Just watch…

Here’s the thing, the reason these folks can get away with nonsense like this is because congressional districts have been so gerrymandered as to be almost completely red or blue. And given that Rep. Foxx is from North Carolina’s 5th district (very safely Republican) she can keep on talking like this till she’s blue (or red) in the face. And it’ll get her famous, quick.

Just look at Michele Bachmann, a virtual nobody before she started talking crazy on shows like Hardball and Glenn Beck’s cavalcade of crazy. Now she’s being favorably profiled by George Will? And let’s not forget Foxx’s South Carolina cousin Rep Joe Wilson. He jumps so far over the line that even his fellow Republicans chide him, and yet he becomes a folk hero and raises $1M in donations online in short order.

And trust me, this isn’t limited to just Republicans. Dems have said their fair share of nonsense too. But why are these folks being applauded, promoted and revered? Why aren’t they seen as the sideshows they really are?

Yes, yes, I know I’m posting this video and so I’m part of the promotion of this meme, but I point this out to raise the broader topic question….How in the hell did we get here? And is there any way back?

The audio…

And here’s a partial transcript…

DERBYSHIRE: Among the hopes that I do not realistically nurse is the hope that female suffrage will be repealed. But I’ll say this – if it were to be, I wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep.

COLMES: We’d be a better country if women didn’t vote?

DERBYSHIRE: Probably. Don’t you think so?

COLMES: No, I do not think so whatsoever.

DERBYSHIRE: Come on Alan. Come clean here [laughing].

COLMES: We would be a better country? John Derbyshire making the statement, we would be a better country if women did not vote.

DERBYSHIRE: Yeah, probably.

Did you note how Derbyshire said he’s in favor of freedom later on in the interview? Wow.

Seriously…how can these folks hate the government so much that they’ll say such inane, bigoted, ignorant stuff like this? Amazing.

Yeah, I know it’s just a joke, but it turns out it was a fairly tasteless one when you consider the daughter Palin brought to the game was 14 year old Willow.

I doubt if he’ll apologize, but he should.

I didn’t think Steele could get any hackier, but yet again he proves me wrong.

Roll tape!

And here’s the transcript…

STEELE: The problem that we have with this president is that we don’t know [Obama]. He was not vetted, folks. … He was not vetted, because the press fell in love with the black man running for the office. “Oh gee, wouldn’t it be neat to do that? Gee, wouldn’t it make all of our liberal guilt just go away? We can continue to ride around in our limousines and feel so lucky to live in an America with a black president.” Okay that’s wonderful, great scenario, nice backdrop. But what does he stand for? What does he believe? … So we don’t know. We just don’t know.

I mean, seriously? Seriously???

I’m sorry folks, but if after THE LONGEST PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD you don’t think Obama was fully vetted or you don’t know where he’s coming from, well, you weren’t paying attention.

But hey, maybe this is part of the “hip-hop makeover” Steele has been promising for the GOP.

(SOURCE: Think Progress via Ambinder)

“Texas is a unique place. When we came into the union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”
- Texas Governor Rick Perry hinting at secession at a Tea Party rally today

And here’s the audio…

First off, he’s wrong. Texas never had an option to secede. They were granted the right to divide into five states, but not secede.

However, I would LOVE if Texas divided into five states…just so long as Austin and the area surrounding it for 50 miles was one of them. That would be a fantastic place to visit.

But getting back on track, do this thought experiment with me…imagine if a Democratic Governor would have said this during the Bush years.

Discuss…

One thing that has long baffled me has been the idea on the American Right that Europe is some kind of socialist hell-hole that borders on Communist. The thrust of the argument always seems to be that European government is so large and intrusive, and it public mores so lacking and dare I say nihilistic that it is something akin to Hell on Earth. Mark Steyn, not surprisingly, expresses this attitude fairly succinctly, writing:

Europeanism is like Communism: the less time you’ve spent living it in practice the better disposed you are to it in theory. In the same way, few of those Americans who want to introduce Canadian-style health care to the U.S. have ever had surgery at the Royal Victoria. Indeed, America is full of immigrants whose hostility to Euro-Canadian public policy derives explicitly from their prolonged exposure to it.

Of course, the definition of “Europeanism” is ill-defined. So far as I can tell, it’s a reference to a government with a large social welfare system combined with a secularized social policy. The assumption, which is largely based on a false equivalency that social safety nets = socialism = Road to Serfdom and that United States = World’s Only Bastion of Free Market Capitalism = World’s Only Free Country, is that these “Europeanist” policies make Europe an absolute hell-hole.

Despite my deep love of the free market, I’ve always found this chain of thought to be utterly absurd. For starters, the idea that Europe is some kind of hell-hole at all doesn’t seem to line up with reality, as Alex Massie points out:

Never mind that, according to the most recent World Values Survey, Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, Malta, Luxembourg, Sweden each reported higher levels of happiness and “life satisfaction” than the United States. That isn’t to say that the US is unhappy, merely that there is more than one route to happiness. And that’s the point: europe (however broadly defined) and the United States are each remarkable success stories permitting a greater percentage of the population than at any point in history has the opportunity to make their own choices about how to lead their lives.

But there’s more to it than this. If “Europeanism” really is that much of a restraint on freedom, one would expect that European nations would have exceedingly tightly restricted economies, with comparatively little economic liberty. Thankfully, that lunatic left-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation has long compiled a statistical ranking of economic freedoms around the world.

In the current iteration of this list, based on data from late 2007 to early 2008, shows the good ol’ USA ranked 6th – right behind Ireland and New Zealand, and just barely ahead of Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, and the UK. But things get even more interesting when you look more closely at the data. After all, the argument seems to be that larger and more expensive government leads to less economic freedom (amongst other problems). And yet, when one looks at measures of economic freedom other than the size of government, one quickly finds that the US is outperformed by numerous European countries and Canada. Canada for instance surpasses the US in things like Fiscal Freedom (ie, taxation), freedom from corruption, business freedom, and trade freedom; Denmark in business freedom (where the Heritage Foundation considers Denmark just about perfect!), investment and financial freedom, property rights, and labor freedom; the UK and Netherlands in investments, property rights, and corruption; Iceland in business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, property rights, and corruption; and Austria and Belgium also comparing pretty favorably.

Meanwhile, there are a number of governments that seem to score extraordinarily poorly on these measures despite having relatively small governments. In fact, by the Heritage Foundation’s measurements, the US actually has a larger than average government compared to the rest of the globe, but has a far smaller government than most of Western Europe and Canada, most of which – including Sweden, with the third largest government in the world according to Heritage – score in the top 30 most economically free countries in the world. The sole exceptions are Portugal (#53), France (#64), and Italy (#76).

Meanwhile, countries with relatively small governments seem to largely be ranked pretty poorly in terms of overall economic freedom as I previously discussed here. If you rank the countries by size of government (keeping in mind that higher scores equal smaller government), the “best” governments are, in order: Burma, Liberia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and the Central African Republic. None of these are exactly bastions of economic freedom in any other respect.

This isn’t to say that smaller government equates with less economic freedom generally – I don’t think it does, and one can’t ignore that Singapore, Hong Kong, and Chile all have rather small governments combined with quite a bit of economic freedom. Instead, it’s simply to say that there is a complete lack of evidence of any sort that “Europeanism” is a first-class ticket to disorder, totalitarianism, or regulatory hell.

Meanwhile, whatever the flaws of secularism (and in the case of so-called Human Rights Commissions, it’s pretty clear that there are quite a few such flaws), it’s worth noting that Europeans seem to have a closer attachment to their culture and history than just about any part of the US outside the Deep South. Indeed, in France, the desire to preserve that culture and history is probably one of the biggest causes of French restrictions on economic liberty, which results in a level of protectionism that is noticeably higher than the rest of Western Europe (except for Italy).

On the other hand, the idea that the solution to American problems lies in adopting European-style policies (whatever that may mean) is pretty foolish as well, for the simple reason that the U.S. isn’t Europe. We are a far more culturally and ethnically heterogenous society than any European country, we are far larger in terms of both population and area than any Western European country, and – as is the case with any two countries – we have completely different established institutions upon which to base our policies, as Ms. McArdle recently noted.

Regardless, can we please stop pretending like Western Europe is the closest thing to Hell on Earth or, in the alternative, some kind of socialist paradise? It’s neither – instead, it’s just a collection of several different governments that in general seem to have each found a balance between government and liberty that works pretty well for the specific people who are subject to that specific government’s jurisdiction.

Cross-posted at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

First, the clip…

And now, the truth from Politico:

The spokeswoman, Melissa Sellers, said the story Jindal told in his response to Obama actually took place some days later in Lee’s office — though still in Katrina’s chaotic aftermath — as Lee was “recounting” his frustrations with the bureaucracy to someone else on the telephone.

“It was days later,” Sellers said. “Sheriff Lee was on the phone and the governor came down to visit him. It wasn’t that they were standing right down there with the boats.”

She said she didn’t know who Lee, who died in 2007, was on the phone, about the incident with the boats when the governor described him as yelling into the phone.

UPDATE: I’d initially misunderstood Sellers to be saying Jindal and Lee didn’t meet while rescue efforts were still underway. In fact, she said, the conversation took place in the aftermath of the storm, but after the boat incident.

“Bobby and I walked into Harry Lee’s office – he’s yelling on the phone about a decision he’s already made,” Jindal chief of staff Timmy Teepell recalled. “He’s saying, ‘This is a decision I made, and if you don’t like it you can come and arrest me.’”

As I said before, this was a dumb unforced error.

Moving on…

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy.”
- Richard Perle talking to a gathering sponsored by National Interest magazine.

WTF?!

Dana Milbank digs through this nonsense…

So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the study group,” Perle explained. “I didn’t approve it. I didn’t read it.”

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a “moral” basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? “I don’t have the letters in front of me,” Perle replied.

Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? “I don’t know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements,” Perle maintained. “My guess is he didn’t.”

Gotta love the logic, eh?

Just because Bush doesn’t read it means that the neoconservative foreign policy doesn’t exist.

Brilliant stuff.

Steve Benen points out that the folks at the talk found it equally amusing…

It was apparently quite a performance, which literally drew laughter when Perle insisted, “I’ve never advocated attacking Iran.” He added that he doesn’t “accept” the notion that there’s even a “neoconservative school of thought,” and said his book, “An End to Evil,” is actually a text devoted to realism. “There’s hardly an ideology in that book,” Perle said.

As Milbank reminds us, the book argues, “There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust. This book is a manual for victory.” No, no ideology there.

Apparently, at the end of yesterday’s event, the moderator thanked Perle for being there: “You certainly kept us all entertained.”

And scene.

Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas sure said a mouthful yesterday…

“Insurgency, we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban,” Sessions said during a meeting yesterday with Hotline editors. “And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban. No, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about [sic] is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their frontline message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.”

Learning tactics from the Taliban to oppose Obama’s stimulus plan?

What do you say to this?

Is he out of his mind?

And do note he doesn’t back down from the “insurgent” talk…

“I think insurgency is a mindset and an attitude that we’re going to have to search for and find ways to get our message out and to be prepared to see things for what they are, rather than trying to do something about them,” Sessions said. “I think what’s happened is that the line was drawn in the sand” by Pelosi.

Sessions said the GOP’s 178 members stand by their votes against the bill.

“I don’t think any one of our members today feels like they would take back that vote,” he said. “… There’s no remorse.”

Amazing.

This should show up on Drudge any minute now…

One of the few saving graces with respect to this legislation, which will devastate small, medium and domestic businesses in numerous industries, has been a recent opinion letter which held that the bill’s ban on phthalates would apply only to products manufactured after February 10 and not to pre-existing inventory that was manufactured prior to the statute’s effective date (products containing any amount of lead, no matter how unlikely to be “mouthed” by a child or to contain the legitimately dangerous lead paint, are not so fortunate). This exemption for some pre-existing inventory is important because without it, businesses would be forced to destroy products already on their shelves, even if those products were legal when manufactured. The exemption is particularly important to small and medium sized businesses because of how businesses of that size order and/or manufacture their products many months in advance in order to take advantage of bulk discounts; larger businesses can obviously turn over large quantities of inventory much quicker than small businesses and, moreover, were much more capable of being aware of this law’s potential effects as early as October/November of 2007.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, having solved all “Natural Resources Defense” problems, is apparently not happy with the Consumer Products Safety Commission’s issuance of the exemption for pre-existing phthalate inventory. As such, they have sued the CPSC to make sure the law, with its $100,000 minimum penalties, is enforced in as draconian a manner as possible.

In defense of this lawsuit, the NRDC’s spokesperson expressed little sympathy for businesses that will have to close:

The problems of the retailers and the toymakers are beside the point, Colangelo said. “Congress decided these toys are unsafe,” he said. “That’s critical here. […] We’re talking about something that Congress decided was unsafe and shouldn’t be on the shelves.”

So why are these products so particularly unsafe that it justifies forcing hundreds of businesses to close in the midst of a severe recession? “Because Congress said so.” And why did Congress say so? “Because they’re so particularly unsafe that it justifies forcing hundreds of businesses to close in the midst of a severe recession.”

Again, if ever there was a time for conservative blogospheric activism (although liberal and/or libertarian activism would also be more than appropriate), this would be it. Unfortunately, the Malkinized portion of the Right (also the most activist portion) is much more concerned with talking about the NY Times’ latest flub on the all-important issue of Caroline Kennedy’s qualifications for Senator, not to mention Obama’s amorphous ties to the equally important issue of who the 800th Most Corrupt Chicago Politician of All Time spoke with and when, to even be aware that this problem exists and can realistically be prevented.

(Cross-posted at Publius Endures)

PS – I promise my next post here at Donklephant will be on something other than this issue.

Today, Henry Paulson urged Congress to release the second half of the $700 billion of the bailout money. But no one seems know what banks have done with the first $350 billion. Despite the fact that Congress wrote more than one hundred pages about oversight in the bailout bill, they left a gaping hole.

All of the content on ANP is available for free! If you like the piece, please feel free to post it on your blog, or replay on the radio or tv.

http://americannewsproject.com/videos/186

Nader’s reasoning is pathetic. Because Obama doesn’t promise to have an uber-liberal agenda, he’s an Uncle Tom?

Between stuff like this and his “one word answer press conferences,” Nader is a joke at this point and nothing more. How sad.

By the way, how funny is it that he’s being called out by Fox News of all media outlets?

“What do they think? Do they think that the terrorists have all of a sudden become the good guys, and changed their minds? No! The terrorists still seek to destroy America and her allies and all that it is that is that we stand for: Freedom, tolerance, equality.”
- Palin at a rally in Jefferson City, MO today

Simplistic and misleading to the bitter end, eh Sarah?

Yeah, she’ll be back in 2012.

Sure…

My friend and colleague, Lagan Sebert, and I have just published a follow-up on the voting situation in Pennsylvania, arrowing in on a recent legal battle over paper ballots and the Philadelphia City Commission (which has kind of become a peculiar little beat for the ANP, I guess.)

This week, we attended the federal hearing against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (filed by the NAACP) and the last public meeting of the Philly City Commissioners before the election. We were surprised to see very few members of media at either meeting–Bob Warner of the Philadelphia Daily News was an exception.

If you like it, please do send this along to other people who might be interested or link to it or embed it on your websites! All ANP content is free for use in newspapers, blogs, television, and radio.

Chaos Looms Over Pennsylvania Vote
By Danielle Ivory on Oct 31, 2008

Philadelphia is shaping up to be a key city in a key battleground state in this election, but machine problems and long lines may plague the polling stations and voter disenfranchisement will be a serious risk. Unfortunately for voters, the people charged with running a smooth election in Philly seem surprisingly unconcerned. Philly’s veritable election czar, Marge Tartaglione (D), in particular, shocked ANP with her comments at a recent hearing. See more videos at the American News Project.

ANP has been investigating the perplexing case of the Philadelphia City Commission for a few weeks.

Click for our original story, Philly Official Scoffs at Voting Problems.

Click for our follow-up, Voters Sue Pennsylvania, Election Official Scoffs.

And click for the judge’s recent ruling in the case of the NAACP v. Cortes.

Follow Danielle’s reporting on twitter.

Follow Lagan’s reporting on twitter.

Just by way of introduction, the ANP is an independent non-profit video news organization in DC. We produce pieces for the web, but offer all of our content for free to newspapers, blogs, websites, radio, and television so please feel free to embed or share our videos. We see all visitors to our website as potential partners and hope that our community will eventually help fund specific beats, send us news tips and story ideas, and join us as freelancers. Another great site to check out is http://spot.us.

We’re convinced that journalistic collaboration will be essential to the future of news, and so far it’s worked pretty well for us. We’ve worked with McClatchy, The Nation, the Washington Independent, and The Huffington Post on investigative and breaking stories and look forward to more teamwork in the future.

Recently, I’ve been covering voting infrastructural issues for the ANP and found myself in Philadelphia. During the 2008 primary, parts of Pennsylvania (particularly areas with high concentrations of poverty and people of color) experienced major delays due to machine failures, and many voters ended up waiting in line for hours or getting disenfranchised. When I spoke to Philly’s Deputy Commissioner, Fred Voigt, I was startled by a strong sense of institutional inertia, an unwillingness to admit that serious problems exist and, what’s more, that these problems could possibly be fixed with better management and funding. Furthermore, he and the commission (headed by Marge Tartaglione) seemed alarmingly unconcerned about long lines leading to disenfranchisement. We aired a story about this on Monday, featuring this disturbing interview. Since then, the NAACP and the Election Reform Network have filed a lawsuit against the state or Pennsylvania, requesting that paper ballots be made available for the voters of PA in case there are machine breakdowns. ANP’s original story was quoted in the complaint—Voigt’s comments were described as an example of a “woefully inadequate” official response to election problems.

We aired a follow-up yesterday, covering the lawsuit and presenting more of our strange interview with Fred Voigt. I asked Voigt how voters could avoid lines, and gave me another surprising answer.

We’ll continue following this case and the state of voting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. (If you have ideas or tips, please feel free to email us at contact@newsproject.org.)

ANP: Voters Sue Pennsylvania, Election Official Scoffs

Click here to view our original story.

Click here to view the Voter Action complaint and plaintiffs’ memorandum.

And even given the chance to take it back, she didn’t? No wonder Virginia’s turning blue this year.

I can’t wait for Doug to weigh in on this.

“There’s no question Western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”
- John Murtha talking taking to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Broad charges of racism are dumb, lazy and don’t give credit to those who fight against areas where it does exists.

Murtha has subsequently apologized, but this is one Dem politician I’d love to see put out to pasture. I’ve never been a fan, as you can see from the title of this post back in 2006.

What a weird thing to say. God’s reputation? And let’s not ignore the very obvious and transparent attempt to once again tie Obama to the Muslim religion. Shame on him.

Even Fox News is reporting this…

And so it goes…

UPDATE:
The McCain camp responds…

“While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.”

Good to hear.

… do you know how John McCain pays for his $5,000 tax credit you’re going to get, a family will get? He taxes as income every one of you out there, every one of you listening who has a health care plan through your employer. That’s how he raises $3.6 trillion, on your — taxing your health care benefit to give you a $5,000 plan, which his Web site points out will go straight to the insurance company. And then you’re going to have to replace a $12,000 — that’s the average cost of the plan you get through your employer — it costs $12,000. You’re going to have to pay — replace a $12,000 plan, because 20 million of you are going to be dropped. Twenty million of you will be dropped. So you’re going to have to place — replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company. I call that the “Ultimate Bridge to Nowhere.”

The thing is, Biden wasn’t telling the whole story. In fact he his statement was very misleading. He made it sound like Americans will be shortshrifted their health care, as employers dump their health care plans and force Americans to have to buy health care with very little help from the government.

Now, I do think there is a lot to be desired in McCain’s plan. For one, I don’t know if will help ensure the nearly 50 million currently without any health insurance. But Biden’s assessment of the plan is at best, misleading.

Writing in the New Atlantis, Joseph Capreta explains in pretty clear terms how the plan would work:

Suppose a worker gets $50,000 in cash wages and $12,000 in health insurance.

Right now, he pays federal income taxes on the wages but not the health insurance. Let’s assume, for reasons of simplicity, that the tax rate he is paying is a flat 25% on his wages. He therefore pays $12,500 in federal income taxes. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $37,500.

Now, under the McCain plan, his employer keeps paying the premium, which is now counted as income to the worker. He therefore pays federal income taxes on $62,000, or $15,500.

But he also gets a tax credit of $5,000 for health insurance, which means that, all in all, he owes $10,500 in federal taxes, or $2,000 less than he does today. His after-tax, after-health-care income is $39,500.

If the worker decides to buy his insurance in the open market instead of through the employer, the result will be the same. His employer is indifferent to how he pays his worker as long as total costs are the same. So instead of paying premiums, the employer pays his worker $62,000 in cash wages and does not pay anything toward insurance. The worker again owes $15,500 in taxes on this compensation, and he also must buy health insurance costing $12,000. So, his pre-tax income is $62,000, he owes $12,000 in health insurance premiums, and he owes $10,500 in federal taxes (after claiming his credit). His after-tax, after-health-care income is the same: $39,500 ($62,000 – $12,000 – $10,500), or $2,000 more than today.

So Biden was being very simplistic in saying that people’s taxes go up and we get a measly $5000 check. Yes, taxes would go up because wages would go up. However, the tax credit would help offset some of the tax bite. Ross Douthat explains a bit better than I ever could:

This is an argument you hear frequently from liberals: That McCain’s plan will tax employer provided health insurance, which is worth roughly $12,000 for a typical family, which in turn will lead many employers to stop offering said health insurance; meanwhile, the plan will give the same family a tax credit worth only $5,000 to pay for the same plan they used to have through their employer. This makes the whole thing sound like a pretty rotten deal, but it also begs a pretty big question: What happened to that extra $7,000 that employers were spending on health care under the old dispensation? To hear Biden tell it, it’ll just vanish into thin air. But that’s just absurd. Right now, that $12,000 plan is part of your compensation; it’s just that the current tax code incentivizes employers to pay you in health insurance rather than in cash, because the health insurance is tax free. But that doesn’t mean that if health insurance stops being tax free and employers stop including it in your package of salary and benefits, they’ll suddenly cut everyone’s compensation by $12,000; they’ll cut it by the cost of the tax deduction, presumably, and wages will rise to roughly where they would have been if employers had never been incentivized to pay their workers in health care. So the typical family will get their $5,000 credit from the government, and something like the remaining $7,000 they need to buy health insurance will show up in their paycheck. Except that a lot of Americans will actually come out ahead, rather than just breaking even, since McCain’s plan offers a flat credit regardless of income, whereas under the current system the dollar value of your tax deduction – and thus the compensation your employer is incentivized to give you – goes up as your income rises.

As I said before, there are some good reservations about McCain’s plan. It’s just that the concern that Biden brought up, just isn’t one of them.

Alright…this has gone beyond silly and is now firmly into the “insulting our intelligence” category.

Listen to what she had to say to Fox News about the Couric interview…

“I did feel there were a lot of things she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a VP candidate stands for, what the values are that are represented in our ticket,” Palin said. “I guess I have to apologize for being a bit annoyed, but that’s also an indication about being outside that Washington elite, outside that media elite also, and just wanting to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for.”

Yeah, that’s why the Couric interview went bad…because she didn’t ask you the right questions.

Let’s run down some of the key questions Gibson and Couric asked Palin that she flubbed…

• Her views on the Bush Doctrine.
• Her philosophy on earmarks, McCain’s philosophy on earmarks and a challenge about Bridge to Nowhere.
• Her views on global warming and a challenge about it being man made.
• Her foreign policy experience as it relates to Alaska being close to Russia.
• Her take on the economic crisis and McCain’s rescue plan.
• Examples of when McCain has called for more regulation instead of less.
• What has shaped her world view and where does she get her information from?
• Her views on Roe v. Wade and other landmark SCOTUS decisions.

And yet somehow these don’t qualify as being about Palin’s values or the values that would be represented on the McCain/Palin ticket?

And, do note, there are many more questions both interviewers asked (I don’t count the Hannity interview), and nearly all of them had to do with what she thought about key issues.

Seriously, how dumb does this woman think we are?

Oh, but wait…there’s more…

“Man, no matter what you say you are gonna get clobbered,” Palin told Fox about her heavily-scrutinized performance. “You choose to answer you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to pivot and try to go onto another subject that you believe Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that too.”

No Sarah, you “get clobbered” for many different reasons, not the least of which is when you answer a question with talking points strung together so incoherently that nobody can determine what you meant.

On the flip side, you don’t get clobbered when you answer a question with clear, concise ideology that fits into your party’s worldview. This isn’t tough stuff, and yet you continue to dig yourself further into a hole by blaming the media for your own failings.

By the way…any plans for holding public press conferences or going on the Sunday newsers? Or would those not allow you to express your views without a filter either?

Moving on…