaign as she thinks she should, he will lose the last of his diminishing support. She should demand her own press conferences, and her own team to prepare for the debate.
Ok, so she starts having press conferences and making an idiot of herself every day. McCain at least would have to drop her finally, or agree she had to go “by mutual consent”.
Even if they go on as they are, he and she are still goners.
No wonder McCain is holed up in some posh hotel instead of campaigning (see Huffington Post). He’s probably drinking whiskey by the bottle. He thought he had created a Palin problem for the Democrats. Instead he made a stick for his own back. And he needs to do something fast.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I don’t think a huge portion of the electorate votes based on perceived ‘competence’ or experience.
I think that’s mostly right. Still, I wouldn’t discount the number of people who pause to vote for the ticket with a VP who is a complete joke.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
In all fairness to Sarah, all interviews were destined to fail once she was saddled with the preposterous talking point about Russia’s proximity to Alaska. It seems like even a month or so after this one was first floated, the campaign still hasn’t come up with a coherent argument to support it.
September 28th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I don’t think it’s obvious that she’s stupid, just that she’s massively uninformed and unprepared. Who knows; with two or three terms in the governor’s chair, she might have become a viable national-level Republican. That’s gone now, though; after this year she’ll never be able to enter the national stage without people chortling.
September 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Gina,
If you’re a girl, like your name suggests, then I have to say I don’t think that Sarah Palin swings that way. Who knows though, the Bible doesn’t say too much about lesbians, so perhaps she would be good to go.
By the way, I don’t want to encourage irresponsible mud-slinging, but what’s up with the rumors of Palin having an extramaritial affair? Is this genuine?
September 28th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Re Hector
Apparently, the ex-wife of her husbands’ former business partner named Governor Palin as a co-respondent in her divorce petition. I have no idea if there is any evidence behind this accusation. Unfortunately, if it is false, the governor is in no position to sue the ex-wife for libel as, because she is a public figure, the burden of proof is higher.
There is also a rumor that the father of the governors’ baby is the ex-partner, not her husband. In the absence of a DNA test, or evidence of her husband having undergone a vasectomy, this rumor appears to have no legs.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
As an aside, it is correct experience per se isn’t a huge voting factor, but that doesn’t mean ideology alone will cut it–indeed, ideology is least helpful with marginal voters, the ones who actually decide close elections.
Anyway, I agree that it would be an incredibly stupid strategy to have Palin deliberately tank her press interviews, creating weeks of depressed approval ratings and ongoing bad press for McCain as well, just to lower expectations for her debate. Moreover, I personally think it would take a genius to fake the sort of answers she has been giving in interviews. So unless we find out Christopher Guest has been secretly coaching Palin, I’m going to go with the simpler explanation that she really just doesn’t do well when forced to answer questions about national policy issues she previously didn’t know anything about.
September 28th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Yeah, that’s the problem with adultery allegations….they’re hard to disprove. One can’t prove a negative after all, and unlike with other crimes there is no tangible evidence, barring the occasional stained blue dress or hidden camera.
I don’t see Palin as the adulterous type, frankly, and I find these rumors about her more than a little sexist. Most adultery is initiated by men, after all.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I retain hope that enough people notice the two terms of George W. Bush, the COLLOSSALLY STUPENDOUSLY GIANT FUCKING EXAMPLE of why it’s a bad idea to vote for someone of unexeptional intelligence. You know, the example that’s staring the country RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE AND DANCING AROUND NAKED RIGHT IN FRONT OF IT WITH FLASHING STROBELIGHTS TAPED TO ITS NIPPLES! Perhaps a forlorn hope, but I’d really hate to think a country could have so many idiots in it.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
But who is allowing someone to “initiate” something, Hec? Not all adulterers are gay guys after all, just Republican ones. I don’t see Palin that way either, but it’s hard for me to understand how some people can rise so high (John Edwards, Bill Clinton) and then put it all at risk for the sake of a fling with some cookie. We’ve got to face it: We don’t know these people. We’ll never meet them, never see them, never know them in any meaningful sense, and so nothing should surprise us when the public image cracks.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Vivisfugue,
I would imagine that many women give in to adultery because they’re persuaded into it by corrupt and immoral men. Maybe some of them imagine that the guy has some emotional connection with them, or maybe they want to get out of a bad marriage or whatever.
Many men commit adultery with prostitutes or “serially” adulterous women, of course, so the number of adulterous women is much lower than the number of adulterous men. Simply put, men are by their essential nature less faithful and more promiscuous than women, which is one reason the gentlemanly thing to do is to assume a woman’s fidelity unless the evidence against it is overwhelming. I ask again: Where is Ms. Palin’s stained blue dress?
This image has only ‘cracked’ because a bunch of nasty little boys with rocks have been throwing rocks at it all day. Perhaps we should try and find out the facts.
September 28th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Hector:
Right, and the women acquiesce because they are innocent and child-like.
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