Palin's Progress

Stupid is (the continued harping on the Russia/Alaska comments) and stupid does (the repeated answer that it was more--well, much more--than a joke) aside, the stupidest answer given in this interview met with nothing more than a half-disbelieving, half-glazed over follow-up from the interlocutor:

"I disagree with the Obama Administration on that.  I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is going to grow.  More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.  And, um, I don't think the Obama Administration has any right to tell Israel that the, the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

Palestinians are stateless, not Cherokee.  And with 20% (and growing) of Israel proper already Arab, Palin's flocking settlers, who are substantially more fecund than their secular reformed co-religionists back in Tel Aviv, would probably be better served staying in West Jerusalem and doing their best to maintain the Jewish demographics of the Jewish state.  Besides being anathema to both Palestinians and to those who pimp the Palestinian cause to justify violence against Israel and its U.S. underwriters, Palin's position is on the lunatic fringe of of any legal or diplomatic debate about the issue.

Charlie Gibson, who smugly opens the above clip, helped create this monster.  Desultory Eclecticism will reprint in full an email sent on the day after then-VP-nominee Palin's interview with the aforementioned Charlie Gibson:
Just a little note on the Palin interview.  Charlie Gibson seemed frustrated by the whole thing, especially when she kept repeating the same answers (NATO obligations, Israel's right to bellicosity, raiding Pakistan, Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda), but this is his own [expletive deleted] fault.  Charlie Gibson, during the primary debates, actually posed the hypothetical to Obama: let's say we win in Iraq, withdraw our troops, but then Al-Qaeda comes back and takes over? what would you do?  The correct response to this question is: I would eat nothing but chicken McNuggets for the remainder of my term as President.  The level of foreign policy ignorance required 1) to suggest that the Al-Qaeda that attacked us in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, Aden, Nairobi, and Tanzinia, you know, the one that Bin Laden actually founded and leads, is or has ever even been our primary adversary in Iraq, or worse, that it has actually somehow been in control there, and 2) that a fundamentalist Sunni group that is widely despised in the Arab world is somehow poised to take control of a majority Shi'ite country if American troops are withdrawn, is staggering.  When you parrot Bush Administration talking points for eight years and call it news, why are you surprised when the Governor of Alaska 1) doesn't know any better, and 2) gets a bump in the polls the day after endlessly repeating talking points that a majority of the electorate now thinks are true because they haven't been exposed to legitimate journalism since the Lewiensky scandal? [expletive deleted]

 Your Humble Desultory Eclectic 9/12/08