WTF Special Edition: Gibson vs. Palin

The Picture.

First, here’s the link to the official video of the first part of the interview from ABC news.

It’s clear when watching this that some of Palin’s answer’s were cut off in editing…I sort of wish we could see her ramble on, but c’est la vie.

Here’s the kind of general analysis from the NYTimes.

As far as my analysis goes, two things are immediately and glaringly apparent:

-That she had a lot of coaching, both in material and in deflecting, and
-Why the campaign chose Charlie Gibson as the interviewer.

Honestly, Palin would have made a great competitor in high school mock trial. She stuck firmly to her party line and she made Gibson work his ass off to get any information out of her that wasn’t covered in rehearsal. Even with ABC’s editing, it’s clear she’s grasping at straws when Gibson asks her to stray from the script: notice how she repeats her "we cannot second guess" Israel line three times while Gibson's prodding her for a real answer about whether she would support an Israeli decision to go to war. She comes off a bit like a telemarketer out of her element, but she manages to stick to the script and in spite of his often obvious annoyance, Gibson does little to wrangle real answers out of her.

This NYT article looks a little closer at the scripted feel of the interview.

So in spite of all the hype, Palin managed to make only one major gaffe – that is, not knowing the meaning of the term “the Bush doctrine.” If you didn’t make it that far into the interview (hey, nobody would judge you for it), here’s a clip of just that part.

Pretty serious – still, people seem capable of letting Palin get away with a lot worse. AP covers the bit where McSame’s SORRYIMEANPALIN’S answers on climate change clearly conflict with her previously expressed views. Flip-floppage? Nah, that would indicate that at some point she’d formulated her own opinion.

The Big Picture.

I’m gonna have to say in general Palin slogged through this interview and came out relatively unscathed. I think there’s a certain amount of evasion she can get away with here, especially considering how eager the right has been to a) accuse anyone with an ounce of sense of sexist bullying and b) overlook every misstep Palin’s ever made, no matter how grave.

But she can’t keep this up forever. If she doesn’t appear a lot more in front of the media, she’s going to start losing that “approachable” rep. She’s also going to start losing it if she’s constantly delivering defensive and robotic answers in front of the camera.

On the other hand if and when she loosens up, I see a lot more telling missteps in her future – and some fraction of the willfully ignorant are going to start to catch on if they’re beat over the head long and hard enough. Even if the McSame crew locks her in a box day and night for coaching and only lets her out for press events, they can’t possibly fill the gaping void in her political knowledge in the next month and a half.

But the thing that worries me most is the possibility that we might have to listen someone say nook-ya-ler for another four years. Vom.