Independent UK: The question is: Can Palin give a coherent answer?

[marmar]

The question is: Can Palin give a coherent answer?
David Usborne reports on the latest television performance by the Republican vice-presidential candidate

Saturday, 27 September 2008




The reviews of Sarah Palin's latest television appearance tumbled in yesterday and they were ugly. In only the third major broadcast interview since she was selected by John McCain as his running mate at the end of August, she seemed at times lost for words and not all those she spoke fitted together.

The financial crisis means less attention will be paid to it than might otherwise have been the case. It could be, meanwhile, that Mrs Palin's unhappy performance will lower expectations ahead of her encounter with Senator Joe Biden at the vice-presidential debate in St Louis next Thursday.

It remains possible that the CBS interview will be known as the moment when the high gloss that Mrs Palin wore upon her selection before the Republican convention – burnished by her performance in St Paul – began to fade.

Even as members of the American media strive to avoid appearing snobbish or elitist in their treatment of Mrs Palin, most commentators seemed unable to disguise their sheer consternation at a performance that at times seemed worthy less of a candidate for vice-president than for school president. "Marginally responsive," was the gentle verdict of the Los Angeles Times after watching the interview of Mrs Palin by Katie Couric, the anchor of the CBS Evening News, shown on Wednesday and Thursday. The influential blogger Andrew Sullivan complained that the Governor was skittering not between "talking points" but "babbling points".

At the debate in St Louis, Mrs Palin will need to be better prepared and more articulate. Especially surprising, perhaps, was her difficulty with a question that they could have seen coming regarding her repeated assertions that the proximity of Alaska to Russia gives her foreign policy experience. What did she mean, Couric asked?

"That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land boundary that we have with – Canada. We have trade missions back and forth. We – we do – it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America where – where do they go? It's Alaska." ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/race-for-whitehouse/the-question-is-can-palin-give-a-coherent-answer-944060.html

[meow mix]

1. where do they go?!1!

omg only i can saves us from the putinz!