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Sarah Palin continues to delude herself -- or at least, is desperately hoping to continue deluding her fans, which isn't very hard to do -- that she, as the two-year governor of Alaska and former mayor of Wasilla, has more "executive" experience than either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. At least, that was what she tried telling Bill O'Reilly in the second part of her interview shown last night:

O'Reilly: You pointed out his [Obama's] lack of experience -- you don't have that much experience. You walked away from the governorship after, what, two years? Two and a half years?

Palin: Going into my lame-duck session -- my fourth legislative session -- and not wanting to put Alaskans through a lame-duck session --

O'Reilly: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama's lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage.

Palin: If you're talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I have been elected to local office since 1992, and was a city manager, strong-mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, and was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We've to remember too that I wasn't running for president.

O'Reilly: No, but that's the key question. Because John McCain is up there in years, you had to be qualified to take that office over.

Palin: Right. But I -- I'm saying I was running for vice president, just like Joe Biden had been running for vice president. I never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience.

O'Reilly: Well, he's got a lot of experience.

That's the whole absurdity of Palin claiming she has more "executive" experience, as though being mayor of a small town places her on the same level of experience as a United States Senator. The issue of experience isn't related to the organizational context, but rather the scale of it: Joe Biden has nearly a half-century of wrestling with national and international issues -- the kind a president has to deal with -- and has an established track record there.

When Palin was Wasilla's mayor (and before that a council member), the issues she was dealing with involved placement of a sewage-treatment plant and deciding whether someone's driveway needed paving. Oh,and let's not forget the vital issue of building a new gym with taxpayer dollars.

But the interview reached its real nadir when Palin tried to explain why voters would want to vote for her. It's possibly the most garbled, incoherent piece of anti-intellectual right-wing populist nonsense I've ever heard:

O'Reilly: Let me be bold and fresh again. Do you believe you are smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah -- kind of spineless -- a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and -- fact resume that's based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I'm not saying that that has to be me.

No, it definitely doesn't have to be you, Sarah. Indeed, I think it's safe to say that this level of intellectual incoherence would be a real danger to the country.

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Sarah Palin thinks she's got it covered now in explaining why she did so badly when interviewed by actual journalists in her failed vice-presidential campaign last year. She went on The O'Reilly Factor last night and told BillO that a simple foreign-policy question like Charles Gibson's query about the Bush Doctrine was just a "gotcha technique" by the liberal media (instead of a routine question intended to ascertain her bearings on foreign policy).

And Katie Couric? That was just a reaction to Katie's snotty questions:

O'Reilly: Katie Couric's a different story. Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, governor.

Palin: I sure did.

[Plays video]

COURIC: What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this — to stay informed and to understand the world?

PALIN: I’ve read most of them again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media —

COURIC: But what ones specifically? I’m curious.

PALIN: Um, all of them ...

O'Reilly: Why did you boot it? I mean, if somebody asks what do you read, I say I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, I could reel them off in my sleep, you couldn't do it.

Palin: Well, of course I could. Of course I could.

O'Reilly: Well, why didn't you?

Palin: It's ridiculous to suggest that or say I couldn't tell people what I read. Because by that point already, although it was relatively early in that multi-segmented interview with Katie Couric -- it was, it was quite obvious that it was going to be a bit of an annoying interview with a badgering of the questions. It seemed to me that she didn't know anything about Alaska, about my job as governor, about my accomplishments as mayor or governor, my record. And a question like that, though, yeah, I booted it, I screwed up, I should have been more patient and more gracious in my answer, it seemed to me the question was more along the lines of -- Do you read? How do you stay in touch with the real world?

O'Reilly: See, that was your inexperience.

Palin: It was my inexperience with having to deal with a condescending, badgering line of questioning. No -- no reflection at all on my inexperience in terms of administrative record or accomplishments or vision for America.

Pardon me while I call b-llsh-t. "What kinds of things do you read?" is a stock question of the political journalist when querying candidates, particularly those new on the scene. And as you can see from watching the clip that O'Reilly shows, there was nothing high-handed or suggestive of "Do you read?" in Couric's question.

You can watch the longer clip of this portion of the interview here. Palin is not bridling at Couric's arrogance -- she's drawing a blank and reaching for straws.

But in Palinopia, of course, she's just being "human." And I guess that's right, to an extent -- since prevaricating and dodging and making up lame excuses is part of the human condition too. Just not a very attractive or inspiring one.

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Watching Sarah Palin being interviewed is always a little like watching an incoherent art-student film or something from a William S. Burroughs fantasy. It obviously comes from a completely different planet in a different quadrant of the universe.

For example, among the things you learned by watching Palin on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night were the following nuggets:

-- Palin still is unhappy with the McCain campaign for not having smeared Barack Obama enough with phony association-game stuff about Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright -- you know, issues Americans really cared about.

-- She seems to have been watching a lot of Glenn Beck, though, because she practically repeats Beck's favorite talking points about Obama's supposedly nefarious associations.

-- Palin says "it wasn't negative campaigning and it wasn't off-base to call someone out on their associations." Hmmmm. Well, when Max Blumenthal and I did just that with Palin over her lengthy far-right associations, she completely freaked out.

-- Obama is "dithering" in Afghanistan. And evidently, if Palin were president, the only people she would listen to regarding the use of troops would be generals. Civilian advisers? Fuggedaboutit.

-- The reason she "blew" the question in the Katie Couric interview about what she read? She was irked by Couric's "arrogance." Apparently it's arrogant of media folk to ask national politicians softball questions that every other politico on the planet can readily answer.

-- What does she read? The first publication she cites is NewsMax. Yep, that NewsMax: The folks who, in the late 1990s, were peddling "Y2K apocalypse" theories and Clinton "New World Order" conspiracy theories. The same NewsMax that recently published a piece extolling the virtues of a military coup in order to remove Obama.

One thing that I think will become obvious in the coming weeks: Palin will not risk any more Katie Couric interviews. She will be completely ensconced only with friendly interviewers like Hannity. Oprah will have been her most risky interview.

Ruh roh. It looks like the political soulmates of the 2008 election have lost that lovin' feeling:

In what reads like payback for McCain aides’ disparaging comments about her in the wake of the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama, Ms. Palin depicts the McCain campaign as overscripted, defeatist, disorganized and dunder-headed — slow to shift focus from the Iraq war to the cratering economy, insufficiently tough on Mr. Obama and contradictory in its media strategy. She also claims that the campaign billed her nearly $50,000 for “having been vetted.” The vetting, which was widely criticized in the press as being cursory and rushed, was, she insists, “thorough”: they knew “exactly what they’re getting.”

Some of Ms. Palin’s loudest complaints in this volume are directed at the McCain campaign’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt. Mr. Schmidt, ironically enough, was one of the aides to most forcefully make the case for putting her on the ticket in the first place, arguing to his boss, as Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson reported in their recent book “The Battle for America,” that she would shake up the race and help him get his “reform mojo back.” Robert Draper reported in The New York Times Magazine that neither Mr. Schmidt nor Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, apparently saw Ms. Palin’s “lack of familiarity with major national or international issues as a serious liability,” and that Mr. McCain, a former Navy pilot, saw the idea of upending the chessboard as a maverick kind of move.

All in all, Ms. Palin emerges from “Going Rogue” as an eager player in the blame game, thoroughly ungrateful toward the McCain campaign for putting her on the national stage. As for the McCain campaign, it often feels like a desperate and cynical operation, willing to make a risky Hail Mary pass in order to try to score a tactical win, instead of making a considered judgment as to who might be genuinely qualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office

.
I'm not sure that "going rogue" is going to endear Palin to the party elders, from whom she must receive support if she does want to pursue a national office. Unless, of course, her plan is to dump the GOP and run like the Palin-endorsed Doug Hoffmann in NY-23 as a Conservative Party member. But then again, being politically astute was never part of Palin's appeal.

Sour grapes between the Palin and McCain factions aside, Palin's book appears to be a little on the factually-light side. Our friends at Media Matters have been reading through the book (better them than me) and have compiled a very interesting list of moments where Palin has gone rogue from the truth:

Rogue Fact: Palin still falsely claiming stimulus money for energy effiency she vetoed required tougher building codes

Rogue Fact: Palin suggests "no other candidate" subjected to scrutiny "about their hair, makeup, or clothes"

Rogue Fact: Palin misleads on aerial hunting

Rogue Fact: Palin memoir stands by falsehood that Obama opposed "protect[ing] babies born alive after botched abortions"

Rogue Fact: Palin falsely suggests poor "hit hardest" by cap-and-trade

Rogue Fact: In memoir, Palin still distorting NY Times article to defend "palling around with terrorists" claim

Rogue Fact: Palin attacks "Democrat lawmaker" who's actually a Republican

And they keep coming... Check Media Matters for updates.

Max Blumenthal: Sarah Palin, the GOP's blessing and curse.

Turning to Sarah Palin to explain the international economy and the role of government is like asking a dog why it likes to lick its rear end. But as an audience of investors and fund managers learned today in Hong Kong, Palin's cartoon-quality conservative platitudes don't merely fly in the face of the consensus of economic analysts. As a flashback to her catastrophic interview with Katie Couric reveals, Sarah Palin doesn't even agree with herself.

Palin's rewriting of history begins with the causes of the global economic meltdown. While the villains behind the calamity are many (see, for example, Time and the New York Times' excellent series, "The Reckoning"), for Sarah Palin there is only one. As the Wall Street Journal summed up her closed-door remarks:

"We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place," the former Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate said Wednesday at a conference sponsored by investment firm CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. "We're not interested in government fixes, we're interested in freedom," she added.

Of course, those "government fixes" were not only badly need to stem the financial crisis, they've already paid huge dividends in reversing the slide of American gross domestic product (GDP), refilling empty state coffers and preserving up to a million jobs. As the reliably Republican Wall Street Journal put it three weeks ago:

"Many forecasters say stimulus spending is adding two to three percentage points to economic growth in the second and third quarters, when measured at an annual rate. The impact in the second quarter, calculated by analyzing how the extra funds flowing into the economy boost consumption, investment and spending, helped slow the rate of decline and will lay the groundwork for positive growth in the third quarter -- something that seemed almost implausible just a few months ago. Some economists say the 1% contraction in the second quarter would have been far worse, possibly as much as 3.2%, if not for the stimulus."

And during the 2008 campaign, then Governor Palin agreed about the need for government intervention. In her own confused and incoherent way, Palin defended to Katie Couric one year ago this week the kind of government bailouts she now decries. The benefits from $700 billion plan she and running John McCain endorsed, she insisted, all fall "under the umbrella of job creation."

"Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy- Helping the -- Oh, it's got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it 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."

Continue reading »

Perhaps Sarah Palin made that ridiculous statement about "Obama Death Panels" because she knew this story was going to break -- it was happening in her own state, right under her nose:

State programs intended to help disabled and elderly Alaskans with daily life -- taking a bath, eating dinner, getting to the bathroom -- are so poorly managed, the state cannot assure the health and well-being of the people they are supposed to serve, a new federal review found.

The situation is so bad the federal government has forbidden the state to sign up new people until the state makes necessary improvements. No other state in the nation is under such a moratorium, according to a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

In the meantime, frail and vulnerable Alaskans who desperately need the help are struggling. One elderly woman is stuck in a nursing home, for lack of care at home. Another woman, suffering from chronic pain and fatigue, said she's so weak, she often can't even pop dinner into the microwave.

This is the GOP's alternative to a public or universal option. Sarah wants to talk about evil socialist plans that will kill people, but I betcha she doesn't want to talk about the hundreds of Alaskans who died waiting for these services.

A particularly alarming finding concerns deaths of adults in the programs. In one 2 1/2 year stretch, 227 adults already getting services died while waiting for a nurse to reassess their needs. Another 27 died waiting for their initial assessment, to see if they qualified for help. Read on...

In honor of the people of Alaska who died on her watch, Sarah Palin needs to stop makin' stuff up about health care reform, and apologize for screwing things up and then running away when the going got tough.

I've heard a lot of disgusting stuff coming out of the mouths of the Zombie Plumbers, but Sarah Palin has become the Zombie Queen with this one. She sure likes her FaceBook page.

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

She's always complaining that the media attacks her family, but now it's OK for her to use her baby as a sickening talking point. What a cheap and disgusting way to use her family. She has wonderful health care and for her to utter these words is more Beckerwocky talk. We all know that whatever happens with the health care debate you can be certain that the rich will have their concierge doctors to treat them no matter what. And I'm fine with that, the rich will never have to worry so please give the rest of us some health care.

How would Malkin act if a young mother brought the remains of her dead child to Alaska and confronted Palin because she didn't have enough health insurance to cover the medical bills for her sick child? Malkin would expose her private info and the conservative movement would punish her relentlessly.

It took less than one year for Sarah Palin to go from being the Governor of Alaska, to VP candidate for the GOP, to civilian. She knows how to whip a crowd of bigots into a frenzy, she knows how to be folksy, but apparently, even Fox News fans don't think she's fit to hold political office. They chose for her instead, the job of homemaker: (warning: link goes to Fox News)

About a third of Americans think the best job for Palin is homemaker (32 percent), while nearly one in five see her as a television talk show host (17 percent). Vice president of the United States comes in third (14 percent), followed closely by college professor (10 percent), with president coming last (6 percent).

College professor? I'm not touching that one. It's widely known that Palin is testing the talk radio waters, but so far she's not having much luck. Radio giant Clear Channel has already passed, saying she's not capable of sustaining a full three hour show. I'm sure she could easily talk for three hours, but man, I'd need a barrel full of painkillers to make it through.

Blue Gal chimes in: Assuming that Sarah Palin's proper job is "homemaker" may appear sexist, but the question itself was sexist. Looking at the raw data for the poll (warning, also a FOX link, but essential in determining how the questions were slanted) the ONLY choices given to respondents were those listed above: President, VP, talk show host, college professor, and homemaker. Democratic respondents clearly thought the question was a joke when 45% of them said "homemaker," in other words, "stay home, Sarah." I'd like to know why 10% of Republican respondents admitted they "don't know" what job would be best for her: comin' up empty, Mister Steele? I've always said, quite sincerely, that Sarah Palin would be a huge success on the Crystal Cathedral/Focus on the Family mega-church lecture circuit.

Because outside of Bill Kristol, William Shatner is the only person who understands her.

This will probably be remembered as a great Shatner performance. Right up there with "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds."

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I think there should be an amendment to the old adage "There are only two things that are certain: death and taxes" to read "The only certainties in life are death, taxes and Sarah Palin will make a convoluted word salad in lieu of a lucid speech."

I admit, I can't get more than three or four minutes in to one of her speeches before my eyes glaze over because she uses so many words and takes so much time to say absolutely nothing at all. Poor CSpanJunkie did the hard work and recorded her "Goodbye, Cruel World" speech:

Part 2 is here.

Apparently, Alan Colmes has a better ability to sit through such bizarre ramblings than I do (no doubt the practice he got from years sitting next to Sean Hannity):

In her bizarre farewell speech as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin fed red meat to the right-wing, invoking patriotism and the military in her first sentence. It was unclear to whom she was referring when she talked about those who are “tearing down our nation”, “American apologetics” and unmentioned forces “suggesting that our best days were yesterdays.” How can that be, she pleaded, when there are volunteers willing to fight for our freedoms.

Next it was on to criticizing the press, lecturing them that soldiers “are willing to die for you,” so “quit making things up!” And the new governor, Sean Parnell, has a nice family too, “so leave his kids alone!”

After what sounded like a campaign speech for re-election, it was time to defend gun rights, and warn that “You’re going to see anti-hunting, anti-Second Amendment circuses from Hollywood.” This will be done by using “delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets” who will “use Alaska as a fund raising tool for their anti-Second Amendment causes.” Luckily, “patriots will protect our individual guaranteed right to bear arms.” And “Hollywood needs to know we eat, therefore we hunt.”

Can you blame me for not be able to get through the speech? My buddy Jon Perr has come up with his own personal list of Palin's greatest hits, and that--in combination with her incredible popularity amongst the GOP-- makes me doubt Darwin.

Frankly, I wish that I could say this is the last we'll hear from Sarah Palin, but given how inexplicably popular Palin remains, I don't think we'll be so lucky.

The citizens of Alaska must grow more embarrassed by the day:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Another ethics complaint was filed against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday – less than a week before her resignation – alleging she failed to submit complete gift disclosure forms in a timely manner.

The complaint filed with the attorney general is the 19th ethics grievance against Palin, who responded via Twitter postings that the filings came from a "serial complainer" intent on abusing the political process.

And now an independent investigator finds Palin may have broken ethics laws by taking big bucks from her GOP buddies to pay for legal bills:

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund. Read on...

Continuing her bid to be the biggest political joke in U.S. history, soon-to-be ex-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin chose to whine about the charges on Twitter, accusing her accuser of violating ethics laws:

"In violation of Ethics Act more allegations were filed today by serial complainer; gave to press be4 we could respond; ridiculous, wasteful..." Palin wrote in the first of a string of postings on the social networking site Twitter. Read on...

As our Jon Perr notes, Palin could have raised a lot more money and gotten a lot more help from the GOP faithful had she adopted the Scooter Libby 3-step defense method.

Introducing Sarah Palin's former speech writer -- Lee Stranahan.

Video courtesy of Bob Cesca's Awesome Blog!

Open thread below...

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show

Jon Stewart was on vacation when Palin quit and Samantha Bee was up in Alaska covering it. Another hilarious exchange for TDS.

Samantha: Well guess what Jon, she's got a book coming out called "I Love My Country," by Sarah Palin.

Stewart: I'd love to read that book.

Samantha: Stop attacking her.

Stewart: I'm saying I'd like to see that book.

Samantha: Leave her family alone. They're off limits. What is wrong with you?

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After quitting her job in Alaska while many Americans struggle to make ends meet, a new CBS poll found that most Americans think she's not up to the task of being President---including a huge majority of Republicans.

If Sarah Palin is resigning her position as Alaska's Governor to run for president, she faces doubts – even from Republicans – about her ability to be an effective one, according to a new CBS News poll.

Less than one in four Americans, 22 percent in particular, say she does have the ability to be an effective president. Only 33 percent of Republicans say she does. Sixty five percent of all Americans, and 51 percent of Republicans say she does not.

In this CBS News Poll, conducted one week after Palin announced she would resign, these assessments are even more negative than they were among registered voters before last year's presidential election. Then, 37 percent of all registered voters thought Palin could be effective if it became necessary for her to take on the job, and 53 percent did not...read on

I'd say that's terrible news for her, and it shows that America isn't buying the reasons she gave for quitting with a year and a half left in her term during the nutty press conference she staged. And what was with all the animals quaking in the background?

Another CBS poll, which was released on July 13th, now shows that most Americans believe she quit to help her own political career.

A majority of Americans believe that Sarah Palin is resigning as governor of Alaska not because it's in the best interest of her state but because it will benefit her political career, a new CBS News poll finds.

Just 24 percent of those accept Palin's explanation that she resigned because it was the right thing to do for Alaska. More than twice that percentage – 52 percent – cited her political ambition as the reason for her resignation. An additional 14 percent said they don't know the reason.

Even Republicans are skeptical of the explanation, with a higher percentage saying Palin resigned for her political career (36 percent) than saying she did so for Alaska (31 percent).

Wonder if all those right-wing talking heads who were touting the earlier polls showing strong GOP support for Palin will bring these polls up ...

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John McCain was on Meet the Press again this morning and was trying to defend Sarah Palin's decision to quit her job as Governor. When you win an election, you are making a vow to the people that voted for you that you'd work as hard as you can for the duration of your position. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place trying to make sense of her decision and even his answers didn't make any sense whatsoever. Gregory worked him over and tried to get him to admit that she didn't have the commitment to public office like he did, but McCain rehearsed as well as he could and still came off sounding like chalk on a black board.

(rough transcript)

Gregory: You must have been shocked to see Sarah Palin resign as Governor?

McCain: Well, I wasn't shocked. Obviously I was a bit surprised, but I wasn't shocked. I understand where Sarah Palin made the decision to where she would be most effective for Alaska and for the country...

Gregory: But you say you were surprised a little bit, why?

McCain: She had not called me and we discussed it since and I better understand the reasons for her decision...

Gregory: What were they?

McCain: Well, how could she best serve? How could she most effectively serve Alaska and the country and that was her

Gregory: But Senator, you have a reputation of personal and professional toughness and sticktoitiveness. You sought the highest role in the land as President of the US. You never quit.

McCain: No, I don't think she quit. I think she changed.,...

Gregory: She made a promise to the voters to serve out her term, didn't he?

McCain: I don't know if there was a quote "promise," but I do know that she will be an effective player on the national stage. And I will say...

...she's popular republican of her own party, she ignited our base, she did a great job as my running mate even under the most sustained personal attacks in certainly recent American political...

Gregory: Sen. McCain, you have faced torture, personal attacks, political attacks, investigations, you have never resigned from anything. Is it consistent with your qualities of leadership to resign an elected post like that?

McCain: Oh, sure.

Gregory: It is consistent?

McCain: If you can be, the question is how can serve most effectively...

The whole attack meme is so disingenuous. Every day Barack Obama is personally vilified and was during the campaign (nobody claimed she was a terrorist lover) and Sarah hasn't been subjected to anything that comes close to the personal and professional onslaught of attacks that Hillary Clinton did and is still receiving by the right and the media. Palin's been in the spotlight since the campaign. Hillary has been attacked on a daily basis since 1992 and yet she has managed to never quit a thing. How can Sarah serve Alaskans at all if she's not in office? I'm sure many Americans would like people to defend them in this way. She announced that she quit her job, but that's not quitting. She's just leaving office to better serve her people. Riiight. I mean what does that mean? Pols resign during scandals, (except republicans I should say) but she was voted in by the people for four years. She called herself a lame duck with almost half her term left. When did that become a lame duck status? Resigning would only help her to make a ton of money and build up a national base, not a local one. McCain wouldn't say he'd endorse her for 2012 yet, but did say she'd make a great president. Could he say anything else?