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If Palin really didn't know Africa was a continent...
...or who the signatories of NAFTA are, or what countries are in North America, don't you think we should have been told that before the election?
I'm reading Andrew Sullivan's point on this right now, and I have to say, I agree.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/the-civic-respo.html
The press embedded in the campaign were embargoed on certain things until after the election. So, we are only just now learning the full extent of her cluelessness.
I get that an embargo is an embargo, and by leaking the info, they could have destroyed this opportunity in future campaigns. But if Palin had been put into office and then we found out that she has the geography skills of a 1st grader...then that would have been a serious fraud on the country by McCain and his campaign.
On the other hand, if this is all just rumors and she does actually know these things, it just adds to this huge pile-on the woman blame game that seems to be going on right now.
What are people's thoughts? Did the press have the duty to leak this info before the election, regardless of the embargo? Or should they have played by the rules to preserve their rights for future campaigns?
Re: If Palin really didn't know Africa was a continent...
I have to agree with this.
Damn, with all of y'all reading Sullivan now, I can't post anything new ;-)
I just posted his commentary on my Facebook profile. It's exactly what I was wrestling with when I was watching the clip last night.
It is totally unacceptable that the country was not informed about how dire this actually was. I don't know what that means for "off the record" or protecting sources. But this is not a fvcking class president or homecoming queen election. This is the leader of the free world. These people must be vetted, and the results must be made public. Otherwise, each of us is making a wildly uniformed choice.
She would have been an unmitigated disaster, and a large number of people in this country had no idea. Again, unacceptable.
My H read somewhere (I don't remember where, thanks to major information overload) that Steve Schmidt had already been looking at how to remove a sitting VP. So maybe they really weren't going to let this nitwit be VP after all.
I think there would have been a few problems with leaking the information. First, the cries of "liberal media" bias from the Republican faithful would have put the media on the defensive, and the story would have turned into whether the media is biased rather than whether Palin is an idiot. Second, by leaking before authorized, they could seriously compromise future access. In the event that McCain pulled it off, media access is absolutely necessary to keep the administration in check.
I also think that the media was not as uncertain about the outcome of the election as they might have us believe. Watching my usual Morning Joe the few days before the election was painful. They kept coming up wtih the most far-fetched ways that McCain could win, even though none of the data was supporting them. They need the controversy to have something to talk about; it would be pretty boring if they all just sat around for three hours, saying, "Yep, Obama's got it." Maybe they would have leaked if they were less certain about the outcome? Who knows.
This is a good point.
I think I'm just so horrified by this fact. I haven't been a Palin fan, and honestly as the weeks wore on, I became more and more convinced that she was an idiot. But I guess I'm just still really angry that we were told for two months that she was a legitimate candidate when it's becoming more and more clear that we were lied to. It's just so offensive. It's a total fraud.
I think it's just the last vestiges of frustration over this administration and the MPC in general... I think it will take a few more days to purge all the anger all out of my system before I can focus on the future.
Are we talking about "the media" here, or Newsweek (Sullivan appears vague)? Newsweek has had this deal with campaigns for several elections. They're only trusted because they have a track record of not leaking. If they had leaked, not only would access have been over for this election cycle, it would have been over for the future. The next disastrous candidate would have had just that more protection.
I agree with zoe that it wouldn't have changed votes. The fact is that McCain was not elected, and according to the polls that was due in large part to voters' perception of Palin as unfit for office. This all happened - and was apparent before Tuesday - based on the information we had. There simply wasn't some grand coverup of her true shortcomings that trixied voters into thinking she was something she's not.
We're furious that someone so unprepared got so close, but she actually wasn't very cloes at all, precicely because she's so unprepared.
Also remember that the constitutional requirements for pres/VP are very slim, and we've only had a media this up close and personal for a short portion of our history. It's up to voters to decide who's unfit based on the information we have - and we did.
I'm with you ESF.
I do though think this makes her vehement opposition to Darfur divestment in Alaska and her answer to the Darfur question in the VP debate all the more interesting. She didn't even know where it was! No wonder her response was, "well, gee, I'm not from Washington!"
Ditto, Pescalita.
Also, I don't think the pile on is due to her being a woman.
ditto. Off the record is off the record. You lose trust, you lose your sources.
"As of page 2 this might be the most boring argument ever. It's making me long for Rape Day." - Mouse