Man, I hope so! 

On the heels of the Couric interview, with more embarrassing answers to come, it’s hard to believe that she’s that obtuse after all of the footage of her from Alaska interviews and debates I’ve seen. 

How would you deal with this issue?  Palin is brand new on the scene.  She knows Alaska, but not much else.  She’s smart, she’s witty, she’s attractive, and she’s being skewered by the press just after her introduction to the world.  Expectations are really low, with reporter after reporter traipsing out of NY / LA for the first time in his/her lives to find any and all dirt on her (something no one did when Obama announced his candidacy). 

The media are calling for her to talk to them just after writing scathing articles and spreading vicious rumors.  Meanwhile, she’s taking crash courses on foreign policy, domestic issues, and probably leaders of the world.  But, she has to do something.  Her handlers tell her to stay on message, and she does, but she looks robotic (with Charlie Gibson).  He made his own gaffes, and that, along with bad editing, gave her a small wave of forgiveness.  Her statement on Alaska was taken out of context with the edit, and it made her sound idiotic (and gave fodder to SNL). 

So what do the handlers do now?  She does an interview with Hannity, but she still sounds robotic, and he didn’t challenge her.  More bad press.  More clammoring for interviews and reporters bitching that she doesn’t do press conferences, either.  There’s a debate coming up.  She’s visiting the U.N.  There’s the Couric interview coming up, and Couric of course has her own agenda to make herself look like a serious news reporter. 

So why not make her even MORE robotic?  Lower the expectations even further.  Give Katie what she wants (I think Katie came off a bit like she had some disdain for Palin).  I have seen rumors out today that some McCain campers are seriously worried about her (source is Andrew Sullivan, to whom I will NOT link), questioning what they are going to do with her because she seriously failed a mock debate and mock press conference.  More lowering?  Then, they pulled the top two McCain campaign people, Schmidt and Davis, and took Palin on a debate retreat to Sedona.  More lowering with the appearance of circling the wagons?  Some big political game to make her performance at the debate look stupendous and reenergize the campaign again?

Man, I hope so.