Goddamnit, I Wish We Had a Well-Informed Genius on the Ticket Instead of that Dummy We've Been Saddled With

Did I say I was against clean coal? I meant for clean coal.

Just like when I voted for the war I now criticize McCain for voting for, I really meant to vote against it.

I was told there would be no prepositions in this debate.

Incidentally, on that Katie Couric interview:

She pressed Sarah Palin on how the fact that her state neighbors Russia qualified her as far as foreign policy experience. Apparently Miss Katie forgot that every border-state governor claims this. And governors who don't govern border states cite their intense peer-to-peer negotiations with fellow governors as akin to foreign policy experience. Hey, it's dealing with the top representative of a different state. State. Sometimes "State" means country. See?

And when they're not doing that, governors preparing to run for President arrange goofy, phoney, make-work photo-ops in other countries to talk about expanding trade or tourism to show "they've dealt with foreign leaders."

Um, it's bullshit. Clinton talking with Shimon Peres (or whoever) about getting more Israelis to visit Arkansas, and more Arkansans to visit the Holy Land, is not foreign policy experience. It's Shimon Peres being nice to a guy who's running for President in order to kiss up to him and extract favors later, in case he wins.

"Expanding tourism" between Arkansas and Israel is not exactly a high-stakes negotiation fraught with peril. Shimon Peres is not likely to take off his shoe and start pounding it on a podium threatening to "bury Arkansas."

Were Sarah Palin running for President, she could have arranged dozens of these nonsense meet-and-greets and let's-talk-about-getting-more-Israelis-to-come-to-Hot-Springs sessions. But she wasn't. She was just doing her job and wasn't padding her presidential resume with the political equivalent of running for the Treasurer of the Model Rocketry Club because you think it will "look good" for the admissions officers at Brown U.

Or, actually, like Uhhhbama's sudden interest in conducting "foreign fact-finding missions" the moment he began running for President. 'Cause you know, if you want the straight shit from a foreign leader, the best way to accomplish this is to sit in front a dozen cameramen and shake his hand in a highly publicized session of "Hey How's It Going? Cool" diplomacy.

Wow! You just shook the hand of a foreign leader and got your picture taken with him. A feat accomplished by a mere 10% of his supporters and 100% of his supporters willing to donate a thousand bucks to his campaign. However did you manage such a coup, Senator Uhhhbama?

Also bullshit: Miss Katie asked Palin if she'd ever actually conducted negotiations with the leader of Russia. Um, no, she hasn't. Obviously. (Though Palin did sneak in the "trade mission" thing -- which is how Clinton proved his "foreign policy credentials," too.)

What didn't Katie ask? If Sarah Palin had conducted (or overseen) a high-stakes, multibillion dollar deal with Canada and dealt with Canadian officials about a negotiation rather more important and substantive than getting a couple dozen extra Jews to visit Little Rock every year.

Why didn't she ask this question?

Because she knew the answer. Which was "Yes." And she didn't want Palin to be able to talk that answer up.

Palin's mistake was that she didn't bullrush this answer in there, even if Miss Katie was deliberately avoiding asking it.

But was it a mistake? Chances are, Palin did bullrush this important fact in there, but Miss Katie chopped it out of the interview.

Wouldn't want to give people the wrong idea or anything.

posted by Ace at 06:27 PM

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