In 2008, Sarah Palin was hailed as the world's top energy expert. She promised a trans-Canada natural gas pipeline from Alaska, to the energy hungry lower 48. It seems therefore appropriate that the media would ask Sarah Palin a few questions about her field of expertise.
They could ask her what happened to the trans-Canada pipeline. They could ask Sarah Palin why she quit her job rather than completing this project, especially when she claimed that she's to original "no quitter."
They could ask if it might be more economically viable to get methane from landfills. They could ask about the energy potential of miscanthus, or how Moore's Law would apply the development of solar energy.
I could answer these questions, and I'm not an energy expert. I've just read Our Choice by Al Gore. Wouldn't an energy expert like
Sarah Palin be familiar with Al Gore's work? And as an energy expert, why doesn't Sarah Palin accept the most fundamental scientific truth of the 21st century - that global climate change is REAL and that it man-made? Sure, Sarah Palin doesn't have to believe in global warming - and she doesn't have to believe in the law of gravity either. Sarah Palin can believe whatever she wants, but she shouldn't go around telling her Tea Bagger fan club to drive off a cliff - and that in a way is precisely what she is doing.
Why doesn't anyone in the media ask Sarah Palin these questions? The answer is simple. As a rogue, which by definition means a crook, a charlatan or an con-artist, The Queen of the Rogues, Sarah Palin gets to pick and choose the questions she wants to answer, and as rogue, she also gets to pick and choose when she's going to tell the truth.
WORLD VIEW
Fareed Zakaria
Palin Is Ready? Please.
McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, that is simply not true.
Email To A Friend
Please fill in the following information and we'll email this link.
Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:
"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."
There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. "It is from Alaska that we send out those …" What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. ("We mustn't blink.") But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.
Couric asked her a smart question about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. It was designed to see if Palin understood that the problem in this crisis is that credit and liquidity in the financial system has dried up, and that that's why, in the estimation of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the government needs to step in to buy up Wall Street's most toxic liabilities. Here's the entire exchange:
COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all 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. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.
- 1
- 2
- Next Page »
My Take
Each Newsweek reader is different—and now your Newsweek can be, too. Use this page to create a experience that's personalized for you and your interests. My Take: it makes Newsweek whatever you want it to be.









Discuss