I haven’t blogged about Gov. Palin in some time. But the news that the McCain camp is hoping to postpone indefinitely the vice presidential debate piqued my interest in tonight’s Katie Couric interview with Palin. I’m not sure what to say about this video. You really have to watch yourself to appreciate how Palin cooks up a stew of talking points peppered with a Dadaist rejection of reality.
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37 comments
September 24, 2008 at 7:09 pm
dana
Can I be the Dormouse?
September 24, 2008 at 7:22 pm
ari
Of course.
September 24, 2008 at 7:22 pm
eric
What, are you sleepy?
September 24, 2008 at 7:25 pm
dana
I’ll just take a nap till after the election.
September 24, 2008 at 7:31 pm
SEK
I’d been writing something about this, but really, there’s no need. The interview (and interviewee) speaks for it (and her) self — which is, of course, something she’s not allowed to do, except in approved interviews with scripted questions . . .
BUT OBAMA SAYS “UH” A LOT WITHOUT A TELEPROMPTER!
. . . but the real disaster here is that Palin’s trying to portray herself as a ready for The Show and her knees were buckled by Couric’s 65-mph fastball down the fat of the plate. That she didn’t expect the question — and that her handlers thought she could answer direct questions for two hours by saying maverick this and maverick that — makes me very, very happy.
And yes, Obama says “uh” a lot when he doesn’t use a teleprompter, my friends. But if we, as Americans, my friends, are going to focus on linguistic placeholders which — as we all know, everyone except Harold Bloom uses — then we ought to pay attention to all of them, my friends, my fellow Americans, you cute little fundaments of the American economy you . . .
September 24, 2008 at 7:36 pm
dana
FEED YOUR HEAD.
September 24, 2008 at 7:47 pm
ari
I’m worried that Dadaists didn’t so much reject reality as disparage it or maybe even play with it. Vance? Are you around? What say you?
September 24, 2008 at 7:56 pm
Jeremy Young
Bush with Tina Fey glasses.
September 24, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Jeremy Young
Correction: looks like she ditched the Tina Fey glasses for this interview.
September 24, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Nate
Wait, stop the presses, Harold Bloom doesn’t use placeholders? ;)
September 24, 2008 at 8:37 pm
rja
Re: Dadaists: Can we please not diss them by comparing them to Palin? They really don’t deserve it.
September 24, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Josh
If I take the blue pill, will all of this go away?
September 24, 2008 at 8:41 pm
ari
Sorry, rja, I knew that was unfair even as I typed it.
September 24, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Vance
I don’t know much about Dada — from what I’ve seen of the writing, their relation to reality was a simple refusal to play its game. Palin does play its game, superficially, but moves the goalposts all over the place.
September 24, 2008 at 9:34 pm
bitchphd
She can’t possibly still appeal to anyone. Can she?
Also, it’s vastly entertaining watching the expression on Couric’s face.
September 24, 2008 at 9:38 pm
ben
I’m sure she appeals to lots of unappealing people.
September 24, 2008 at 9:42 pm
A White Bear
Also, it’s vastly entertaining watching the expression on Couric’s face.
Totally. It’s the face you make when you’re talking to someone who is either very dumb or completely insane, and you fear that the latter may be more likely than the former.
September 24, 2008 at 9:49 pm
ben
The way she constantly refers to John McCain is sickeningly sycophantic, and makes her seem like a child.
Oooh, John McCain!
Oh, my god, Palin really doesn’t have anything to say, does she? That closing exchange is merciless. A helpful transcript.
September 24, 2008 at 9:57 pm
ari
Couric looked the way I feel: her face bespoke a sense of nausea mixed with disbelief. Is this all a massive performance art piece, she seemed to be wondering, McCain’s way of punking the country and underscoring the emptiness of our media culture while hastening the onset of the End Days? It’s disconcerting because it’s really happening.
September 24, 2008 at 9:59 pm
A White Bear
Palin’s sort of playing Rexella to Mac’s Jack Van Impe.
September 24, 2008 at 10:02 pm
ben
Prior to googling, I assumed that Rexella and Jack Van Impe were characters in some B vampire movie.
September 24, 2008 at 10:04 pm
A White Bear
You clearly were never abandoned as a child in a stranger’s basement for several hours a day with nothing but a TV for company.
September 24, 2008 at 10:06 pm
A White Bear
(I’m not complaining; I learned all about painting from Bob Ross, Showcase Showdown strategies from TPIR, and the complete works of the Monkees and the Brady Bunch, all while perfecting a killer Rexella imitation to my brother’s JVI. We were wickedly good.)
September 24, 2008 at 10:09 pm
ben
I’d dearly love to see the entire unedited interview. Or, rather, to read a transcript thereof.
September 24, 2008 at 10:11 pm
ari
Ask and ye shall receive.
September 24, 2008 at 10:12 pm
ari
Sorry, not complete. But it’s the best I can on short notice.
September 24, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Colin
No sympathy? Couric taunts her with “he has almost always sided with less regulation” and Palin *knows* that’s true, and her Alaskan synapses must be firing like crazy up on the word “regulation” because she hates it even more than McCain, but she can’t go there.
September 24, 2008 at 10:17 pm
ben
Yeah, that’s the same transcript I already linked. Though it does contain the additional information that there will be more of the interview broadcast later.
September 24, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Brad
That was amazing. The main stream media, asking vaguely hard questions, following up on dodge answers. It really is the End Times.
September 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm
bitchphd
I actually thought Couric’s expression was straight-up “I can’t believe I’m wasting valuable prime time with this idiot.”
September 24, 2008 at 10:21 pm
ari
Now you want me to click your links? You ask a lot, don’t you?
September 24, 2008 at 10:22 pm
ben
Now you want me to click your links?
GGG, man.
September 24, 2008 at 10:24 pm
ari
Shall I pretend to know what that means? Not even google is helping much.
September 24, 2008 at 10:25 pm
A White Bear
These are not hard questions! When The View asks McCain whether he wants to overturn Roe v. Wade and he blathers back and forth about being pro-life but respecting women but thinking it’s a bad decision but wanting private decisions, no one’s being tricksy in question-asking. When Couric asks Palin whether McCain supports regulation of the economy and she shits herself trying to blurt out something totally content-free, no one’s being tricksy. It’s just that these are both big wedge issues for basically everyone, and no one passionately on either side of either issue wants to vote for someone who doesn’t support their own views. Thank Jeebus the lightweights (Letterman, The View, Couric) are getting in on the pwnage-frenzy; it’s everywhere and it’s unavoidable. Your R ticket, folks, is two crazy assholes who don’t love you enough to risk alienating your worst enemies.
September 24, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Vance
Dan Savage is the way to bet, I think.
September 24, 2008 at 10:30 pm
ari
Thanks, Vance.
September 25, 2008 at 9:34 am
Aaron
put your Palin-hatin’ somewhere it counts
http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/fight-back-broadcast-the-truth-about-sarah-palin
Donate towards a full-page anti-Palin ad in a swing state newspaper (Cincinnati Enquirer). Only when we raise the cost of the ad does everyone donate their pledge.