And the conservatives were supposed to be about Christianity and promoting abstinence. So I don't see the problem. Someone needed to put it out there because it showed that something just wasn't quite right in the Palin home.

I'm guessing she will not become a community organizer . . .

Because the story I read about that several months ago said "right". Sorry you took offense to that


The tone of the campaign wouldn't have been different. Every 4 years SNL mocks the candidates. The same happened last year - all of the candidates were impersonated - not just Palin. So I don't really get the "awww poor Palin! If it wasn't for SNL, she'd be in the White House or things would be different for her!" sentiment.

The difference between the Palin impersonations & the others though, it that Palin said more ridiculous things IRL and gave SNL more material to go off of. If you don't want to be repeatedly mocked, don't make a fool of yourself on the campaign trail of a highly publicized election. It really is that simple.

And for what it's worth, it's not even just her really bad interviews that hurt her politically - there was just too much out there - all those ethics allegations, some of the legislation she got through Alaska, her obvious lack of experience about her that some people just didn't like and/or agree with. Blame the media or whoever you want (since someone other than Palin must be blamed!), but voters should know everything they possibly can about someone before going out there and voting.

And yes, SydneyK, I meant Russia... my bad.

Well, I guess it never hurts to get in a shot against the other side, right?


Again, I think you're overstating things, at least for the purposes of this thread. No one here is saying that Palin would have been VP if the SNL stuff didn't happen, or if the (perceived) media issues weren't there. They are just saying it was a factor.

That's not really all that extreme of a concept - people have been talking about the effect of the media on campaigns for years, back to the Grover Cleveland illegitimate child scandal in the late 19th century, and before that. So, for people to claim that media coverage had an effect on the campaign isn't surprising, or all that unique.

Then forget the whole part about the Colbert Report. I was just saying that there was a story about right-wing ppl who really thought he was being serious. And that it was silly to think a parody was actually true.

If it bothers you that much I'll edit that part out.
Sheesh.

I don't believe SNL was really a factor - which is what HC was implying. If you think the American public actually took that Palin interview parody into consideration when they were standing at the polls, then more power to you.

Even if they did, SNL wasn't that far off base from her real life interviews anyway.

HC said,
The "whole tone" wouldn't have been different. If the SNL skits never happened, the media STILL would have covered Palin's missteps in her interviews. Palin still would have looked like a big nerd for not knowing her stuff and not answering questions in a coherent way.

You actually have the top part exactly backwards. She vetoed a bill that prohibited giving benefits. She had been advised that the ban was unconstitutional so she vetoed it. It's there in the link you gave if you read it. To me that demonstrates a desire to govern well, rather than with religious bias.

Unless you can find stuff from here Wasilla days, it seems kind of strange to suggest it was important. Even if you can't or don't want to invest the time, list the accusations and I'll look them up. Some people were worried about her banning books, but she never did. She merely asked what the procedure was but never attempted to do it. Personally, that strikes me as okay. If you or your constituents are upset about certain books, having the librarian outline the methods to challenge a book seems fine, especially if you never use it.

As far as religious proclamations, that kind of strikes me as not really being a big deal. I doubt any governor is going to make one unless someone has asked him or her to do so. If we had evidence that she was requested to and then she didn't, there'd be something to talk about, but to say, well she made these meaningless proclamations for these faiths but not these others that she was never requested to make? Not a big deal to me.

This morning, I got to hear one of the NPR correspondents discuss the resignation with two of Palin's biggest supporters--the founder of her PAC and someone else. You know, there were a lot of people on the far right who didn't know, or refused to believe, that Obama wasn't a Muslim; I was disappointed, however, to hear the NPR correspondent insist that Ms. Palin had dropped out of college (yeah, her revolving-doors college career is creepy, but she did finish), among other things related to her ethics violations. A far left weirdo spouting this stuff is one thing, a nationally-aired, government-sponsored radio show host is another.

We have crazies and inconsistencies on both sides, people.

Exactly, and it's endlessly interesting to me how many people refuse to understand this point.

My hangup about it is that I don't think the traditional media handles the crazies the same way.

But that may end up changing as traditional print and network media fall apart.

ETA: I don't find Palin's college career "creepy," and I don't think I would even if she were a liberal from a comparable era. I'm not trying to make a lot of your word choice, Munchkin, but I think it's kind of interesting that it seems worth talking about to some pundits.

I understood your point which is why I edited the post :rolleyes:

Am I the only one who thinks she resigned because of a family situation? I just cannot see Sarah Palin "quitting" for any other reason.

When I first heard she was resigning, my first thought was Sarah Palin must be pregnant again. Then, my second thought was maybe either Bristol was pregnant again or Willow. My third thought was that someone in the family has a serious health situation. For example, Sarah might have breast cancer. Any of these would be a good reason for resigning, but not explaining the real situation until later.

I wasn't referring specifically to you - I was talking about it in general. People on both the right and left don't understand that the crazies and inconsistences aren't limited to one party or one ideology.

Yes, clearly - good catch, bad typo.

A significant number of American pollgoers actually thought Palin said, specifically, "I can see Russia from my house" . . . no matter what you want to think about the education, intelligence or common sense of the American public.

HINT: Alexander Hamilton knew what he was talking about.

This is absolutely, 100% indicative of YOUR bias coming through, not some right-wing, pro-Palin bias.

Show me where she said "I can see Russia from my house" and we'll go ahead and chat from there. I abhor Sarah Palin as a one-dimensional sham and as indicative of what I hate about modern politics, but you're just demonstrably wrong here.

I NEVER SAID ANYWHERE THAT PALIN HERSELF SAID SHE CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM HER HOUSE. I'm not really sure why you keep going to that.

Point out to me where I said that please, because I didn't type that anywhere. I don't get why you keep going back to the Russia thing anyway, but if you want to keep talking about it, that's cool.

What I did say was
I even linked to a video in a previous post of mine that shows a part of the actual Palin interview with the Tina Fey version side by side and with the exception of a few "ya knows" and a mention of a dollar value menu, and the part about Russia, Tina Fey used a lot of the very phrases Palin herself used in the Katie Couric interview.

You initially jumped into the "SNL" convo saying that the #1 thing people remember was "I can see Russia from my house". So what? I'm failing to see why that one phrase is so incredibly important. Unless you think that phrase was the demise of Palin's credibility, I don't get it, so please explain that to me.

Palin herself said so many things far more damaging than Tina Fey's Russia spoof comment.

You are REALLY taking this too personally.

I'll agree that Palin said many dumb things on her own. Many of them were politically stupid. I can't find a single one that was as literally stupid as "I can see Russia from my house."

The SNL skit was a spoof, and a good one at that. Almost too good, because a massive, significant number of Americans who voted thought it was actually Palin.

That's the only point here - people thought she actually said it. You can try to minimize the impact of the skit all you want, but we only have evidence that it did have impact (because people remembered it as fact - for more information on this phenomenon, look up eyewitness credibility etc.). Can you point to proof that it didn't matter?

I agree with you, for the most part - Palin submarined herself in dozens of ways. These silly political mistakes made Palin an easy mark for lampooning - so easy that she was still being lampooned by Letterman a couple of weeks ago, when she was hardly relevant in any way except for as the butt of a joke.

However, it's pretty clear that the SNL skit took root in the American consciousness (to the extent that it exists). SNL's job is to mock politicians - that's why we enjoy it. However, few if any of these caricatures, for whatever reason, have been as resonant with people as the Palin one - nobody remembers what "Hilary" said in that same skit, do they?

In your fervor to impugn Palin (which, I mean . . . that's not exactly a difficult task) you really seem to want to piss in the wind against this SNL thing. Nobody's blaming SNL for her loss - but it's clear that the specific skit took hold in a way that was really unprecedented. Is that Palin's fault? Maybe - who cares? It doesn't particularly matter, does it?

Well, it's worth talking about to me. I suspect that, for reasons not related to political leaning, we would STILL be hearing about it if Obama had done the exact same thing. I know that my credibility in my field would be shot to hell if I played college hopscotch like she did.

4 colleges in 5 years is a lot, especially when you consider that she didn't change disciplines during her college career. It wasn't as if she started out as a chemical engineering major and changed to journalism and decided to transfer to a school where she could actually do more in that field. It doesn't even seem to be financially-related. I will concede that she may have been homesick in Hawaii, but what it indicates to me is that she lacked either the sense of commitment at that time in her life or the intellectual rigor to complete a college education in one place.

ETA: I would be just as hard on a liberal for changing colleges like one would change a pair of socks.

I'm not taking it personally. If anyone is taking this personally, I think it's you. I never wrote anywhere that Palin actually said she could see Russia from her house, but you kept insisting that I did.

Apparently putting it in caps was the only way to get it through to you that I didn't say that.

For what it's worth, I never used the word "stupid" in describing anything she ever said. "Stupid" is relative. What one person thinks is stupid, another person might think it's not that bad.

I don't have a transcript of everything she's ever said, so I can't say whether or not I think she did say anything that was "literally stupid".

I do think that a lot of things she said during the campaign didn't make any sense. Some people might think the inability to put complete sentences together is "literally stupid", but once again, that's relative.

Ok, so people thought she said it - we established that a couple of pages ago. Are you saying that cost her & McCain the election?

Again, so you're saying because people thought that Palin actually said she said could see Russia, they lost the election?

Where exactly are the exit polls that indicate that people voted against McCain / Palin because they truly,deep down in their heart of hearts, thought it was really Palin who said that?

I just find it so hard to believe that the Russia phrase was the deciding factor and not the other dozens of mistakes she made in that short amount of time.

That was way more than a couple of weeks ago. And for the record, I think that was a pretty low blow from Letterman.

No I don't think most people remember what "Hilary" said in the skit. I think the reason for that (and this is just personal opinion in case you ask me for a study) is because even though she was a major player for awhile in the primaries, she didn't make the same highly publicized mistakes that Palin made.

Palin wasn't prepared at all for any of her interviews and it was painfully obvious she was grasping for straws when people questioned her experience or knowledge on subjects. Most of that was already out there by the time the first SNL skit with Palin aired which made it such an easy target.

Hillary, in your example, didn't really have that problem, so all SNL could do to make fun of her was talk about people who said she had cankles and how she was feverishly out supporting the guy who beat her out for the nomination.


No ... it doesn't... so why are you arguing then? :p

Why do you feel it took hold? Just because people said they thought it was her that said it? If it didn't cost them the election, then who cares if SNL did a good job of spoofing her.

agreed on all accounts.

I know people transfer schools at least once during their 4-5 years, but 4 colleges in 5 years?!!

Texas*princess - I still don't see where anyone (except for the possible exception of Honeychile) is saying that the SNL skit was the "deciding factor," or the only factor. You're stressing a point that just isn't being made by people in this thread. In fact, I think most people in this thread are attributing Palin's issues, for the most part, to her own verbal gaffes, errors in strategy, and other self-created issues.

ETA: I still can't believe she's done such an effective job of sinking her political career. If anyone advised her to do this, they should be fired on the spot. I'm not complaining though, if it gets her out of the 2010 picture.

Well, you keep saying that the SNL skit affected the campaign. How so? is what I'm asking. What impact did it* have?

Why does it matter so much that people actually believed it was Palin who said she could see Russia?

Furthermore, you say the exception possibly being HC. That was the impression I got from her post which is why I responded to it, and then I got 2 pages of arguments that it was significant, but no one has mentioned how or why it was.

*it = that people "remembered" it was Palin who said that

It's not the skits themselves that was Palin's undoing. The skits themselves magnified the mistakes that she made during the election and it didn't help that the skits (as said earlier) mirrored what she actually said.

Regardless of what the American people believed she may have said out of her mouth word for word, the bottom line is that people saw her make these mistakes that made for lampoon fodder.

Again as others have said, comedians didn't have to look far for material, just to the source.

And remember, sometimes, comedy is a somewhat lighter way of facing the cold hard truth.

I think it's one of those eye of the beholder things. If you think she's an anti-intellectual flake, it appears to be evidence to support that. If you don't particularly care about politicians' academic credentials, and you found her basically normal, this seems basically normal.

I think four colleges in five year is a lot too, but if you look at the kind of schools they were, I don't think it matters a lot.

You and Obama went to serious schools that are hard to get into and have a lot of prestige. There's a reason to stick it out even if you aren't super happy. If you're going to geographical state U and you aren't really feeling it, why stay?

Maybe I know an unusual number of college hoppers in terms of former students. It, in my experience, represents a lack of academic purpose almost always but not a character flaw. Some of us go through college because we're kind of interested in stuff and we want a job that requires a college degree, but at the age of 18-23, it's not quite laid out in front of us like stepping stones. I think that's okay.

(I only went to two colleges as an undergraduate. But I might have gone to others had I not liked the second one.)

Actually, people have said how or why it was significant:

Then, there's this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20081105

Any basis you have for your assertion that it wasn't significant? Or could we at least admit that it's an arguable point?

But there's some choice about what gets made fun of and how and how often. (Suppose the 57 states comment was handled as ruthlessly and repeatedly.) Palin's treatment is kind of hard to compare to anything else in my political life span.

The interviews were bad, but it's hard to see how she deserves the level, amount, and topics of ridicule she continues to draw. I think the pundits who look at gender and class may be onto something, and that may play into the college issue Munchkin and I were talking about.

If you're talking about someone applying for a job at a regular company, it's a red flag, but maybe not a fatal flaw.

If you're talking about someone running to be one of the 1-2 most powerful people in the country, then I think it's a much bigger problem. Plus, I think there's a huge difference between transferring from your original school and transferring a number of times, no matter the schools involved.

Were you around for Dan Quayle?

I was... and that's about how bad this was... times 4.

I'm still wondering what she's going to do. And this is purely emotional: I hope it's just to retire to private life because that salvages the most of what I liked about her.

I know it's really bizarre to feel any personal investment in her, but as screwed up as the campaign was, I believed her to be a fundamentally competent person. I had little problem with her political record, such as it was.

I don't know that she was ready to be VP or maybe more importantly run for VP, but we've got Biden; we had Quayle; that bar isn't real high.

If she really resigned because she's going to run for President even though she didn't even complete one term as governor or because she imagines she's going to be this important conservative voice, it's hard not to see my assessment of her basic decency and competence as horribly flaw. And it makes me sad :( to have been so mistaken.

I agree it's a red flag at your initial interview. I don't think it's still a red flag when you've been gainfully employed (such as it is in politics) for a decade or whatever.

In non-political life, I'd be amazed if an employer looked back at the college record of a 44 year old applicant who had been successfully working in the field. So, if you didn't continue to switch jobs like you had switched colleges, I don't think it would really matter.

But I work in a really low pressure field. If you hold the credential needed and graduated from state U, you're good to go.

(But I do wonder if some of this is age based. I think I'm a decade older at least that you and Munchkin, so I don't regard someone's college experience as being as character defining. I believe that Munckin has a pretty awesome job after rigorous college preparation and I know that you are in law school, so I'm not belittling you guys with "in the real world" kind of junk. I just mean that perhaps the more you watch people professionally sink or swim, you realize that outside of a pretty limited number of elite colleges, what someone did in college doesn't mean that much compared with what they do after.)

I was, but I don't see it as anything like the personal nature of the criticism of Palin. He was hammered for being dumb, but I never once heard critiques of his personal appearance as whatever the masculine equivalent of "slutty" is. He could have his family at appearance and I don't remember them being attacked.

Then, there's this:

http://www.reuters.com/article/press...08+PRN20081105
[/QUOTE]

I didn't doubt SNL, The Daily Show, Stephen Colbert, etc. could have influence some people, but I'm saddened by how lazy and uneducated people have let themselves become. Especially when information is so easily available.

I agree with this statement. I'd care less if she was applying to be my cubicle mate, etc. Running for Veep or president, yep, I want someone who's hit a few less schools. If you can find a previous candidate for VP or president who attended that many colleges (for undergrad), I'd like to know.

and being hammered for dumb wasnt enough?

it's really hard to make a point by point comparison of Quayle vs Palin. I think the bottom line is that critics of Palin saw her as ill prepared (you know I said it enough times) and wrong on so many levels to be VP and what she is doing right now by resigning with no solid explanation is enforcing that point.

Maybe I'm missing something. What do you all think that attending four colleges says that lackluster performance at one mediocre college doesn't?

Or is it that you basically feel that you feel that an elite education is needed to be a good VP?

Or maybe that you feel like educational experience is a good proxy for intelligence? I think it's much more likely to be a proxy for your parents' social class, assuming that you went to a lame college or four.

I think I'm coming down hard on the "college hopscotch" due to personal experience. But, sometimes it does make a difference. There have been evenings that I present to a client; the next morning the client calls my boss to request a copy of my resume/CV. They never have any questions about the information I've provided, but they several have been concerned with my "experience and background."

Is it because I'm young (and I look even younger), female, or a person of color? It probably depends on the client; sometimes it's probably all three. Usually, after looking at my staff bio, they tend to be very good clients. BUT...what if I had done what Ms. Palin did? What if my family hadn't encouraged me to go to the best schools I could get into? What if I hadn't researched colleges very well and found the perfect school for me right away? There's a good chance that those clients would have requested another architect and could sit behind my "qualifications" as an excuse.

Basically, I don't get any slack--so why should she?

I don't know if it's necessarily age-based; I can't speak for Munchkin (although I believe she's been in the working world for a few years, between full-time and summer work during grad school), but I've been working full-time since 2001 (I worked full-time during college as a preschool teacher, after college in public relations, and I've worked during law school as a law clerk). I'll agree that in many fields there's a point where your professional credentials will have (at least) as much importance as your academic credentials.

As far as the importance of it - I think that going to what works out to be one college per year for four years shows the same types of red flags that it does for someone who changes jobs every couple of months. I think that, barring any significant experience since that point, it's a detriment.

Now, it's true that Palin has served as a mayor and governor since that period. However, she's also running against other people who have served as governors, senators, leaders of industry, etc. That type of experience becomes the baseline, and all other things being equal, switching between several colleges works against her.

It may be acceptable for other professions where you're talking about experienced professionals, but it becomes a bigger issue in this specific context.

This seems like kind of strange to me.

Her CV is out there. She has a political record to use for evaluation, but you want to look at her pattern of college attendance and make a judgment on that?

Do you submit records for all the classes you took on your CV? Basically, I'm wondering that if they really looked at Palin the way you're suggesting people look at you, wouldn't all they see is the college she graduated from and the work she'd done since graduation?

I'm surprised that it's college background that clients want on you now. I can completely understand wanting to see the projects people had worked on previously if I were hiring in your field though. What I imagine will happen is the longer you work, the more your name will be associated with certain projects and people will be able to quit asking.

it's kind of funny that we are discussing this in detail now.

When I brought up during the elections...it was immediately shot down.

Even I have to side with the fact that if the woman could be picked to be VP candidate, then obviously the vetting committee had no problems with her educational resume, but....then again, if the general GC populace NOW has an issue with this, then what does this say about the vetting committee?

I think, based on your postings about politics, that you like a certain amount of wonkiness in your politicians. I would be surprised if someone with Palin's education background could deliver what you're looking for.

But I don't know if that's what's really important (although it drives me crazy that so many conservatives look dumb) so I'm likely to use a different standard.

I don't think though it can be said that in other fields that people would go back to your undergraduate transfer record to make a decision about your qualification about employment once you've out of school for 20 years.

People didn't really worry about Biden's academic background at all, and he had a scant five years of experience between law school and the US Senate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Biden

(It seems strange to me that being elected by the people of Delaware would be regarded as a qualification in its own right when you think about it. Because they are repeatedly willing to send him back, the rest of us should regard him as qualified and doing a good job?)

I don't know that the general populace of GC has a problem with her education now or then, at least in the sense that it was decisive in their evaluation of her an a candidate.

I'm interested in it now as a possible predictor of her flakiness in light of her resignation.

Munchkin brought it up in the context of people who believe she never graduated from college.

It may be strange but, unfortunately, it's the truth. It's happened more than once. I do suspect that it will calm down as I get older, but will never go away (for those other two pesky reasons). Come on, you really think they're concerned with what classes I took in college? They look for reasons to get rid of me. When the resume is irontight, they have nothing else to complain about.

Honestly? I had more pressing issues to be concerned with her about, like her politics and the fact that she couldn't even hold her own in an interview with Katie Freaking Couric. I'm sure the school thing came up and while I didn't shoot it down, I just saw it as less important. Now that she can't even finish up a single term as governor, it's just more of the same.