Couric Plays Pin the Question on the Politician

You know how the McCain campaign keeps reminding me of a circus? Now picture a clown being chased around the ring by someone trying to beat them with a bladder, and you have a good approximation of Katie Couric's latest interview with Sarah Palin:

Global warming: Couric asked Palin if she believes global warming is the result of human activity. Palin dodged the question, talking about having formed "a sub-cabinet" to focus on climate change in Alaska. Couric asked again. Palin responded, "You know there are, there are man's activities that can be contributed to the issues that we're dealing with now, these impacts. I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's weather patterns are cyclical."

Abortion: Couric asked, "If a 15-year-old is raped by her father, do you believe it should be illegal for her to get an abortion, and why?" Palin dodged, explaining that she's "pro-life," and wants to help "women who find themselves in circumstances that are absolutely less than ideal." Couric asked again. Palin dodged again, before saying she's uncomfortable with sending a woman to jail for having an abortion. "That's nothing I would ever support," she said.

Contraception: Since Palin mentioned reducing the number of abortions, Couric asked about the morning-after pill. Palin dodged. Couric asked again, and Palin dodged again. Couric asked a third time, and Palin would only say, "[P]ersonally, I would not choose to participate in that kind of contraception."

Homosexuality: Couric asked about her church sponsoring a conference about making gay people straight through prayer. Palin said she didn't know if prayer could change a person's sexual orientation, adding, "I have one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years happens to be gay, and I love her dearly. And she is not my 'gay friend,' she is one of my best friends, who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice I would have made." (In other words, Palin believes sexual orientation is a "choice" people make?)

I'm sure Katie's getting sick of repeating herself by now. You can tell from her expression that she feels like she's trying to elicit a clear answer from a particularly dense toddler.

All of this dodging and weaving tells me something. Sarah Palin knows how noxious her ideas and beliefs are to mainstream Americans. And she's too fucking greenhorn to know how to give an answer that sounds like an answer that doesn't actually answer the question, but keeps the pol from looking like an absolute moron. That combination in the White House would lead to untold amounts of pain for any thinking person in this country.

And by thinking, I mean any person with the brain capacity to form one single coherent thought per day.

Will someone please convince this disaster to go back to Alaska and leave us in peace? She's a national joke. Why wouldn't she want to go home where she's liked and wanted?

As the Anchorage Daily News wrote in a blistering op-ed over the weekend: "Is it too much to ask that Alaska's governor speak for herself, directly to Alaskans, about her actions as Alaska's governor?" One longtime observer - a Palin fan who says she's done "brilliant" things in the state - worried aloud to me over coffee in downtown Anchorage that allowing the McCain campaign to antagonize both parties in the legislature on Palin's behalf could even lead to her eventual impeachment, if her bid to become Vice President fails and she returns to the state with a little less political luster.

Oh. Right. Well, never mind, then.