Palin Has Trouble Defining What A Terrorist Is
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, McCain, Palin, Terrorism, VideoAnother excerpt from the NBC interview with Sarah Palin and John McCain and this time she gets a little stumped when defining what terrorism is.
Watch…
At this point I sort of feel sorry for the woman. She’s clearly in over her head.
And you can see that McCain is clearly uneasy when she’s answering the question. Perhaps this is what Chuck Todd was talking about when he talked about the two looking like they were uncomfortable sitting next to each other. In fact, I can almost guarantee it. Because the first part of the interview they appeared to be fine, but this was definitely a rough patch.
Or maybe McCain was just angry that Brian Williams continued to press her on clarifying her remarks.
Whatever the case may be, this was yet another interview moment where Palin didn’t distinguish herself as somebody who has a clear opinion or a good grasp of the facts.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, McCain, Palin, Terrorism, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 24th, 2008 at 6:10 am
I think the part on elitism is worse than her shaky answer on what constitutes a terrorist. She equates elitism with arrogance, which is ironic in and of itself since they’re running for the highest offices in this country…
October 24th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I don’t know — I’m no Palin fan, and I certainly don’t condone the incessant focus on Ayers, but she ended up OK on the answer, I thought: “anyone who would harm or kill innocent (people).” What’s more pertinent to me than any specific answer is her clear struggle — obvious in her darting eyes — to understand whether or not these are “gotcha” questions. She’s frightened. She’s confused. She most certainly is not “presidential.”
October 24th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Ok, Justin, what’s your working definition?
I spent enough time in graduate school to know for sure that the inability to give a well-developed working definition is very different from lacking an understanding of the concept.
I bet 95 out of 100 people would struggle to come up with a good formal, functional definition of a terrorists as distinct from myriad other overlapping concepts such as murderer, political dissident, organized group member, etc, etc. And yet all these peoeple would feel comfortable thinking that they know terrorism when they see it. And they’re 99.9% right to think so.
When someone is asked in a public forum to provide a definition, that’s right at the top of the list of gotcha practices. As you know, I’ve jumped aboard the bandwagon of folks who call Palin out of her league. But must she be devoured?
October 24th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@Kranky, would it be reasonable, using your own formulation, to expect that our candidates for highest office have a working definition of terrorism? Why be an apologist on this particular point? Palin wasted a great deal of our time asserting that Obama is a friend of terrorists. It’s reasonable to expect her to understand the loaded words she’s tossing around, no? And devour her? Absolutely. There should be no doubt that the sort of mediocrity which W embodies will no longer be electable.
August 30th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
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