The controversy focuses on allegations made of Palin diva and rogue behavior (e.g., she refused preparation for the Couric interviews and wanted to confront the press when she got bad reviews), certain clothes shopping sprees, and some notorious general knowledge misses, which must have surfaced during interview or debate preparation (geography of the Middle East, whether Africa is a country or continent, which countries are party to NAFTA, etc) From an independent standpoint, the knowledge items are unusually specific; I don't believe someone just dreamed them up to make Sarah Palin look like a dunce. I don't think this is an attempt to "scapegoat" Palin for the campaign; if anything, it further questions McCain's judgment in selecting her. I don't think it's sabotaged Palin for 2012; Sarah Palin has already done this to herself, and she's politically astute enough to realize she doesn't match up to Obama now, never mind an incumbent President Obama.
My take is that these are some staffers whom have been very frustrated with their dealings with Governor Palin but holding their tongues until after the election to voice their complaints. Nevertheless, given Sarah Palin's own gaffes in the interviews, the debate, and even a visit to a third-grade classroom, the question is whether what was leaked is consistent with what we know, and for me, the answer is 'yes'. America was considering electing someone as Vice President whom probably wouldn't qualify for the game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?
Fox News anchors had all sorts of excuses for Sarah Palin: People make all sorts of mistakes when they're tired; remember Obama's gaffe about the 57 states in the US? Things are being said out of context, etc., not to mention the predictable complaints about people talking behind other people's backs. They made snide remarks about staffers hiding behind anonymity; these staffers have a right to make a living without worrying about politically motivated reprisals.
When these anchors had guests on these Palin leaks, they didn't interview Republicans whom felt that the selection of Palin had undermined John McCain's chief argument of experience against Barack Obama, whom cringed when Palin started talking about Alaska trade missions with Russia as foreign policy experience, and whom believed that the Palin pick was the major reason McCain lost the moderate/independent vote, a natural constituency, by 20 per cent. Instead, they interviewed, for example, one of their regular commentators, former US Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). Santorum, in fact, was on the record for vehemently opposing McCain's nomination in the first place. So is it any wonder that he indignantly called on McCain to publicly denounce these leaks? (It's as if Santorum never heard McCain's gracious concession speech where he accepted full responsibility for the loss and praised Palin, identifying her among others as the future of the GOP.)
For some reason, Palin's bipartisan approval in Alaska, like Bush's in Texas, didn't translate in the national campaign. I think some of it has to do with the national media's attention on conservative issues, e.g., whether Sarah Palin had attempted to censor book purchases while Wasilla mayor, for which exceptions would she permit abortion, does she believe that human activity is responsible for global warming, does she want to push creationism (vs. evolution) in school curricula, what does she think about her church's attempts to convert gays to a straight lifestyle, etc. I believe that Palin needed to be more proactive in defining her own image vs. letting the media define it for her.
But Sarah Palin, who was receiving a lot of sympathy for what others perceived an unfair personal attacks, decided to take matters into her own hands:
I consider it cowardly...If there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about NAFTA, and about the continent vs. the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context. That's cruel, It's mean-spirited. It's immature. It's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they cameaway with it, taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It's not fair, and it's not right.
Well, so much for the lady not speaking up for herself. Not good, Governor. Your response is politically inept and overly defensive. You still haven't learned when to shut up instead of digging your hole ever deeper; you need to tighten up your responses, stop repeating questions, and develop more of a thick skin. Remember when you said a few weeks back, pinching yourself and saying that wasn't just baby fat, but some thick skin there? This was not a thick-skinned response.
How are the alleged statements out of context? I'm not saying this is what happened, but it's possible that someone who knows there's a state called West Virginia and another state Virginia, might similarly think if there's a country called South Africa, there's a country called Africa. I'm not sure how that surfaced in debate or interview preparation. If Palin made mistakes, rather than denying they occurred, she should have said something like, "Look, I'm sure I made some mistakes during preparation time--I'm only human; that's the purpose for doing dry runs of debates and the like. I made some mistakes; I've learned from them. It's in the past; let's move on." If, on the other hand, Palin never discussed with campaign staff NAFTA, Africa, or geographic locations in the Middle East, etc., she should say so.
Let me explain why I think these revelations were newsworthy and not simply as Fox News disingenuously implies, some mean-spirited staff with an ax to grind against Sarah Palin. For a long time, the national media were demanding access to interview Sarah Palin, and the McCain campaign seemed to be restricting access to her, without explanation. If the reason why the McCain camp was restricting access to the media is that Sarah Palin was not up to speed on current events and certain salient domestic and international facts and issues, that's important to know. Then the question is--why didn't these national political literacy issues crop up earlier in the vetting process? Was the staff expressing their concerns to McCain? What did McCain know and when did he know it? Was it after the convention? Did he entertain the notion of dumping Palin? Why hasn't the pompous Bill O'Reilly opining on whether there was a connection to Palin's unavailability to the media during the early general campaign, instead of meekly reading furious viewer attacks on the leaks and saying, "Hey, I'm just reporting the news, not defending what these guys did."
What is clear, though, is that the staffers implied that Palin was very upset at the reviews from the Couric interviews and wanted to counterattack. Unfortunately for her, Palin did overreact and in the process gave credence to staffer leaks.
