Comments on the Joseph Biden-Sarah Palin Debate
And Prior Interviews with Palin

With everyone chirping in with their evaluation of the Joseph Biden-Sarah Palin debate on October 2, 2008, here are a few comments for thinking people:

The questions that would be asked in the debate were given to the parties several days prior to the debate. That enabled any participant who was ignorant of such matters to have answers presented during coaching prior to the debate. For Sarah Palin, this was essential. Her answers during every prior session with interviewers showed her pathetic lack of knowledge and even common sense.

During the debate, Palin's responses were scripted, sometimes did not address the question, and were standard off-the-shelf answers that did not require detailed knowledge. Even if she had performed better at that debate, her prior comments during interviews were so bad that nothing could change the fact that her knowledge and demeanor were pathetically inadequate for high office.

A Newsweek (October 6, 2008) article on Sarah Palin, with the headline, "Palin Is Ready? Please!", stated:

When asked how living in the state closes to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus: "It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to−to our state. We mustn't blink."

If forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say if often, quite frankly, gibberish.

Couric asked about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. Here's the entire exchange: "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the, it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting its back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailouts is a part of that."

This is nonsense−a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. The more Palin talks, the more we see that it may be common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb.

Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician. She has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start.

Some of the asinine unscripted statements Palin made during prior  interviews when she did not have the questions known before her, for her handlers to give her the standard script:

• Palin stated several times that her international credentials are based upon her ability to see Russia from her home. This infantile answer was so flawed that nothing that she could ever say would show her competency to think clearly. She stated during at one time that her international credentials were based upon Russia at the western end of her resident state of Alaska and Canada at the southern end.
   
• When Couric again asked her to explain how Alaska's proximity to Russia "Enhances your foreign policy credentials," Palin responded: "Well, it certainly does, because our,, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, thee in the state that I am the executive of, and there ..." At that point Couric interrupted her and stated: "Have you ever been involved in any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?"
   
• Palin responded: "We have trade missions back and forth. We do. It's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to out state."
   
• When asked by CBS' Katie Couric about her prior statements that her foreign policy proficiency arose from Alaska's proximity to Russia, she stated: "That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land boundary that we have with Canada."
   
• Palin repeatedly stated that Iraq was involved in 9/11, when that relationship had long been debunked as a figment of the Bush presidency.
   
• During one speech to U.S. troops leaving for Iraq, Palin linked Iraq with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, something than was recognized as untrue by virtually everyone that had knowledge of the matter. She repeated the initial lies of the Bush-Cheney presidency. In her speech to troops departing for Iraq, Palin stated that they should "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans." Iraq, of course, had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. On the contrary, Iraq was hostile to the terrorists that carried out the 9/11 attacks.
   
• When asked by ABC's Charlie Gibson about Bush's doctrine, Pain gave the fuzzy and non-responsive talking point: "I believe that American has to exercise all options in order to stop the terrorists who are hell bent on destroying America and out allies. We have got to have all options out there on the table."
   
• When asked about whether the United States should go to war over the Georgia matter, Palin stated: "Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help." She had no idea that the president of Georgia initiated the attack, and no idea that war with Russia would result in thousands of nuclear missiles raining down on U.S. cities, effectively destroying the United States as a country.
   
• During another interview in response to whether the United States should go to war with Russia if Georgia was a member of NATO and was attacked by Russia, Palin responded: "If John McCain were asked, 'would we act to defend another NATO member that was invaded?' the answer would be yes; that is the core of NATO−the Article 5 security guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all."
   
• In another response, Palin gave the following unintelligible answer: "It's funny that a comment like that was kind of made to−Cari−I don't know, you know? Reporters..."
   
• A New York Times article referred to Palin this way: "It was surreal, the kind of performance that would generate a hearty laugh if it were part of a Monty Python sketch. But this is real life, and the stakes couldn't be higher. The idea that the voters of the United States might install someone in the vice president's office who is too unprepared or too intellectually, ... is mind boggling. The alarm bells should be clanging and warning lights flashing. You wouldn't put an unqualified pilot in the cockpit of a jetliner. The potential for catastrophe is far, far greater with an unqualified president."
   
• When asked what the office of the vice president does, about two months before she was selection by McCain to be his running mate, Palin responded: "As for the VP talk, I'll tell you. I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me, what is its exactly that the VP does every day."
   
• During a speech to students at the Wasilla Assembly of God church in June 2008, Palin stated: "Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. [Invading the sovereign country of Iraq on the basis of serial lying by White House politicians.] Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending soldiers out on a task that is from God." [God is behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq?]
   
• At the same church, referring to a gas pipeline that she promoted from Alaska to the United states, and was never funded or built: "I think God will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that." [All the United States needs is another religious fanatic in control of the country's destiny!]
   
• Palin repeatedly stated that she opposed the bridge to nowhere, when that statement was repeatedly found to be a lie, Palin repeatedly stated, "I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks.'"
   
• When asked about McCain's health plan, Palin  responded with an entirely different matter that was in her talking points: "I would like to respond about the tax increases," smilingly ignoring, with a smirch,  the question asked of her.
   
• During the Katie Couric interview, Palin stated that the financial rescue plan "has got to include that massive oversight that Americans are expecting and deserving," while at other times supporting the Republican agenda of removing government oversight.
   
• Palin praised Vice President Dick Cheney's activist activities in the Bush administration. She stated that the vice president's position should be broadened even more. Palin stated during the debate with Senator Biden, "I'm thankful that the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it." [Article I of the Constitution does not grant such power to the vice president.]
   
• She also stated during the Couric interview, referring favorably to Vice President Dick Cheney, "Well, our founding fathers were very wise in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position."

   A New York Times editorial (October 4, 2008) stated of Palin's vice president position:
   

  • It is hard to tell from Ms. Palin's remarks whether she understands how profoundly Dick Cheney has reshaped the vice presidency−as part of a larger drive to free the executive branch from all checks and balances. Nor did she seem to understand how much damage that has done to American Democracy.
     
  • [Palin implied approval of] Mr. Cheney's role in starting the war with Iraq, in misleading Americans [lying!] about weapons of mass destruction, in leading the charge to create illegal prison camps where detainees are tortured, in illegally wiretapping Americans, in creating an energy policy that favored the oil industry that made him very rich before the administration began.
     
• Among Palin's standard scripted statements to almost any question:
   
  • We've got to remember what the desire is in this nation at this time. It is for no more politics ass usual, and somebody's big fat resume maybe that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment." [She ignored such scandals in which McCain was involved as the savings and loan frauds in which McCain, in a group of five members of Congress, repeatedly blocked actions to halt the hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.]
     
• A typical example of the statesmanship required of people in high government offices, Palin stated during the debate as Biden referred to the corruption and misconduct of President George W. Bush, and of McCain:
   
  • "Say it ain't so, Joe! There you go pointing backward again. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future." [Palin expected the American people to ignore the evidence of what had occurred and what would follow, and simply take her word that the history of misconduct and poor judgment would not continue, simply because she said it.]
     
• Palin was repeatedly shielded from the media by the McCain team to avoid showing her incompetence. In the few times that she did appear, she was surrounded by McCain advisers. During one questioning session, Senator John McCain sat next to her, like a father protecting his daughter.
   
• Palin's repeated lies about rejecting the bridge to nowhere.
   
• Her brash arrogance during the debate, of ridiculing the position of veteran statesman Joseph Biden. One example was Palin's "white flag" description of Biden's views on the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while she lacked even the basic street smarts" necessary to engage in any such topic. 
   
• During Palin's closing remarks in the debate, Palin referred approvingly to a speech Ronald Reagan gave. Reagan had warned that if Americans weren't vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their "sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in America when men were free."
   
  •  What Reagan was warning against when he talked about menace to freedom was his opposition to Medicare legislation. Reagan felt that Medicare  was the advance wave of socialism that would "invade very area of freedom in this country."  [Impliedly, Palin would have blocked the Medicare legislation.]
     
• During the debate with Senator Biden, Palin repeated ignored the questions posed by the moderator, and stated the rehearsed talking points that she had been given. During one point, she stated to the moderator that she didn't care what the question was, she would respond with whatever answer she wanted, which was usually totally off the subject of the question and onto one of her rehearsed talking points. She gave rambling disjoined responses to questions that did not address the question. Palin had memorized talking points and was unable to provide intelligence specifics to questions asked.
   
• When she did get close to answering the question, she would pull something out of her memory bank that included days of coaching by the McCain team. And this would usually be a torrent of words that didn't say anything. Her rhetoric was mostly platitudes and buzz words that could only resonant with the most illiterate of the television viewers.
   
• With virtually no experience, even common sense experience, she chastised Senator Joseph Biden on matters relating to national security, as if she were some type of guru. If she were not a woman, Biden, who was mercifully patient, tolerated the brash and pathetic statements made by the Alaskan resident.
   
• Palin statements duplicated that of McCain, criticizing others for the serious shortcomings that she herself had shown. Another indication that she and McCain consider large segments of the American public to be gullible, and to be taken for fools.
   
• For those political pundits who praised her performance during the debate and prior interviews they were either blatant liars, willing to subject the health of the United States for whatever  cause motivated them, or they were stupid. It is improbable that they were stupid.
   
• As for her values:
   
  • Palin actually praised the fact that her daughter was pregnant and unwed, stating that it advanced her daughter, Bristol, into adulthood. That answer implied that all 16 and 17 year-old girls should get pregnant with someone so as to advance them into adulthood. Of course, who was going to pay for the medical bills and support of the mother and child was up to the taxpayer.
     
  • Praising the boy whose sex led to the child, Levi Johnston, who impregnated her daughter, despite his background. He was a redneck who placed a profanity-laden entry in the MySpace social site. Among the text on that site was the following: "I'm a (expletive) redneck who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.  I like to (expletive) and just (expletive) chillin I guess. Ya (expletive) with me I'll kick (expletive) "In the space for relationships, he wrote, "I don't want kids."
     
  • Todd Palin, her husbands role in a fringe political group in Alaska that supported secession from the United States.
     
  • Palin's prior membership in the Alaska Independence party that promoted the slogan, "Alaska First."
     
  • Palin's husband had been convicted of drunken driving.
     
  • Palin admitted smoking marijuana in the past, when such use was a criminal act or a misdemeanor.
     
  • As governor in Alaska, Palin fired competent people and replaced them with school chums and other friends, and despite their lack of qualifications.
     
  • Palin's involvement in "troopergate," in which she used her office to try to have her brother-in-law fired after he and Palin's sister were in a contested divorce.
     
  • Palin's violation of the law by refusing to testify in the firing of a government employee, and telling state employees not to testify, in the investigation. She blamed politics, but every republican on the committee authorizing thee investigation was Republican, as she was.
     
  • The refusal by Palin's husband to respond to subpoena about the firing, thereby violating the law..
     
  • Palin's belief that God dictates her actions.
     
  • Her misuse of office to have people fired who she disliked.
     
  • Portraying herself as a maverick. the definition of a maverick appeals to uneducated individuals that are influenced by rhetoric that is the main tool of con artists. A maverick is defined as a person with unorthodox views. That could include the religious fanatic leaders that praised President George Bush, it could be the actions of people such as Adolf Hitler, or any one of others, and just the personality needed to finish off the United States.
     
• Palin's lies, arrogance, brashness, and self-inflated image of herself makes her a perfect companion to Senator McCain. That segment of the American public−and their adoring pundits−deserve to have this albatross wrapped around their necks!

Summary:

This is the expertise that is expected to guide the United States through threats of nuclear annihilation, through the greatest financial disaster since the 1930s depression, and the other major issues facing the people of the United States. If there is a God, that help will be especially needed if there are enough dumb people that will elect McCain and Palin to the White House.

The people supporting Palin appear to be people that have a pathetically poor knowledge of events in government, and who think that anyone with a good smile and a gift of gab can handle the increasingly complex and dangerous matters affecting the United States.

These are the same people who voted for George W. Bush, when his background was a negative, who believed his serial lying, who accepted his statement that God was sending him messages. Even after his lying was proven, they still supported him. How stupid can they get!

These were the same people whose pious thinking was that it was acceptable to start a war with Iraq, to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Palin's election to governor in Alaska raises questions about the judgment of those who voted for her.

Senator John McCain, noted for his lying, and with a prior cancer condition, made it probable that the vice president would be placed into the position of president of the United States. And if that were to happen, the public can blame themselves for the dire consequences that will surely result from her decisions in the future.

 America Faces an Even Bigger Program−of Long Standing!

Palin was utterly unqualified, and would put the United States in grave danger if she held either the vice president or president position. The political pundits obviously recognized this. But many, for whatever reason they could have had, covered up for the danger that she would present, and even called her positions outstanding. When so many in the media, so many political pundits, are willing to put the United States at such great risk, the United States has even more problems than it recognizes.

This writer has documented, and reported in his many books, since 1978, how media people and lately, political pundits, have covered up for many major areas of corruption that made possible many tragedies before the present housing, financial, and credit crisis. See his books.