The Sarah Palin Show: Palin Agrees with Obama - on abortion - well, sort of

I wasn't sure I had heard it correctly, but when I went back to check the transcript, there it was; Governor Sarah Palin suggesting a way forward on the divisive issue of abortion. And the way she said it sounded, at first blush, like an Obama quote.

I have to admit that on the issue of abortion I'm more on board with Governor Palin than Senator Obama. But I've appreciated Obama's attempts to try and find a way out of the polarizing impasse.

It appears as if Palin was trying to do the same in the response she gave to Gibson's queries about the issue in the interview broadcast as a blurb on tonight's ABC news cast. Probing the accusation that she takes a hard core approach to abortion, what Gibson got instead was a white flag. Yes, she was playing politics. But it beats her pit-bull attacks at the convention. In this case I choose to be optimistic.

Note (with astonishment) how close the two sides are:

Palin: (from abc.com) What I want to do (is to) be able to reach out and work with those who are on the other side of this issue, because I know that we can all agree on the need for and the desire for fewer abortions in America . . .



Obama: (at the Saddleback forum.) What I can do is say there are ways that we can work together to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies so that we actually are reducing the sense that women are seeking out abortions . . .

"I think the better answer -- and this was reflected in the Democratic platform -- is to figure out, how do we make sure the young mothers, or women who have a pregnancy that's unexpected or difficult, have the kind of support they need to make a whole range of choices, including adoption and keeping the child."

The Sarah Palin Show: "Doublespeak"

A couple of things from tonight's interview on ABC evening news. Not sure I'm going to get to watch the longer interview on 20/20. My wife, who is part of the demographic that is supposed to go ga-ga over Sarah Palin - middle aged white evangelical (as am I) - has said that she's tired of seeing Palin's face on our TV. She finds her hard to stomach, particularly after watching her snarky performance at the Republican National Convention. Hard to see anything even dimly reflective of her professed Christian convictions there.



Here are a couple of observations (see next blog for the most astonishing statement of the night):

1. Governor Palin was far more relaxed tonight and didn't give the sense that she was repeating memorized policy statements. She was way out of her league last night. Tonight she was in familiar territory, speaking about issues she's had to deal with on the local and state level. I think we were actually hearing her own thoughts and words. First time since since the convention.

2. Any talk about Governor Palin being a "different kind of politician" needs to be set aside. This is a slippery politician who has learned how to deflect difficult questions with a kind of verbal sleight of hand. And she's a master at it, as the following exchange with Gibson on "the Bridge to Nowhere" shows:

(from abc.com)

Sarah Palin on 'Bridge to Nowhere':

GIBSON: You have said continually, since he chose you as his vice presidential nominee, that I said to Congress, thanks but no thanks. If we're going to build that bridge, we'll build it ourselves.

PALIN: Right.

GIBSON: But it's now pretty clearly documented. You supported that bridge before you opposed it. You were wearing a T-shirt in the 2006 campaign, showed your support for the bridge to nowhere.

PALIN: I was wearing a T-shirt with the Zip code of the community that was asking for that bridge. Not all the people in that community even were asking for a $400 million or $300 million bridge.

GIBSON: But you turned against it after Congress had basically pulled the plug on it; after it became apparent that the state was going to have to pay for it, not the Congress; and after it became a national embarrassment to the state of Alaska. So do you want to revise and extend your remarks.

PALIN: It has always been an embarrassment that abuse of the ear form -- earmark process has been accepted in Congress. And that's what John McCain has fought. And that's what I joined him in fighting. It's been an embarrassment, not just Alaska's projects. But McCain gives example after example after example. I mean, every state has their embarrassment.

GIBSON: But you were for it before you were against it. You were solidly for it for quite some period of time...

PALIN: I was ...

GIBSON: ... until Congress pulled the plug.

PALIN: I was for infrastructure being built in the state. And it's not inappropriate for a mayor or for a governor to request and to work with their Congress and their congressmen, their congresswomen, to plug into the federal budget along with every other state a share of the federal budget for infrastructure.

GIBSON: Right.

PALIN: What I supported was the link between a community and its airport. And we have found that link now.

GIBSON: But you didn't say no to Congress, well build it ourselves until after they pulled the plug. Correct?

PALIN: No, because Congress still allowed those dollars to come into Alaska. They did.

GIBSON: Well, but ...

---------

Gibson finally gave up and went on to other matters which she also skillfully deflected with teflon-like ease. Which means that an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh is most appropriate here.

Clearly any thought McCain had that he was getting a "straight-talking" partner is pretty much blown out of the water by these interviews. There's a reason Palin got as far as she did in Alaska politics. She's learned how to play the same kind of political games they all play.

"Doublespeak (sometimes double talk) is language constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. Doublespeak may take the form of bald euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs) or deliberate ambiguity."

from Wikipedia

The Sarah Palin Interview Part 3: Global Gobbledegook

I'm wondering if I'm the only one who wasn't sure exactly what Governor Palin was saying about global warming. Is it man made or not? That was Gibson's question. Pretty straight forward. But the governor did a song and dance around this one, particularly when she was confronted with the fact that she had denied that it was man made.

My take on Palin's take on this was that she was trying hard to soften her earlier approach to the issue by claiming nuance where such nuance didn't exist. "I didn't say it wasn't man made," she claimed, "when did I say that?" And then she launched into the kind of double-speak we've come to expect from our pols. In other words, more of the same. "What I said ," she said to paraphrase liberally. "was that perhaps it might be true ( or not )under certain circumstances, given the right climatic and atmospheric conditions, to say that global warming, at least what some might call global warming, might be considered man made without actually making the claim that it is completely man made because natural conditions also come into play here. Or not."

Huh??

Final observation: while much has been made about Governor Palin being a formidable force who will easily hold her own in a debate with Joe Biden, I'm not so sure. I don't think she's all that good thinking on her feet. Here's why.

When Gibson began to push the governor outside the boundaries of her learned script she looked a bit dumbfounded, the kind of dumbfounded that makes you embarrassed for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, but is pretending that they do. OK, not everyone knows what the Bush doctrine is. No big deal there. But the deer in the headlights flicker of panic on her face when she realized she didn't have a clue what Gibson was talking about followed by her attempt to cover up her ignorance with the kind of answer students give when teachers hit them with an unexpected test question ("During the Dark Ages it was mostly dark.") was embarrassing.

Biden will have to tred lightly or risk the "truth squad" going after him for sexism. But in a fair debate on issues which will call for some kind of substantive responses I can't see her coming off very well at all. I think in the end she may end up being the embarrassment we all assumed she would be when we heard that McCain had picked her.