I will continue to beat this horse.

Like a good little dork I watched Sarah Palin's 20/20 interview last night. And the commentator person on afterwards was right- people who already liked her will think she was fantastic and people who didn't will find a lot to dislike.

I'm not saying that I'm unbiased, because I don't think anyone can claim that in politics, EVER, but I'm pretty middle-of-the-road on Sarah Palin. Mostly because I find myself wanting to and generally succeeding at liking her as a person (except for the part where I think she shouldn't have exposed her daughter to the public eye), but seriously do not think she would make a very good President should she ever have to become one. So. There's my bias. And here's what I thought.

She didn't do...poorly. There wasn't a whole lot of substance behind her answers. She looked coached, and I think a lot of people will just kind of be like, well, yeah, of course they're not actually going to lower taxes (Um, hello. Welcome to politics. Are you new here?) and continue mooning over Obama. And there were a lot of issues where she had changed her mind or obviously was just politicking or veered a little bit FAR RIGHT (like with the anti-assault-weapon-ban-ness.).

I think that she would have been further ahead to just admit that she had changed her mind on a lot of things, because that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm not making excuses, because I still don't feel comfortably having one more-tenuous-than-most heartbeat away from the being president (what with all of her experience BEING CLOSE TO RUSSIA WHICH IS THE STUPIDEST ARGUMENT I HAVE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE OMG), but like the whole Bridge to Nowhere thing. It would have looked a lot better if she had just said, "Um. Yeah. Thought it would be a good idea. Turned out to be kind of pointless. And expensive. And then figured, eh, no, we can wait." I wouldn't not vote for her because of that.

She was not terribly polarizing- she was clear on her personal position on abortion (which differs from McCain's) but not obnoxious about it, and even suggested that the two sides could work together to cut down on the number of abortions performed. Her take on homosexuality was pretty much "whatever blows your skirt up", and while I disagree with her about the ban on assault rifles, I think that perhaps we do not need to show the picture of her standing over a bloody carcass quite so much. Propaganda much?


But I think the best thing for her that happened was that Charlie Gibson was kind of an ass. I mean, honestly. Again, I am not her biggest fan. But he was just nasty. The whole three-point economic plan? It was like he was a high school teacher and wrote in the margins of the test, "Good points Sarah, but you only gave me two. The directions clearly specify three." When did we give Charlie Gibson the right to decide who is qualified to be Vice-President? (To re-reiterate, I have yet to be convinced.) And then the constant, "Well, you don't have a plan. And if there's anything Barack Obama has is a plan!" (Really? Did I miss that somewhere in the past NINE YEARS THAT THIS DAMN CAMPAIGN HAS BEEN GOING ON?)


I mean, my God. He did everything but mouth "I love you, Senator Obama," at the camera with the little "call me" fingers. Good Lord.


That combined with the obviously choppy editing actually made her look better, in my opinion, because at it made the interview look a little bit one-sided. I am not one who normally gets all up in arms about the liberal media, but the entire introduction was very much con, and I kept waiting for the pro, but there was no pro.

Also, she looked very pretty. Which I am quickly realizing given the upswing of McCain supporters in the last week may in fact be a more important issue than many. And then I get a little bit scared for our country.

So. There you go. You will never be able to convince me that she is qualified to be president. But I'm beginning to question McCain's judgement less because it looks like this actually may have worked out in in his favor. And then, again, I get worried about the state of the union.