McCain camp pushes back against Palin
You’ve seen the Sarah Palin book excerpts in which she complains about being “bottled up” by Republican John McCain’s campaign last year.
Long-time McCain adviser Mark Salter explains here the thinking behind the McCain campaign’s media strategy that Palin seems to be complaining about in an excerpt of her book published by the Drudgereport today.
“After we had been criticized in the press for a lack of disciplined messaging earlier in the campaign when we provided frequent and unscheduled access to the candidate, we felt it necessary to adopt the same deliberativeness and discipline employed by our opponents and rely less on impromptu press conferences with our traveling press, and more on interviews arranged in advance so our candidates would have the same opportunity our opponents enjoyed to discuss and prepare for the interview.
“Approximately one week elapsed from Governor Palin’s nomination to her first major press interview, the first in a series of major interviews Governor Palin did. Those interviews were discussed and agreed to by senior members of the campaign staff in consultation with the candidates. Nicolle Wallace, along with others, was tasked with helping the Governor prepare for some of her interviews. She did not decide which interview requests the candidates would accept. Nor was she tasked with securing the candidates’ agreement. Those decisions were made by campaign management in consultation with the candidates. Campaign management and the candidates agreed to multi segment interviews so the Governor would maintain a presence in the media while she was in debate prep. And to the best of my knowledge, any interviews the Governor had with the individuals she referred to were approved and arranged by the campaign management with her agreement.”
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- Photo credit: Reuters/Nathaniel Wilder (Palin at her farewell speech in July)
It’s not quite dishing, but Palin chats to Oprah about Levi, Couric
Apparently all is forgiven.
Sarah Palin tells Oprah Winfrey she wants to welcome Levi Johnston back into the fold.
Her daughter’s ex-fiance and father of her grandchild has been all over TV shows and in print media making unflattering comments about Palin, but the former Alaska governor says he’s part of the family.
Palin, who ran for vice president on the Republican ticket with Senator John McCain last year, also had nice things to say about Oprah, who had supported the other party’s candidate — Barack Obama.
The interview with Oprah Winfrey will air Monday to kick off a book tour for Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American LIfe.”
Last year, Palin was skewered for fumbling a question about what she read, and she tells Oprah she knew that interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric had gone badly.
“The campaign said ‘Right on, good. You’re showing your independence. This is what America needs to see’ and, of course, I’m thinking ‘if you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview was.’ So I knew it wasn’t a good interview,” Palin says in a clip of the taped Oprah interview released Thursday.
I am having a difficult time figuring out whether J. VanA is pro-Obama or pro-Palin. The early remarks suggest the latter, but after attempting to visualize (as the invitations go) the future under Obama, I can’t help but see 1) a thoughtful, carefully considered and effective military presence in Afghanistan, one that allows more American soldiers to avoid the massive trauma of armed conflict while providing the necessary support to that country’s own autonomy and safety, 2) a society in which, though the value of the dollar admittedly declines, the basic needs of all Americans are met to a much fuller degree than they have been for decades, 3) a newly self-consistent, fair and humane legal system in which justice is served without the use of impulsive, desperate techniques that have more in common with terrorist tactics themselves than with a humane and enlightened society, 4) a society in which people do not feel like the act of purchasing a fire-arm is their only guarantee of personal safety, security, and control, 5) industries that operate efficiently, honestly, and with the intent of generating the highest quality products, not simply of undermining the competition, of maintaining a strangle-hold on the market, or of serving the bottom line, and 6) a society in which all voices are heard, considered judiciously and weighed before final decisions are made, not a society in which all differing opinions and contributions are stamped out by a stubborn reliance on single principals, very few of which would ever apply singly to a given decision.
I’m in agreement that Sarah Palin is a woman of principle, and I also agree that the ability to answer televised questions extemperaneously does not make or break a person’s decision making or leadership ability; the skill is obviously one that requires serious practice and drill, neither of which Palin had time to recieve during the campaign.
But I have never understood the argument that supports “principle” as the sole factor upon which to base decisions that will affect many people of diverse backgrounds. Not everyone, after all, believes in the same principles as everyone else. The best decisions seem clearly to be those that weigh several different principles and include elements or shadings of each in a well thought out way. The trade-mark of a good decision maker is the ability to see and understand as many of these existing principles as possible, and to arrive at a decision that combines the most valid and compatible elements of each. The process takes time, requires a very open mind and a strong sense of empathy, and often results in a decision that advances no one particular view point or principle completely, but that somehow manages to advance the greater good by a little rather than the smaller good by a lot. This seems to me the very meaning of “The Democratic Process,” and it is not only a skill that a given person can have, but a skill built into the operation and structure of our government.
It is also a skill that, as best I can see, Sarah Palin does not have, and one that she in fact seems to diminish as much as possible despite being a self-described fan of a country built on the democratic process. In a country in which there has never been complete national support for any one cause or value or system of beliefs, shouldn’t we continue to have a president who acknowledges that debate and due process are essential, that having many beliefs, opinions and voices actually makes us stronger instead of weaker, and that no single governmental decision should ever be a simple appeal to something as safe from scrutiny and debate as a one person’s private principle?
She lies!