And then throw in “It all depends on what your definition of “is” is.” ;-)

But your answer is correct; she’s actually answering questions flat out, which IMHO once again proves she’s either horribly naïve or her campaign staff and advisers are inexcusably incompetent.

It’s not like Kissinger’s statement was either reported on “page A23″ or was a throwaway line reported six months ago; it was reasonably well reported at the time.

At the very least I would hope Palin ripped her staff a new one over this as there’s no excuse for not having been briefed even if she herself doesn’t have the time to read even USA Today while on the campaign trail.

It’s like not knowing that at the same meeting Colin Powell (and the liberals present) all stated that “to restore America’s reputation” it was “vital” that we close Gitmo; she’ll need to know that too as well as why (hopefully at least) she believes that would be a bad move.

What can I say? I’m impossibly optimistic.

Fred Thompson’s public speaking engagements in the campaign often went much more poorly than they should have, given how well he wrote for his radio program and his performance in his YouTube videos.

The central point, to me, was that he just didn’t seem like he prepared. He should have rehearsed them as if he was rehearsing for a part, going over them, polishing them (but not too much), giving us what we heard on his ABC radio editorials.

Instead we got seemingly cold reads of the material, no laughs where he expected them, and so on.

Palin can do better – we saw how she handled the loss of her prompter during the RNC.

But the campaign should be hammering her day in and day out with every attack question they can think of, acting like MSM reporters and quite frankly raising even things like the “incest” question before someone in the Press does. Beating her senseless so that any major missteps like her error with the Kissinger statement happen with them, not with the working press.

But as with Thompson, they’re not, and in the process, she’s not prepared.

Don’t think Obama and Biden don’t have triple digits of staff members poring over the net for even the smallest issue to make sure their candidate is “prepared.”

Does the McCain/Palin campaign simply not know how to run a modern campaign where MSM hit pieces are the name of the game and gaffes like hers with Courics will be viewed in six digit figures on YouTube before the campaign even realizes there’s an issue? (The embarrassing bits of the interview being “unofficially leaked” to the net before they’re even broadcast.)

A campaign in which the MSM regularly acts in the way towards the GOP the way the MSM has always accused Rove of acting on Bush’s behalf?

Those running the campaign and Palin herself are either being severely naïve or completely incompetent.

I’m hoping for the former at this point, but one more interview like Couric’s and it’s clear the second will be the case, and quite frankly there isn’t time to recover if she turns in a similar performance against Biden next week. :(

The Elephant in the Control Room

Should Andrea Mitchell be reporting on the economic meltdown?

By Megan Garbe

When Andrea Mitchell reports on the current financial crisis—or on anything that relates to the crisis, which is, these days, a lot—there is an excessively large elephant in the control room. Its name is Alan Greenspan.

That Greenspan is Mitchell’s husband doesn’t, under normal circumstances, warrant disclosure or special treatment. Mitchell is a career journalist who knows what conflict of interest is—and how to avoid not only its appearance, but also, one hopes, its effects. Under normal circumstances, it would be unfair to hold her husband against her.

Under normal circumstances. But the credit crisis—and the current meltdown we’re facing, whose effects, assuming we can find a way to stanch them in the short term, will likely be with us for generations to come—is not normal circumstances. Greenspan, by virtue of his nearly-nineteen-year chairmanship of the Federal Reserve Board, is, to some extent, culpable in the crisis we’re facing. Critics have accused the Greenspan-led Fed of inflating the housing bubble by keeping loan rates too low for too long, encouraging reckless lending and borrowing. Greenspan himself has admitted as much, telling CBS last year, “While I was aware a lot of these practices were going on, I had no notion of how significant they had become until very late. I really didn’t get it until very late in 2005 and 2006.” And as The New York Times put it in a December 2007 article headlined “Fed Shrugged as Subprime Crisis Spread” (emphasis mine),

Until the boom in subprime mortgages turned into a national nightmare this summer, the few people who tried to warn federal banking officials might as well have been talking to themselves.

Edward M. Gramlich, a Federal Reserve governor who died in September, warned nearly seven years ago that a fast-growing new breed of lenders was luring many people into risky mortgages they could not afford.

But when Mr. Gramlich privately urged Fed examiners to investigate mortgage lenders affiliated with national banks, he was rebuffed by Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman. …

http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_.....p?page=all

I think the CJR is being kind; Mitchell should never be allowed to report on issues in which Greenspan is involved at all.

Could you imagine the flack a Fox News reporter would take if their spouse were in a similar position? There would be no disclaimer about their being a “professional journalist” and knowing where “the line” lies…

We’re seeing exactly what the MSM told us we’d see from a small-town mayor suddenly targeted for destruction by the networks.

If she and we are stupid enough to let that happen, we deserve to go down in flames, pure and simple.

My support isn’t wavering, but at this point she’s definitely not who I thought she was, something that infuriates me as that’s exactly how the MSM wants me to feel.

Yet logically, I’ve not seen a reason since the RNC why I shouldn’t and it’s likely a major reason for her (and the GOP’s) plummeting poll numbers.

I still think she’s wonderful and capable, but I’m not feeling unlike the way I did when Fred Thompson prematurely quit the race; a bit disillusioned and while I still support her I’m not sure I’d still have a “Sarah!” McCain/Palin sign sitting in my front yard right now. :(

Letterman keeps up verbal assault on John McCain

By David Bauder

NEW YORK – David Letterman kept up his verbal assault on John McCain, commiserating with Paris Hilton and saying he felt like an “ugly date” because the GOP presidential candidate backed out of an appearance on the “Late Show.”

The late-night CBS comedian was upset Wednesday when McCain canceled an appearance to deal with the economic crisis. After backing out of the Letterman show, McCain sat for an interview with Katie Couric, then didn’t leave New York until Thursday, further angering Letterman.

At first, Letterman said, he felt like a “patriot” to let McCain off.

“Now I’m feeling like an ugly date,” Letterman said. “I feel used. I feel cheap. I feel sullied.”

McCain spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace said the campaign “felt this wasn’t a night for comedy.”

“We deeply regret offending Mr. Letterman, but our candidate’s priority at this moment is to focus on this crisis,” Wallace said Thursday on NBC’s “Today.”

Later Thursday, Letterman banged away at McCain in his opening monologue.

“You’re here on a good night,” he told the audience. “So far none of our guests have canceled.”

He talked about daredevil David Blaine’s feat of hanging upside-down in New York’s Central Park for 60 hours.

“They just left the guy hanging there,” he said. “It’s the same thing McCain did to me last night.”

He described Hilton — Thursday’s guest whose celebrity was once used in a McCain campaign ad to mock Democrat Barack Obama — as McCain’s first choice for a running mate.

“Here’s how it works: You don’t come to see me? You don’t come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day,” Letterman said.

Noting that McCain wanted to postpone Friday’s first debate with Obama, Letterman said running mate Sarah Palin wanted to put off her debate with Democrat Joe Biden until after Election Day. Letterman said Palin’s meeting with world leaders at the United Nations was like “take-your-daughter-to-work day.”

Letterman’s Top 10 list was “surprising facts about Sarah Palin,” read by citizens of Wasilla, Alaska, where she was once mayor.

No. 10: Palin “sometimes calls John McCain grandpa.”

Later in the show, Letterman couldn’t resist another mention of “that John McCain” while chatting with Hilton, who replied, “I heard he dissed you. He dissed me.”

Milking the moment, Letterman consoled her: “You had a little run-in with him, too, didn’t you?”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200....._letterman

The pure arrogance:

“Here’s how it works: You don’t come to see me? You don’t come to see me? Well, we might not see you on Inauguration Day,” Letterman said.

Yet, Obama feels he can’t do a 30 second guest shot on SNL as he “felt it was inappropriate in the face of the suffering caused by Hurricane Ike” and he gets a complete pass from the media?

Why, of course.

A Question Reprised, but the Words Come None Too Easily for Palin

By Alessandra Stanley

Her first interview, with the ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, was too hard. The second, with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, was too soft. The third, however, did not turn out to be just right for Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

On the “CBS Evening News” on Thursday, Katie Couric asked Ms. Palin, Senator John McCain’s running mate, what she meant when she cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as foreign affairs experience. Ms. Palin could have anticipated the question — the topic of their interview, pegged to her visit to the United Nations, was foreign affairs. Yet Ms. Palin’s answer was surprisingly wobbly: her words tumbled out fast and choppily, like an outboard motor loosened from the stern.

“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,” she replied. She mentioned the jokes made at her expense and seemed for a moment at a loss for the word “caricature.” “It — it’s funny that a comment like that was — kind of made to — cari — I don’t know, you know? Reporters —”

Ms. Couric stepped in. “Mocked?” Ms. Palin looked relieved and even grateful for the help. “Yeah, mocked, I guess that’s the word, yeah.”

Ms. Couric pressed her again to explain the geographic point. “Well, it certainly does,” Ms. Palin said, “because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.”

Ms. Couric asked the governor if she had ever been involved in negotiations, for example, with her Russian neighbors.

“We have trade missions back and forth,” Ms. Palin said. “We — 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 — where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border.”

Ms. Palin, looking at Ms. Couric intently, kept on going. “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.”

That exchange was so startling it ricocheted across the Internet several hours before it appeared on CBS and was picked up by rival networks.

While it is quite likely, and perhaps understandable, that Ms. Palin felt nervous and spooked by all the media attention, it wasn’t a reassuring performance. Ms. Palin looked more steady and confident when she took a few questions from reporters after a visit to ground zero in Lower Manhattan, her first, gingerly encounter with campaign reporters since her nomination.

The CBS interview, shown partly on Wednesday and partly on Thursday, was only a first taste — Ms. Couric is scheduled to go out on the campaign trail with the Palin team early next week. But it may be hard for Mr. McCain’s running mate to recoup. It wasn’t her first interview on national television, but in some ways it was the worst.

Ms. Palin was criticized — and mocked — for appearing to be stumped when Mr. Gibson, on ABC, asked her on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to define the Bush doctrine. The McCain campaign, however, cast the scorn as sexism and media snobbery.

Ms. Palin’s interview with Mr. Hannity the following week went more smoothly, but perhaps too smoothly. Mr. Hannity mostly seemed intent on giving Ms. Palin a chance to correct any confusion left by her ABC interview. “What do you view as the Bush doctrine?” he asked. Ms. Palin replied, “That’s a great question, and being an optimist, I see our role in the world as one of — being a force for good and one of being the leader of the world.”

Ms. Couric asked her questions firmly but gently, careful not to seem flippant or condescending. But she ended on a “gotcha” moment. After Ms. Palin attacked Senator Barack Obama for saying he would meet with leaders of Syria and Iran without preconditions, Ms. Couric reminded the governor that she recently met with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who supports direct diplomacy with both countries. “Are you saying Henry Kissinger is naïve?” Ms. Couric asked. Ms. Palin replied, “I’ve never heard Henry Kissinger say, ‘Yeah, I’ll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met.’ ”

After the interview, Ms. Couric faced the camera and added a postscript. “Incidentally, we confirmed Henry Kissinger’s position following our interview,” she said, explaining that Mr. Kissinger supports talks “without preconditions.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09.....watch.html

My problem with all this is Palin knows what she’s walking into in these interviews and just doesn’t seem prepared for the level of vitriol leveled at her and/or just isn’t prepared period.

Who needs Tina Fey to make Palin look like a babbling fool when she’s doing it herself in major national interviews?

You’d think she’d be more prepared after Gibson, and I don’t think any of us for a minute didn’t think Couric wouldn’t be, to use the left’s own term, shrill about it and show her no mercy whatsoever. Especially when she’s still trying to prove that she can keep her job at CBS.

If Palin is going to continue to walk head-on into enemy fire like this without being adequately prepared to fire back, perhaps she isn’t ready for the second most powerful position in the land.

For example, a quick Google search easily finds an ABC News piece dated September 15, 2008:

Kissinger Backs Direct Talks ‘Without Conditions’ with Iran

By Rachel Martin

Former U.S.Secretary of State Henry Kissinger today told an audience in Washington, DC that the U.S. should negotiate with Iran “without conditions” and that the next President should begin such negotiations at a high level.

The former Nixon and Ford U.S. Secretary of State early in the year indicated his belief that the U.S. should hold direct talks with Iran when speaking to Bloomberg Television.

Kissinger spoke at a CNN sponsored forum at George Washington University along with other former Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright, James Baker III, Warren Christopher and Colin Powell. …

http://blogs.abcnews.com/polit.....backs.html

Whomever has the responsibility of prepping Palin needs to be replaced. Now. Before more damage is done. Biden’s going to decimate her on Oct. 2 if she walks in like this.

Still, you can hear the cheering at the Times and MSM outlets now – “Poor, stupid trailer trash thinks she can walk into this election without letting us, the Press, the gatekeepers of modern American thought, telling Americans what to think of her first. Maybe we can even make her cry.”

Spending time talking about Palin’s delivery without mentioning Obama’s inability to put multiple coherent sentences together without his teleprompter?

To be expected from the NYT, but still…

Bring it on.

Amid GOP revolt, bailout deal breaks down

By Jennifer Loven and Julie Hirschfeld Davis

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican rebellion stalled government efforts Thursday to avoid economic meltdown, a chaotic turnaround that disrupted the choreography of an extraordinary White House meeting meant to show joint resolve from the president, the political parties and the presidential candidates. Instead, the summit broke up so bitterly that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson got on one knee before Democratic leaders in a theatrical attempt to salvage talks.

After six days of bare-knuckled negotiations on the $700 billion financial industry bailout proposed by the Bush administration, with Wall Street tottering and presidential politics intruding six weeks before the election, there was far more confusion than clarity.

An apparent breakthrough was announced with fanfare at midday by key members of Congress from both parties – but not top leaders. Wall Street cautiously showed its pleasure, with the Dow Jones industrials closing 196 points higher.

But the good news and the market close were followed by a rash of less-positive developments.

Washington Mutual Inc. was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in the largest failure ever of a U.S. bank, after which JPMorgan Chase & Co. Inc. came to its rescue by buying the thrift’s banking assets.

And the late-afternoon White House gathering of President Bush, presidential contenders John McCain and Barack Obama, and top congressional leaders turned into what one person in the room described as “a full-throated discussion” and McCain’s campaign called “a contentious shouting match.”

Conservatives were in revolt over the astonishing price tag of the proposal and the hand of government that it would place on private markets.

Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, emerged from the White House meeting to say the announced agreement “is, obviously, no agreement.” McCain’s campaign issued a statement saying, “the plan that has been put forth by the administration does not enjoy the confidence of the American people as it will not protect the taxpayers and will sacrifice Main Street in favor of Wall Street.” The White House, too, acknowledged there was no deal, only progress.

Meanwhile a group of House GOP lawmakers circulated an alternative that would put much less focus on a government takeover of failing institutions’ sour assets. This proposal would have the government provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than have the U.S. purchase the assets.

Inside the White House session, House Republican leader John Boehner announced his concerns about the emerging plan and asked that the conservatives’ alternative be considered, said people from both parties who were briefed on the exchange.

Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, the feisty Democrat who has been leading negotiations with Paulson, reacted angrily, saying Republicans had waited until the last moment to present their proposal.

McCain, who dramatically announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to deal with the economic crisis, stayed silent for most of the session and spoke only briefly to voice general principles for a rescue plan.

After the session, Paulson, hoping to prevent any chance for agreement from being torpedoed, pleaded with Democratic leaders not to publicly disclose how poorly the session had gone, said three people familiar with the episode. Frank and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi responded angrily, and Paulson, in an attempt to lighten the mood, got down on one knee, said the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, like the others, because the conversations were private. …

http://customwire.ap.org/dynam.....L_MELTDOWN

Hmmm, the Republicans “spring” plans “at the last minute” while Democrats try to attach riders like a ban on coal shale development or a requirement that new construction backed by government loans be LEED-compliant.

Yeah.

But at least if the Dow crashes tomorrow morning, they can blame the GOP.

Not like they wouldn’t anyway.

From Forbes magazine:

Seven Better Uses For $700 Billion

Wall Street’s crisis is about to become Main Street’s crisis, as bank credit freezes and loans dry up. The government’s fix: $700 billion to buy up the bad loans choking the system.

It’s a monster plan, but there’s little choice , according White House and Federal Reserve officials. Though much of the money may return to the nation’s coffers over time as the treasury sells off the mortgage-backed assets it will purchase, the bailout will severely limit what the government can afford to spend on health care, energy, infrastructure and education in the years ahead.

In Depth: Seven Better Uses For $700 Billion
Let’s start with the nation’s infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates our nation’s bridges need $180 billion in repairs, with our rail infrastructure in need of $185 billion in maintenance. California wants to spend $40 billion for the nation’s first high-speed rail network to connect southern and northern California.

Saskia Sassen, a professor at Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought points out that infrastructure investments would feed directly into GDP based on job and enterprise growth. And we certainly have the builders to do it. Unemployment in construction is 40% higher than in manufacturing.

Arizona Public Service, the state’s public power utility, is currently building the nation’s largest solar power array in the desert near Gila Bend, Ariz. It will be able to power 70,000 homes using only the sun’s rays–and create thousands of high-tech green energy jobs to boot. Construction costs will be about $1 billion, but the utility says it will pay for itself in about seven years. The project covers just three square miles. With the $699 billion left over, you could put even more southwestern desert to work in creating clean energy.

Health care and climate change are other major concerns. Kenneth Thorpe, a professor of health policy at Emory University points out that for $150 billion you could provide every American with private health insurance and create a universal automated health-information system. When you consider that the National Cancer Institute receives $5 billion a year in funding, you could multiply its budget by 10 and provide private health care to every American.

McKinsey & Co., a consulting firm, estimates it will cost the U.S. economy $150 billion per year to stabilize greenhouse gases by 2030. For three years, $700 billion could pay for the cost of both health care plans (in case one doesn’t work) and cover the cost to reduce carbon emissions.

Since global trade isn’t going away any time soon and America’s ports are getting increasingly crowded, using the money for port expansion might be a smart idea. According to the American Association of Port Authorities, container volumes at American ports have increased by 7% per year over the last 20 years, far outpacing capacity growth.

National security is also a concern. After five years in Iraq, most estimates for the war’s cost tally into the $500 billion range. Unlike investments in distressed assets, paying for the Iraq War won’t produce a return , but $700 billion would stem the government’s future debt obligations to its creditors.

Then there’s education. The U.S. currently spends some $500 billion annually on public education, yet still finds itself slipping behind many other industrialized nations when it comes to giving the next generation the skills it needs to compete globally.

The difference, of course, is that government spending for any of this would require a massive tax increase, with no chance of getting any of the money back. The upside: At least it would be a sure bet.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/.....3uses.html

I cannot believe the idiocy of this article. As if throwing money at a cause will correct it. Oh, yeah, let’s fund national healthcare, “green” jobs, and pour yet more money into education. Does. Not. Work. Sheesh!

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