I haven’t watched Sarah Palin’s Oprah interview yet, but the Anchoress has and is unimpressed, specifically regarding Palin’s attitude towards her media antagonists (including the AP, which assigned 11 reporters to come up with some fairly flimsy “fact-checks” of Palin’s book):
I know Palin is a tough, frontier spirit, and that serves her well in many ways, but she needs to learn to delegate the punches, so that she can remain above the fray, or she will never get past this guarded, watchful, overly-cautious and defensive vibe that rang out of her like waves from a tuning fork on the Winfrey show, today. She has to know that someone else will throw the punch for her, and she has to learn to be okay with that.
Read the whole thing, as she’s got more on the topic. This is one of the emerging critiques of Palin among people on the Right who are more or less sympathetic to her: she’s a natural politician who connects well with people (obviously an Oprah interview is going to be mostly about the personal, not hard political issues; those interviews will be another day), and she’s been horrendously mistreated by the media, and yes, George W. Bush provided an object lesson in what happens to people who never push back at critics or the media, but at some point, she’s not going to go to the next level politically until she learns to let go of a lot of the criticism and let it wash over her.
We’ve seen with Obama what happens when a thin-skinned candidate gets through the election with minimal scrutiny and only in office really has to respond to criticism, with the result of demonizing individual critics and TV networks, using crude sexual terms like “teabagger” to describe ordinary citizens upset with his policies, taking the rostrum of the House to call his critics liars over a bunch of legislative provisions that were subsequently amended to acknowledge those criticisms, organizing campaigns to try to dismember organizations like the Chamber of Commerce that stand in his way, etc. By 2012, Americans are going to want a candidate whose response to critics is not Obama’s style of peevish vendettas. If Palin wants to challenge Obama, she will have to convince people that she’s not just tough enough to hit back, but sometimes tough enough to smile and take a punch.
She is a lying ignoramus, with neither education nor work ethic.
But, please, please nominate her in 2012.
Part I
I lived in Anchorage from 1999 to last March. She is attractive, charismatic, blue collar, and hyper ambitious. I’ve met her and stood next her several times interacting with civilians and soldiers. I’ll giver her credit for standing up to the entrenched GOP standard in 2005 but it was a cadre of white haired clueless senior citizens, ironically, just like the very individual that elevated her to her current fame.
Part II
But she is dense, redneck, white trash. Trust me when I say Wasilla is every bit any small town you’ll find in Arkansas, Iowa, Ohio, you name the rural state. But never underestimate her skills or drive. I mean really, who in the GOP is going to have an advantage on her? You people will be desperate for a conservative, attractive candidate. Despite their contradictions, that’s Mitt and Sarah. Can’t wait. Can’t wait.
Liar-the new meme from lefty masters. Still trying to find out what she lied about. Always fascinating that lefties can never utter it about Dems.
Ignoramus- of course, just like Eisenhower, Ford, Reagan,Dan Qualye, GWB-they are all idiots and every Republican Conservative for the rest of your life will also be idiots-I just saved you a lot of time having to get your orders from the home office.
No education-she has a college degree,but since it is not from a lefty Ivy league school I guess that doesn’t count.
Nor work ethic-from a person who voted for Obama-a man who never accomplished anything as a legislator, who voted “present” on tough issues in the Illinios Senate, who didn’t show up for almost 50% of the votes while in the US Senate and while a Senate sub-committee chairman-chaired oh yeah-exactly zero meetings.
I don’t sympathize much with Palin’s politics, but I do sympathize that she’s been treated unfairly. But being treated unfairly is part of the game, and she hasn’t shown any signs she’s going to overcome that. I can’t see how she can possibly remain viable as a national political figure, despite some qualities that are appealling.
Compare Palin to Obama to paint her in a positive light — OK by Crank. Compare Obama to Bush in the same way, and Crank cries foul. Frick you, Crank…
LMAO @ dch: Talk about a false dichotomy. There’s a huge difference between graduating from an Ivy League school and spending six years at five colleges to get a four year degree. Never mind that none of the schools she attended have a reputation for academic rigor or, and this is much more important, that there is no evidence Palin performed particularly well at any of them.
There are plenty of incredibly bright conservative voices out there, but Palin is far from being one of them. If she ever holds a press conference and actually answers challenging questions directly, perhaps she will change opinions out there, but there seems little chance of her having the courage to do that.
Al Gore’s collegiate transcript (including the divinity school that he flunked out of) appreciates the higher standard that you have for Sarah Palin. You guys always need lower standards for yourselves, seemingly.
// If she ever holds a press conference and actually answers challenging questions directly //
Barack Obama’s teleprompter has no comment, except to say “still not ready to answer questions on Afghanistan, the war of necessity”.
Rove! Halliburton! Torture!
dch,
Palin LIED when she said she told Congress “thanks, but no thanks” for the bridge to nowhere.
She wasn’t even governor at the time the project was scrapped.
I’m sure that won’t satisfy a “deep thinker” like yourself who still thinks Saddam Hussein threw the weapons inspectors out of Iraq* during the run-up to the war.
* That was one of W’s lies in the run-up to the war. You know W, he’s the guy you said didn’t lie during the run-up to the Iraq War.
BTW, studies show listening to others when they point out lies works better than sticking your fingers in your ears and repeating “Na na na na I can’t hear you!!” over and over again.
Berto, you might want to review the facts.