Sunday, September 14, 2008 Lim: Palin By Melanie T. Lim Wide Awake
LISTENING to Sarah Palin’s first interview was telling.
Gone was the voice of confidence reverberating at the Republican convention. In place was the sometimes unsure and quivering voice of a woman who drowned herself in a “blizzard of words” as ABC’s Charlie Gibson remarked when Palin could not offer a simple “yes” or “no” answer as to whether the US was justified in perpetrating cross-border attacks.
I don’t think Charlie Gibson was tough on Sarah Palin. I think the issues of the day were tough on Sarah Palin.
She was completely clueless when Gibson asked her about the Bush doctrine. And while many Americans may not have heard of the Bush doctrine, it’s hardly acceptable for anyone running for vice-president of the United States to be ignorant of the cornerstone of American foreign policy in the last six years.
She brazenly flip-flopped on her views on global warming—-now saying that human activity contributes to climate change. When pressed by Gibson about conflicting statements in the past, Palin boldly replied, "Show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect or no effect on climate change. I have not said that,"
"A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location... I'm not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made." This is what Palin told Newsmax, an Internet news site. And in an interview with a Fairbanks newspaper last year, Palin said, “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.”
Of course, this is not the first time Palin has flip-flopped. For while she boasts of having said, “No, thanks,” to the controversial $398 million Bridge to Nowhere, she conveniently leaves out the fact that she, in fact, initially supported it and only pulled out after the project was seen as a beacon of legislative abuse.
When asked about what insights into recent Russian actions she had gained by living in Alaska, Palin replied, “They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."
Matt Damon thinks it’s absurd for Sarah Palin to be running for vice-president. I agree. And let’s not call Damon ungentlemanly. Let’s call a spade a spade. Let’s stop hiding behind the “sexist” catch-phrase.
Sarah Palin is NOT being grilled because she is a woman. Her qualifications are NOT being questioned because she is a woman. Sarah Palin’s actions and statements are under intense scrutiny because she dares say she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the United States presidency.
While the best of mentors can impart knowledge to a neophyte of exceptional intelligence in a relatively short period of time, insight is not something that can be developed overnight even by the smartest of students.
And while Palin coughed up enough knowledge to survive her first interview, she just couldn’t fake insight in the end. Palin has to sell more than the sizzle to win this election.
