A little over two years ago, one of Sarah Palin's first interviews after being tapped as John McCain's running mate was a multipart chat with CBS's Katie Couric. And it was a disaster. To this day, Palin still has a chip on her shoulder about one question she was asked in particular: What does she read?
Since then, Palin has been asked the question repeatedly, and has come up with something approaching a stock answer.
Said "stock answer's" shorter?
I can see books from my bedstand!
Seriously, how thin skinned is this broad? Two years after she bungles an interesting-but-inocuous question, she's still fuming about it!
"Because of that one episode, that one episode, that would turn an issue into what it has become over the last two years. I think that's ridiculous," Palin told Walters. "That's one of those things, where that issue…that I don't read, or that I'm not informed, it's one of those questions where I like to turn that around and ask the reporters, 'Why would it be that there is that perception that I don't read?'"
Um, cuz you couldn't answer the question "what newspapers or magazines do you read?"
It was only asked three times. You were a cypher, altho the answer to that question defined you in so many ways. Not just that you couldn't give an answer (George Bush, for example, claimed not to read the paper, full stop, and no one made it a defining moment for him, altho it should have been in hindsight) but that you stumbled so badly NOT answering it, that you came off as a bubble-headed moron-- perfect to lead the Teabagging "movement" I might add-- and that you took umbrage at such a simple question, an attempt to understand you better and to allow voters to get to know you better.
Hell, I've asked tougher questions on first dates!
If she was a different kind of woman-- independent, tough-minded, intelligent-- she might have caught a glimpse of her future and been mad at herself for blowing a simple chance, turning what would have been a minor piece of the puzzle into a keystone of her entire political career. I'd argue that question may turn out to be the defining moment of her life, from birth to death, but that's running neck and neck with the SNL parody by Tina Fey. Of course, that moment was preceded by this, and opened the door to the perception that Sarah Palin is a brainless stooge.
But she's not that insightful witty intellect. She's Sarah Palin, so her anger is misplaced and outerdirected to the people who "harmed" her: Katie Couric, with le dernier coup applied by Fey three nights later. She didn't hurt herself by being an idiot, no, those folks were out to get her, see? They laid a boobytrap in front of her and it exploded right in her face!
Um, deft politicians see a booby trap a mile away and step aside.
One can only wonder what perception people will walk away from even the 2012 primary season if Sarah Palin is dumb enough to do anything but endorse minor Congressional candidates. She'll be pilloried from the right and left-- she's already incurred the wrath of Karl Rove and that wing of the neo-cons, and the mantra of "running against the boy's club" will only go so far when the knives really come out. She'll be expected to defend herself vigorously or face all kinds of charges of being weak.
Even her TLC show about Alaska has drawn fire from the very people you'd think would favor her: hunters! Her "skills" with a rifle seem to be sorely lacking for someone who brags about bagging moose from a helicopter, or whatever the hell she claims.
Her skin would be flayed off after March in the primaries.
I do acknowledge one thing: to her handlers' credit, she hasn't gone after Tina Fey.
Yet. But my suspicion is she is seething inside and given her inability to let this go, she's likely going to try to exact her revenge at some point.
I pity her. Fey will mop the floor with her. Again.
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