During the Sarah Palin interview, CNN passed along a question from a third grader at a local elementary school.
Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”
PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom.
This is the second time that Governor Palin has tried and failed to explain the job that she’s running for.
Sarah Palin may not have broken the glass ceiling for failed female nominees for Vice President (an incensed Geraldine Ferraro no doubt would add that she can at least update her own resume without help). Be that as it may, Palin’s fast waltz across the public eye will not be without accomplishment. She set a record for public dishonesty that will take a slugger with Barry Bonds’s drive, and possibly a similar level of chemical enhancement, to match. She made Dan Quayle look like a genius. Voters are more worried about her than they are worried about Bush.
Years from now when she’s mostly forgotten, Sarah Palin can at least look back and say that she accomplished something that most of us couldn’t do if we tried.
Jeffrey
That video is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life.
Will Hunting
I was wondering where that video was going, but holy cow that was awesome. I was in a wedding where the groom totally bit it going down the steps from the altar. We blamed it on the couple of belts of Jim Beam before the ceremony.
raft
omigod! omigod!
she didn’t like the dress anyway.
Liz
My husband and I joined his mom and an uncle for dinner a couple nights ago. He asked us how we could fail to be impressed by Sarah Palin.
"She was fantastic on SNL!"
"Yes, with a script."
He shook his head and muttered something about buying Iranian war bonds and no real Americans and the three of us just looked at each other, sighed, and continued sipping our soup. None of us get it.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
OMG!! Shoe salesman! EPIC WIN!
Unrepentent Dennis - SGMM
Has anyone told Harry Reid and Mitch McConnel about this? I guess the Sarah’s dance card was full when Mr. Constitution came calling.
stickler
Palin biffed a question from a third grader?
Okay, fine. I’m going to give in and finally ask: did the actual apocalypse actually take place on January 1, 2000? Because our politics since then seems completely insane. Absurd.
And this campaign is either post-apocalyptic (… now that I look at my 401K statement, I’m more convinced), or it’s just an absurdist piece of performance art.
Can Sarah Palin really be authentically a Republican? Not some Democratic plant? Has anyone seen her and Tina Fey in the same room at the same time — in person?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
OMG! McCain beats Bush’s "fool me — won’t get fooled again"! (Yeah, I’m easily amused tonight.)
Lavocat
OMG: THAT was probably one of the funniest videos I have ever seen.
Epic fail.
Shouting at the Rain
GF: Why do you hang around this awful blog?
ME: For posts like "Epic Fail".
GF: Well, you’re still a dick….
Yeah. Thatsome primo blogging there, Tim. Well done.
Comrade Jake
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
I just caught that over at TPM. Full of win. I love the crowd silence.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
You know what? Links are very difficult to discern in mixed case, because the navy blue and black look so similar, but I just found out that ALL CAPS doesn’t even make that subtle colour change when turned into a link. You only know that it’s a link if you mouse over it.
Seriously, is it just me who has a damn tough time seeing links sometimes? If it’s not just me, can we PLEASE get bolder or brighter or even underlined links? I love the elegance of this font, but I like seeing links clearly even more.
And here is that Obama shoe salesman video that I linked to in #5.
cleek
look, i think Palin is hideously unqualified and unsuited for anything higher than governor of a tiny state (people, not acres – acres don’t get representation). but i gotta say… her answer was just about right given that she was basically answering a nine year old.
what did you expect her to say? how would you explain the job to a 3rd grader?
Comrade Jake
@cleek:
Hopefully not like another third grader. The job is to educate them, not fuck them up.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse:
Mary, I’m not having any problems with it on any of my monitors. Color balance, maybe?
distributorcap
actually i think this is about the 4th or 5th time she has failed to accurately explain what the VP does.
Will Hunting
That McCain video was hilarious. My wife just compared him to our two year old running around and crashing into the walls…
Krista
I can’t figure out if your girlfriend is an utter party pooper, or the most sensible person in the world.
reid
cleek, I think the point is more that she got the job description a bit wrong… for the third time. Sure, the tone was fine for an answer to a third grader, but saying "in charge of the Senate" just reinforces the opinion that she’s in way over her head. After so many gaffes, people stop giving you the benefit of the doubt.
The Moar You Know
"My job is to sit on my ass, drawing a sweet salary the entire time, and hope that the President doesn’t die or else I’ll have to do some real work. I will go to a lot of second-tier people’s funerals. Probably shove a lot of paper around. Also, I can cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate."
A nine-year old can understand that just fine.
Will Hunting
krista – probably both…
cleek
telling them that the VP "gets in there" and helps with "policy changes" so that the govt can make "life better" is hardly fucking anyone up.
there is plenty of real stuff to criticize Palin about. this one is silly.
@The Moar You Know is right. but, that’s not the kind of answer you give if you’re applying for the job.
the VP is the P’s right-hand-(wo)man, hatchet-man, whip, ceremonial placeholder, etc.. but what she said was fine, in context.
kommrade jakevich
@cleek: I think you’ve hit on the new McPOW campaign policy:
Only let kids interview Palin. That way if she fucks something up they can claim she was dumbing it down for the dear little tyke.
Either someone took her aside after she disgraced herself during the debate and explained what a VP does, or they didn’t. If they didn’t it was just a repeat of her debate fail. If they explained in terms she could understand, she knows how to explain it to a third grader.
She might want to sit down and review this as well.
jcricket
C’mon – this has to be a nice part of epic fail too. Palin charging Alaska for travel costs when bringing her kids to various functions – most of which the kids weren’t invited to or weren’t until Palin demanded it. And later clarifying, the expense reports to "explain why the kids attended".
Note the clarifications (read: falsifications) came after reports in AK asked for the records.
When she’s forced to produce her emails (and she will be), I expect quite a bit of scandal in there. The Troopergate report and this travel expense shenanigans is just the tip of the iceberg.
She clearly treated the governor’s mansion as her personal slush fund and vendetta/score-settling machine. It really is Bush & Cheney wrapped into one pretty lil’ package.
kommrade jakevich
Testing. Testing.
Mandatory viewing for Ms Maverick.
Krista
That Obama/Al the Shoe Salesman video is absolutely classic. Where is it being aired?
Comrade Jake
@cleek:
Most people take issue with the "in charge of the Senate" quip. The other stuff is fine, nobody really cares about that.
I agree that there are other things to burn her on, but this slip is generally indicative of a person who is simply in way over her head.
Far Left American Hater Incertus
@cleek: I’d tell a third grader that my job was to help the president and to take over if something happens to him. Saying that you run the Senate wouldn’t make sense to a third grader either.
kommrade jakevich
Testing, Testing Muthafuckin’ testing.
Christ John, Tunch must be camped out behind your computer and eating the comments as they come in.
jcricket
Can we stop calling what Palin’s doing "gaffes"? Gaffes are slips of the tongue, or hyperbole that politicians use to puff up their own accomplishments/arguments.
What Palin is doing is called lying. When she says, with a straight face, that the Troopergate report cleared her of all wrongdoing, we can safely assume 100% bad intent for everything else she says. Take her at her word when she says small towns are where "real" Americans live. Take her at her word when she says the VP controls the Senate. When she claims she can see Russia, controls 20% of domestic energy, thinks Obama is a socialist – she really believes it all. It’s bat shit crazy, but she believes it.
Republicans, esp. after the last 8 years, deserve no benefit of the doubt.
kommrade jakevich
OK. Embedding links now = EPIC FAIL.
Josh Hueco
@stickler:
I commonly tell people that the Rapture happened on January 20, 2001 and that we are currently in the Tribulation.
Rick Taylor
*sigh* More gotcha journalism. It seems no matter how they shield her from the press, it just never ends!
Comrade Jake
How about the RNC spending $150k clothing the Palin family over the past couple of months. $5k for hair and makeup?
That’s about as tone-deaf as it gets. And yeah, a similar search on the Dem side revealed nothing even close.
TomK
Yeah, this was funny, did you see the McCain camps response? Rick Davis really went off on that poor kid.
"Brandon Garcia is obviously a latte sipping elitist 3rd grader, and part of a larger pattern of 3rd graders viciously attacking Gov. Palin. Real Americans will not be swayed by these vicious partisan attacks on Gov. Palin or by Brandon Garcia’s partisan gotchya questioning.
Furthermore, Brandon Garcia sounds hispanic, so we’ll be checking into the papers of all his relatives. We have also dispatched homeland security personal to check the countertops of his home. Real White Americans will see right through these elitist third grade tricks, especially if we can piss them off by raising economic and racial hostilities by making it seem like a latino kid has nicer countertops then their neon green formica countertops."
Josh Hueco
Like have a porn film named after her?
jrg
I know there are a lot of Balloon Juice readers from N.C. The Republican spewing this garbage is "U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes" who represents the 8th congressional district that stretches from Fayetteville to East Charlotte. His Democratic opponent is Larry Kissell. There is an Act Blue donation link on Kissell’s website.
Conservatively Liberal
It’s Babel all over again! People are saying shit and it don’t make sense. That means that Jeebus is coming to save the few remaining male virgins (all 144,000 of them!) and whisk them off to Heaven where they will party their asses off for eternity. No bills, no taxes, no worries and no women.
Hold it. . . No women?! What does White God have against women? Hell, at least the Muslim men have women (quite a few of them I hear!) waiting for them in heaven.
Why does White God and Jeebus hate women?
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
@Krista:
According to Ben Smith, we get to see a grizzled Al Bundy on the web only for now.
reid
@jcricket:
You’re preaching to the choir, my friends. There’s no excusing the lies, smears, and chicanery. But her more clueless moments like this could be explained away by handlers as gaffes or her just being unclear. Except that that’s about all she’s shown us.
Josh Hueco
Dammit Tunch, you ate my comment!
Josh Hueco
@Comrade Jake:
But, but, John Edwards! Also.
cleek
the Constitution says that the VP is the "president of the Senate". and yes, that’s basically a non-job, given how the Senate is actually run. but, that’s what it says. and fluffing that a little bit in the context of explaining it to a child is hardly evidence of not knowing what the job is.
and frankly, i think she knows exactly what the job of VP would entail – it doesn’t take much of a genius to figure it out, and i’m sure McCain (or his staff) told her what his expectations were, just like Obama told Biden – and she’s just hoping to wait it out until McCain bites it, or she gets a chance to run on her own.
gbear
@jrg:
From C&L:
Robyn Hayes FTW!
Comrade Jake
@cleek:
Uh-huh. This would be convincing were there lots of evidence that she does know what the job is. Unfortunately, there isn’t. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
gbear
I’m getting so embarassed for McCain that I couldn’t watch that video. I got about 5 seconds into it and then couldn’t bear to see the piano on a rope over his head break loose. I’ll be so glad when this election is over.
Stuck in the Funhouse
testing
Thank you kind sir
Comrade Trotsky
Speaking of verbal blunders, I just saw a hilarious clip on TPM of McCain in western PA saying that he "couldn’t agree more" with those who say western PA is racist. He immediately recognizes the blunder and tries to extracate himself, but manages to make an even bigger mess of things. Hilarious.
Bey
@Comrade Jake: Jake, I’m totally willing to give her those clothes as a lovely parting gift. Cheap at twice the price.
Stupid or not, there is a different standard for women in the public eye. Can you imagine the crap she’d get if she went with a feminine version of the Obama simplicity look?
kommrade jakevich
Those of you who placed your bets on "Standard GOP Non-Apology Apology," may collect your earnings from the George Soros Happy Homoabortionist Fund, C/O The Devil & All His Little Wizards.
Funny how most of the GOP’s fuck ups stem from unfortunate interactions with recording devices.
Also from the article:
N.E.G… Gee, brown people scare me.
R.O.E. … Eeeek! Get my gun!
Jesus Fucking Christ. As a proud resident of Oakton she’s clearly unaware of the fact that you can’t swing a cat in D.C. (or Silver Spring or NoVa) without hitting someone who isn’t originally from D.C. We kind of have this immense collection of government, military and corporate organizations that draws people from all over RealAmerica(TM) so trying to pin the voter shift to "People from D.C." is a tad incredibly stupid.
As for real D.C. natives moving down there, please. We don’t want to get further from the Mason-Dixon line than necessary.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@cleek: Sorry Cleek, but she went farther than just fluffing the non-job explanation. She said that the VP "ran" the Senate, which could have been a misinterpretation, but then she went on to state that the VP worked with the Senators in a policy setting role. That’s not just a misstatement, it’s flat out wrong. It leaves anyone listening to it who doesn’t know better the impression that the VP is allowed to caucus with the Senate, and makes it sound as if the VP is the Senatorial equivalent of the Speaker of the House.
AkaDad
It’s outrageous that the Liberal schools are teaching 3rd graders to practice gotcha journalism.
Brian J
You know, they are talking about this on "Hardball" now. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt, and as such, my first reaction was to say that she’s being extremely general because she’s talking to elementary school kids. The more I think about it, the more it seems like she might be full of it.
nicethugbert
Does Piper have a copy of my pet goat?
old dude
I suspect Palin derives her concept of how the vice president "runs" the Senate from how Cheney probably does it: just pull up in the limo and watch the roaches scramble. Sorry, honey, but that’s Cheney and you ain’t no Cheney. In fact, in about three months, f*cking Cheney won’t even be Cheney anymore.
jcricket
That’s basically America’s reaction to Palin.
Comrade Nikolita
Not sure if anyone mentioned it yet, but Olbermann said on his "Campaign Comment" tonight that it was actually her third or fourth (I think fourth) time screwing up that question. With video clip goodness to back up his comment.
cleek
ok… last time.
well of course that’s a big part of what the VP actually does these days: acts as a liaison between the executive branch and Congress in order to advocate for or against policy.
and when you get right down to it, the actual job of any VP is decided by the president. you can assume she wasn’t told or doesn’t remember what McCain told her and is just bullshitting now (unlikely, IMO). or you can assume she knows exactly what he told her and is trying to make it sound interesting and important (yes, bullshitting) because she’s trying to build enthusiasm for her candidacy. she can’t describe the job as "wait around for my boss to die". nobody would pay any attention to her, if they thought she was applying for Powerless Executive Vulture. she has to make the job seem important, so people will pay attention to her, so she can sell the ticket.
Comrade Jake
@cleek:
She needs to sell the ticket to third graders? Cleek, no offense but, have you had your coffee yet this AM?
FWIW, NBC covered this story this AM as her blowing the question and getting it wrong. Of course that’s not proof of anything, beside the fact that she’s running uphill with this sort of thing.
cleek
obviously, her answer was given in the context of the question; but i think she’s saying what she believes / understands to be the case.
it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to conclude that she’s too dumb to know what McCain has asked her to do. i think she’s just bullshitting to try to impress the ignorant.
Svensker
Nope. Heard this morning from a winger that Obama Wears Very Expensive Suits. So, no story.
Also, did you know that Edwards got expensive haircuts, making him an elitist fag, who also has affairs with wimmin? Double fag.
pseudonymous in nc
cleek:
That would be fine, save for the bit in the Veep debate where she explicitly said that she’d want to take a look at the powers available to the VP when presiding over the Senate. That smacks of a fair bit more than yer standard liaison
It’s pretty clear that she has designs on turning ‘President of the Senate’ into something akin to Speaker of the House, with the power to squeeze on procedure. That’s half-digested Cheneyism shat out in public.
It’s one thing to say that Biden’s Senate experience means that he can advise on strategy and grease the wheels, but it’s another thing entirely when you hear what Palin says about her designs on Senate procedure.
Brian J
Those are probably the funniest lines I’ve read in a week. For some reason, I can complete imagine Cheney sitting in the back of a limo, dressing in all black, wearing sun glasses, smoking a cigarette (not really, but you get the idea) and then putting it out on his tongue, sort of like a combination of Viggo Morgenson in Eastern Promises and a comic book character.
binzinerator
She either doesn’t really know (still) what the job is, or worse she really does think this is what the VP is supposed to do. I’m inclined to think now she is in fact telling us what she’s going to do as VP. Since when do Constitutional limits matter to this crowd?
More than that. The ignorant already think the VP’s job is whatever Cheney says it is. Like Cheney, she’s defining the role for herself, and through repetition of the de facto BS she’s solidifying and legitimizing the GOP executive power grab. She’s trying inculcate it among the ignorant and impressionable (elementary school kids are sitting ducks in this respect) paving the way for even bigger transgressions against the Constitution.
How many schools have civics lessons? How many adults know how our government is supposed to work, according the our Constitution? Sure it’s a lie, it’s bullshit, it’s un-Constitutional. But lots of people will buy it. And when Vice President Palin actively involves herself in policy making, they won’t have a problem with it. Future generations won’t have a problem with it. The shadow presidency created by Dick Cheney can come out in the open.
The Bushies know more than anyone that you can get away with the most outrageous illegal shit if just enough people are ignorant, misinformed, confused or deceived.
binzinerator
Said it better, and shorter, than what I just said.