Video of Sarah Palin shooting a honkin' big assault rifle? Not really that big of a deal given that it's a big part of the party platform and it was done visiting the troops in Kuwait.
Embroiled in a scandal where she might have tried to get her abusive brother-in-law fired? Well, as far scandals go, I guess that's not the worst.
Video of Sarah Palin saying she doesn't know what the VP does? Really embarrassing.
17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant? Well, kids are off limits in politics...kinda, and the base will get a kick out of a kid being "not forced" into carrying a pregnancy to term and marrying the father.
Having been a member of a secessionist group in Alaska? Wait, really? How is she putting country first if she wants to leave the country? I know I live in a bit of a liberal bubble, but it's one thing after another with this VP pick. Are conservatives still excited to have her on the ticket and, if so, are they crazy? (Also, in the video she says "I've always said competition is sooo good." I know this was probably a quickly produced video, but that's just a stupid sounding line.)
Edit: It appears the answer to both questions is "yes."
Edit, the Second: Ok, I was skeptical and it seems to have been born out. That Red State link asserted that "under God" was added because it had been uttered by the founding fathers. According to Wikipedia, and the huge grain of salt that it comes with so I'm ready to be corrected if somebody has better information, the "under God" phrase was taken from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Great as Lincoln was, he wasn't a founding father of the United States. Founding fathers may have put those two words together at some point, but that wasn't where the phrase in the Pledge came from. And given the flippancy of the answer, I'm going to assume that Sarah Palin misunderstood either the question or the history of the Pledge.
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2 comments:
Hang on, other than casting tie-breaking votes in the Senate, no one really knows what the Vice President does. Just a cursory glance at recent political history should show that it goes very much on a case by case basis.
To me, one of the most shocking things about the Palin pick is that it comes now, in 2008, after 16 straight years of historically powerful Vice Presidents. Al Gore was, at the time, the most powerful Vice President in American history. And Cheney makes him look like a glorified mascot.
If John McCain had been nominated in 1992, while in his 50s, I doubt the Palin pick would be anywhere near as controversial as it is. Three things make it controversial.
1) McCain's age, which makes it relatively more likely that Palin would assume the Presidency.
2) The powerful and high-profile nature of the office of the Vice President.
3) The fact that McCain picked Palin without doing his due diligence.
Only the third factor would have been in play in 1992.
Well, I think both of us could come up with things other than casting tie-breaking votes that the VP does. Political speeches that the President finds politically problematic or impossible given their schedule. They meet with foreign and business leaders. Yes, it's all a bit vague and each VP makes the job their own, or perhaps the President makes the VP job their own.
The critique of Palin's comment is:
a) if you were being considered for a job and were unsure on the specifics you should probably do some research to see what previous holders have done,
b) you should be able to bullshit some kind of vague answer about what you'll do on the job,
c) you should never, never, never just say something as politically tone deaf as "I don't know what the job is," especially as a joke.
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