This is why I can’t watch Ben Stiller movies or anything like “meet the parents”… it’s just too horrible.

Posted by Josh on 26 September 2008 @ 6am

These interviews are giving me nightmares.

Putin-rearing his head – did she take that line from the movie “Groundhog Day”?

Posted by VA Breeze on 26 September 2008 @ 9am

It’s not that she’s stupid. It’s that she’s basically some random person pulled off of the street who can not possibly hope to compete at this level.

It’s like if you took some kid from a decent high school football team and said ‘here, you go be the starting quarterback in the Superbowl.’ The kid is going to get clobbered. No matter how much talent and motivation he has, you just cannot possibly cram years of experience and training and exercise into a couple of weeks and expect to win.

Don’t get me wrong – someone doesn’t have to have spent 12 years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to become credible on foreign policy. It could just be a matter of surrounding yourself with experts for a few years and constantly talking to them. Have a long reading list that you work through. Spend a few months studying the history of Russia and the history of Islam and the evolution of policy on China. An intelligent person can do this in the matter of a few years and if they also happen to have good judgment and a sound temper, they can make a good President. Obama did this. Bill Clinton did this. Mitt Romney did this. All of them came into Presidential politics without real experience, but they had done the work to become conversant and educated about the issues. Probably Sarah Palin could do this given a few years. But not in 6 weeks.

Posted by Jackson Landers on 26 September 2008 @ 9am

Verbiage is off-limits.

Posted by MB on 26 September 2008 @ 9am

Just imagine if she had incorrectly named FDR as the president when the Great Depression started… oh boy!

Posted by Agitator on 26 September 2008 @ 9am

She can see Putin’s plane from her house.

Posted by Janis Jaquith on 26 September 2008 @ 10am

You’re not alone, Waldo. My friend just threw something at me in the library, so that I could share in the pain of this interview with him. “It hurts to listen!!! Oh my god, she can see Russia! They’re RIGHT THERE!”

Posted by Genevieve on 26 September 2008 @ 12pm

McCain should have suspended HER campaign. He’s dating Joe Lieberman again – could there be a new mavericky stunt in the works?

Man, it must just suck to be a Republican, and have to watch this.

Posted by Bubby on 26 September 2008 @ 2pm

This is the sort of thing all fathers should point out to their daughters and say, “See honey? You can do anything or be anything you want in this world. The sky’s the limit…as long as you’re pretty and thin.

“Don’t bother with book-smarts. Look where it got Hillary. Are you really going to eat that?”

Posted by Sam on 26 September 2008 @ 4pm

I figured out what her performance reminds me of…it reminds me of myself whenever I’ve interviewed for some position I had no business interviewing for. You know, when you have no real foundation in the thing you profess to be your competency. So you just smile brightly, *act* confident, and lamely stab about with your words, hoping to hit something remotely appropriate but knowing inside that you’re just completely full of shit.

I almost feel sorry for her–there’s no way she doesn’t know that she has no idea how to answer these questions.

Posted by Cecil on 26 September 2008 @ 4pm

I just watched another few minutes of last night’s interview with Couric. My Lord. Sarah Palin is just babbling. She clearly has no understanding of these topics, and rather than admit it, she talks and talks without every saying anything.

It’s nothing short of stunning that any reasonably well educated adult could watch these and feel anything but that sting of empathetic shame. This really isn’t a matter on which intelligent minds may disagree: Sarah Palin is utterly out of her depth.

The shame is that, if Barack Obama wins, many of the people now defending Palin will immediately admit that she was the drag on McCain’s ticket, and that they always thought that she was a moron. This is a particularly frustrating trait among partisan pundits (and I include bloggers here)—claiming that one thing is true until election day, and then claiming that they never really believed what they were saying. I can totally understanding saying nothing when your guy is making a fool of himself. But claiming that he’s actually a genius, only to reverse that statement post-election? That’s just weak.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 26 September 2008 @ 6pm

But claiming that he’s actually a genius, only to reverse that statement post-election? That’s just lying.

I hope you don’t mind me fixing that for you. It’s astounding to me how quickly and gleefully people will immediately confess to lying–like, oh yeah haha, I was lying. Didn’t mean a single word. But it was about an election, so it’s okay.

Come to think of it, that’s nearly exactly what McCain did after the 2000 Primary, specifically in regards to the SC state flag.

Posted by Sam on 26 September 2008 @ 10pm

There was definitely a difference of tone w/r/t McCain, though. He seemed to be unburdening himself, even confessing that he’d been dishonest, IIRC. But I think you’re right about most people’s confessions, as if they’re giddy that their dishonesty was believed for so long. That’s something I hadn’t considered.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 26 September 2008 @ 11pm

Fortunately for me, my empathy meter was installed backwards. Schadenfreude, it’s delicious!

Posted by Kenton on 27 September 2008 @ 4am

I agree about being unable to watch uncomfortable moments. “Borat,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” these interviews.

Posted by Rusty on 30 September 2008 @ 9am