Amazing. All over the news today are headlines about how Sarah Palin passed her big mid-term exam at last night’s debate. “G.O.P. Ticket Survives a Test,” the New York Times says. “Palin Recaptures Her Image.” Doesn’t anyone understand the difference between a “debate” and an interview in which people actually have to answer questions? Not only did she not answer questions, but she made it a point of some weird populist anti-media pride not to, saying outright that she did not feel compelled to answer any questions.
On NPR this morning, the brilliantly cool Brian Lehrer gently mocked her, telling his guests that he would ask them questions, and they could answer whatever imagined question they felt like.
And that’s exactly what Palin did, launching into rehearsed talking points that had little relevance to the question, often clearly reading them verbatim from the cheat sheet on her lectern. (Her answer to a question on nuclear arms – excuse me, “nucular”; she’s a darn-tootin’ Bush loyalist on that illiteracy – clearly went off script, because the old Palin gibberish shone through.) After the question about her “Achilles heel,” she seemed to push the wrong button on her robot remote, and out came a totally irrelevant answer. Or perhaps she didn’t know what an Achilles heel is.
A comment on the Times web site put it well: “I have a radical proposal. How about a debate where the debaters are CUT OFF when they stray from the question?”
As her handlers shoved their robot onto the stage, they clearly told her to keep chirping out the word “maverick,” which she dutifully did, even though Biden destroyed that image with his clear recitation of McCain’s lockstep loyalty to Bush on the big issues. Another posting on the Times site is worth repeating: “Lotta ‘maverick’ references here. Being from Texas I should point out that a Samuel Augustus Maverick is the source of this word, who let his calves run loose without any political, economic, military or emotional restraint, never mind a brand. Just cut ’em loose and hope for the best.”
Other postings pointed out how with all her pathetic winking and nose-crinkling (one referred to her as a Barbie doll), she was mainly just trying to flirt with voters.
Palin proved nothing; no one made her answer questions.