Katie Couric, Hero of the Revolution

I'm looking forward to not blogging any more about Sarah Palin, but her explanation given the other day to Matt Lauer about why she couldn't tell Katie Couric what newspapers Palin reads -

you know, questions about, well, you know, 'What do you read up there in Alaska?' To me that was a little bit annoying. Because I'm like, what do you mean, what do I read in Alaska? I read the same things that you guys read in New York. And there in LA and in Washington state.

- reminded me about the pivotal, crucial role Katie Couric played in this year's momentous election.

What was the single most decisive moment in the election, the instant in which the McCain-Palin ticket was irrevocably finished?

Obviously, the financial crisis was the major factor, and McCain seriously hurt his chances by suspending his campaign, urging a postponement of the first debate, and rushing over to Washington, DC to accomplish nothing. That might well have been the second worst moment of the McCain-Palin campaign.

But I don't think it was the worst, because, as the weeks proceeded, McCain's bizarre initial reactions to the financial crisis got diluted by other events.

Not so Katie Couric's CBS interview of Sarah Palin, broadcast on September 30. To this day, I can't understand why Sarah Palin was unable to tell Couric what newspapers she read, or to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe v. Wade. Was Palin advised not to answer questions like this? Hard to believe - as it is hard to believe that she didn't answer because she could not cite a paper or a US Supreme Court decision.

I think that moment, that lack of answer, became indelibly recorded in the opinions many Americans from then on had of Sarah Palin.

Katie Couric and CBS have received a lot of criticism in the past few years. But there was something about Couric's interview style, her soft spoken way of putting her questions, that put Palin at ease and led to this result.

When the histories of this election are written, they will say that the Tiffany Network shone bright again, and the CBS Evening News anchor came through again for America, in that interview. By doing what media interviews are supposed to do - help Americans get to better know their candidates. And, fifteen days later, Bob Schieffer of CBS came through with the best moderation of any of the debates this year.

William Paley would have been proud.

Palin Brings "Bloggers in Pajamas" Back into the Limelight

Not everyone is a fan of new media. Back in September 2004, Jonathan Klein, then a former CBS News exec, defended Dan Rather's 60 Minutes segment about George W. Bush's lack of National Guard service during the Vietnam War by observing that, "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at '60 Minutes'] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing." Klein, who would soon be appointed CNN/USA President, was attacking the conservative bloggers who were attacking Rather and CBS, and although I thought then and now that CBS and Rather were right to run that story, I certainly didn't agree with Klein's myopic "analysis" of blogging. Given the power and reach of the Internet, and the way all kinds of information can become available in all sorts of unexpected ways, it struck me then that pajamas and basements were no impediments to the pursuit and publication of truth.

That's obviously much more the case today. But the "bloggers in pajamas" meme lives on, not just as a justifiably sarcastic comment on Klein's 2004 statement and any like-minded old media worshipers still among us, and the name of a successful online news venue (Pajamas Media), but ... somehow, unsurprisingly, in that special lingo of none other than Sarah Palin, who last night told Greta Van Susteren on Fox that a lot of the media's negative stories about her were due to their reporting on the basis of "some blogger, probably sitting there in their parents' basement, wearing pajamas, blogging some kind of gossip, or a lie".

Now, in Klein's defense in 2004, new media were much newer then than they are now. The Huffington Post, YouTube, and Twitter didn't even exist yet, and Facebook was just a few months old. Palin's attack is thus much more ludicrous than Klein's, because it ignores the massively greater and diverse sources of information that any blogger can call upon today.

But facts seem beyond Palin's grasp or interest, whether in real world or online geography. And the irony is that her worst moment with the media in the campaign just concluded came not from a blogger in pajamas, but from well-dressed Katie Couric on mainstream CBS, who asked Sarah Palin what newspapers she read, and she couldn't name a single one.

Maybe she was getting her news from some blog...

Palin about bloggers

more of the Palin interview on Fox

Palin Better Than Expected, but Avoids Questions and Still Verges on Gibberish; Biden Excellent

Sarah Palin definitely exceeded the low expectations that came from her embarrassing responses to Katie Couric earlier this week. But Palin avoided answering some of the questions, and a few of her answers verged on gibberish (as with Katie Couric).

In contrast, I thought Biden was fine, especially in going over John McCain's record of not being a "maverick" - supporting Bush, tax-breaks for the wealthy, the war in Iraq, and the policies that have brought our country to where it is today.

About Palin's gibberish: look at transcripts or video clips of her answers on global warming, and on nuclear proliferation. Can you get completely what she is saying?

For example, on global warming:

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

Or, on nuclear proliferation:

Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be all, end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes, again, cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period.

Well, I guess that sentence did get somewhat comprehensible by the end.

And when Palin was completely comprehensible, she came out with some strange statements - including John McCain "knows how to win a war". What war would that be? Vietnam? Iraq? And she was 100% clear in her intentions when she flat out refused to answer some of the questions Gwen Ifill put to her.

But Palin did come across as personable - unlike McCain.

As did Joe Biden. Indeed, Joe Biden had the most emotionally connecting moment of the debate, when he talked about it was like to be a single parent, with your children in danger. He politically was clear and factual, explaining the chasm of differences between Barack Obama and McCain.

So I give the debate to Joe Biden.

And hats off, too, to Gwen Ifell - who could have been a little tougher in her questions and follow-ups, but was completely nonpartisan and professional in her moderation, showing that all the Republican whining today, as per usual, was unfounded.