"There's a time, too, when Americans are going to say, 'Enough is enough with your ticket,' on constantly looking backwards, and pointing fingers, and doing the blame game. But for a ticket that wants to talk about change and looking into the future, there's just too much finger-pointing backwards to ever make us believe that that's where you're going."
~ Sarah Palin to Joe Biden, Oct. 2, 2008
The problem inherent in taking pains to make someone look stupid was apparent at last night's vice presidential candidate debate.
Sometimes--usually, in fact--mean-spirited efforts come back to bite you in the butt.
After the MSM hatchet job perpetrated upon Sarah Palin over the last couple of weeks, Mr. & Mrs. America were probably expecting her to arrive at the podium holding a drool cup. Not hardly. As is her wont, Sarah excelled at being Sarah, something that career politicians and "journalists" of the left-leaning persuasion have yet to come to grips with.
She made sure she spoke her piece, without the deficit of MSM's "filter," to use her diplomatic term. Gwen Ifill, her new book touting "the age of Obama" scheduled to debut on Inauguration Day, was stymied from tormenting Palin with the unending "gotcha" questions MSM has pelted her way with unfettered delight.
Did you watch Charlie Gibson's interview? Disgraceful. Gibson was the one MSM anchor person I liked and was able to tolerate for my occasional dose of network news. I had thought him the most fair, but that's over. I had my "a-ha moment" as he disdainfully grilled Sarah Palin, endeavoring to make her look as foolish as possible before a national audience. Some "host"--spare me his hospitality! Gibson is a leftwing snob like the rest of MSM. I haven't watched him since those two nights he looked down his professorial nose at Palin--and I won't, ever again.
As for the Katie Couric debacle, well, I never watch Katie. (Excuse me, I did watch her on her first broadcast. That will suffice for the remainder of my lifetime.)
Did Palin answer every debate question? No, but then neither did 35-year Senate veteran Biden. Do you think Biden would be able to explain to Katie Couric, in 90 seconds or less, which Supreme Court decisions he dislikes? Rhetorical question, but it doesn't matter, since Biden won't be asked that question by MSM--ever.
No one in MSM will follow up with Biden to ask what the heck he was talking about when he said that FDR went on television after the 1929 stock market crash to talk to the American people. It so happens that Hoover was president at the time, and TV was a decade away.
Details, details! But if Palin had dropped a clunker like that, the nation would have been plunged into a 3-day, 24/7 news cycle screaming the dangers of her ignorance.
But last night, Sarah had her chance to speak directly through the camera, into our living rooms. She did so with cheerful confidence and smiles of relief, as if to reassure America, "This is who I really am, and I'm really just like you."
Note to MSM: Gotcha.
