’)The thing is, the McCain camp is trying to spin this as a “quiz”. But a candidate – at any level – should know more than one supreme court case. This is stuff we all learn in elementary school.
Palin’s biggest mistake is when she doesn’t know the answer she talks more and more nonsense.
UPDATE: This looks even worse when you check out Joe Biden’s response to the same question. You know, a vice presidential candidate who knows stuff.
Owned.
She couldn’t even remember Dred Scott? Good lord, that’s the one the anti-choice lunatics have basically adopted to distort into a message about abortion. You’d think she had that one tattooed somewhere.
“…as a mayor and a governor…”
She can’t even cough up the name Kelo? Holy Mother of Joe DiMaggio!
The thing is, the McCain camp is trying to spin this as a “quiz”.
If somebody gives a surgeon a fifth grade anatomy quiz and he fails, should we be more concerned about the questioner or the surgeon?
She can’t even cough up the name Kelo?
That thar’s a damn good point, Quaker. I think they can kick you out of the GOP for not cursing the Kelo case when you wake up in the morning.
That thar’s a damn good point, Quaker.
Well, of course it is. Consider the source.
Not even Bush vs. Gore?! I mean their god W was in that one.
I used to be amused at the utter ignorance of this woman, now I’m just freaked.
I don’t think she’s stupid–just undereducated, clueless, stubbornly one dimensional and proud of it . . . .
And it doesn’t help that her backers have shit eatin’ grins on their faces cause she’s one of them.
Hell, even if she can’t actually name the case itself, she could have described the principal or circumstances it involved. Even something like “Well, there are cases where the Court has made decisions that I feel should be left up to the state, such as the one a couple years back when the Court overturned the sodomy laws in Texas” At least that would have indicated a familiarity with the case, even if she couldn’t name it. But yeesh!
Spoken like a true beauty contestant.
[...] UPDATE: Oliver Willis brings the sadness. [...]
Just a reminder
And as others have noted, Governor Palin’s Couric interview with McCain played a lot like a trip to the principal’s office with her father. Are any wingy wingnuts still defending this disaster? Any of the regulars here? Well OK, then.
More Palin please. Yes, free her. Get her out there.
Every time she opens her mouth, 100 Republicans decide they aren’t going to vote in November. And 100 Dems make sure they’re registered and know where their polling station is.
Well, Bush v. Gore is one whose outcome she probably agreed with, so technically speaking it wouldn’t have helped her much with the question.
In an alternate universe, a more qualified version of Sarah Palin scored more points with the base with something like “Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell”
(the alternate universe version of the base would have accepts her likelier answer, “The People v. Larry Flint”)
But back to the point: Good grief, Charlie McBrown
The reason that these questions come off as “quizzes” to Governor Palin is that she is completely ignorant. You simply cannot have a reasonable, thought-worthy discussion about politics with someone this green.
Conversely, the same question set was given to Senator Biden and he sounded like he had supported his decision with conscientious opinion.
Sure it’s a quiz. So what? Is it too much to ask that a VP candidate can handle a ridculously simple pop quiz about basic US civics? I mean, this wasn’t even at the level of “what’s the significance of Brown v. Board of Education?”, you get to pick any case you want!
Sheesh, they asked my dad harder questions than that last year and all he was doing was becoming a citizen.
Geez, she couldn’t even come up with Brown v. Board of Education? The one that the ‘pugs always cite as the dawn of “judicial activism”?
What. A. DINGBAT.
Well, Bush v. Gore is one whose outcome she probably agreed with, so technically speaking it wouldn’t have helped her much with the question.
Why would you say that. Why Governor Palin herself said.
Off..off topic. Sort of. (Sorry OW, but I know you will appreciate this movie reference at Palin’s expense.)
Whenever I hear Sarah Palin talk/speak, I am reminded of William Macy’s character in the movie “Fargo,”:
“All right…I’ll do a damn lot count, if that’s what you want.”
I can see it now..
“All right Katie..I’ll do a damn terrorist count…if that’s what you want.”
Prior to his choice of Palin as a running mate, McCain had some of my limited $$, and my vote. Then comes Palin, who IMO, makes Dan Quayle look like a member of MENSA. People, do a YouTube search of “Palin Couric” and feast.
I am a big fan of John McCain, always have been…but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that she either will assume the Presidency in the next 5 years, or if McCain doesn’t run again, in 2012.
Leaning Obama now. (OK..ya, who cares what this former Democrat turned GOP, now leaning Dem cares. Right?)
JK
Come home, JK, to the party that will PRACTICE “Country First” instead of just sloganeering about it.
Come home to the Democratic Party. You will be forgiven.
JK, there have always been smart, honest, principled people in the GOP, but nowadays they’re in shorter and shorter supply. You haven’t left the GOP, the GOP has left you.
Have to disagree with you though, about McCain. I always used to admire him too. Used to admire it when he used to take mavericky stances against the bulk of his party. I thought here’s a reasonable guy, a moderate, a pragmatist, I guy who won’t put up with bullshit or put party ahead of country (unlike Bush and his ilk). Even as late as this summer I was thinking and saying that hey, if we have to have a republican president again, we could do a lot worse than McCain.
No more. His eager wallowing in Rovian campaign tactics. His insane choice of Palin as his running mate with obviously no serious vetting. His drama-king histrionics over the bailout. All this make it clear as day that his mavericky stances are not mavericky stances at all but opportunitistic showboating, and probably have been all along.
McCain prides himself on making splashy decisions quickly, “quicker then the other guy”. And he boasts that if his hail marys turn out to be duds then he will manfully step up and take the lumps for it with no regrets. That’s fine, Senator, very John Wayne of you and all that. Problem is that if a senator pulls a boner, then the worst that happens is his nutsy bill doesn’t get passed, and some of his constituents and/or contributors don’t get their hunk of pork or their pet peeve petted. If a president makes a superman swoop and comes up short then wars are started, markets crash, cities drown. The Palin business makes it clear that McCain doesn’t understand that , or doesn’t care. The former would be pathetic, the latter despicable.
Point taken ed, I was thinking reflexively that Palin was ok with the Bush v Gore case ultimately deciding the election for Bush. Again, that is, if she were aware of the case, so it’s a moot point I guess.
Pop quiz, hot shot
“I am a big fan of John McCain, always have been…but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that she either will assume the Presidency in the next 5 years, or if McCain doesn’t run again, in 2012.”
It’s also not unreasonable to suggest that McCain’s choice of Palin says a lot about his judgement, whether Palin ever became president or not.
I was also struck by something Kevin Drum caught:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/10/palin_on_privacy.html#comments
Leaving aside Palin’s inability to name a single other court case, she doesn’t even understand one of the basic conservative arguments against the case she did know about.
Throw in her echo of Obama’s policy re: taking out Bin Laden in Pakistan, and I expect McCain’s biggest fear for tomorrow night is not that Palin can’t answer the questions. They can always spin incomprehensibility. It’s much harder to spin comprehensible answers that are opposed to conservative talking points.
Everything in a textbook is part of some “secular New World Order plot” to these Christofascists. In Sarah Palin’s world you go to Hell for paying attention in school
Here’s another take on Palin’s full answer to the right to privacy:
Palin doesn’t even realize that she’s just completely undermined a key conservative legal argument against Roe v Wade and so she continues on as if she hadn’t, stitching together two completely opposed arguments. How on earth does the McCain campaign expect to spin this kind of sloppy parroting?
link to the above: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/014982.php
Palin doesn’t even realize that she’s just completely undermined a key conservative legal argument against Roe v Wade
Hope JB asks her to clarify how she supported a right to privacy, but opposed RvW.
If he can get her to explore that theme, it will be very entertaining.
Joe Biden is like Joe Torre in the big game. Focused and impassive, familiar with the territory and knows every blade of grass on the field.
I think we should keep in mind that this woman hasn’t slept in a week, she’s terrified, for the last few days she’s been cramming facts like popcorn at the matinee, and now lives under the sort of pressure that no one should have to endure.
I’m betting on mindless, babbling implosion.
BTW, on that issue Biden was good. I actually didn’t know that. Thanks for the link.
Must have been really painful for the good conservative citizens who are just waiting for Biden to say something really stupid. Which reminds me, where are they tonight? Are OW’s contingent of trolls feeling just too discouraged?
This here’s my deal, Wade.
That McCain response is a VERY good sign.
I made a video visualization of Palin’s Supreme Court non-answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnUtmmb-yO8
It features the audio waveform overlaid with animated motion graphics of the transcript.
O- when would Caribou Barbie have time to learn about Supreme Court decisions- she’s a busy hockey mom raising five children?
If pressed, Plain might have said Kramer vs. Kramer or Alien v. Predator
I can’t believe that she used the word Federalist properly. It’s the little things.
Haven’t read the whole comment thread, so maybe this has already been posited, but…it’s quite possible that she had SEVERAL answers pop into her head that she knew she couldn’t say out loud. Her “states’ rights” comment may imply she was thinking of Brown v. Board, and her extremism on choice may also mean she thinks Griswold was a bad idea — but if she actually confessed to either of those on-camera, it would only serve to scare off more moderates.