Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
WHEN IS A GAFFE NOT A GAFFE?
When it comes out of the mouth of Sarah Palin, whom the media is trying to destroy by ignoring her unfamiliarity with how mortage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac work. HuffPo:
Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."It should be a pretty big deal that someone who might be president has no idea how the mortgage industry functions, despite being a "genuine American" who ostensibly has some instinctual feel of these kinds of things by virtue of her distance from the Northeastern Elite. Not that this matters to our elite liberal media, who haven't given Palin's statement much attention. After all, why should a candidate have to know how much about the nature of little problems like the mortgage crisis when they're just so powerfully authentic? Or as Matthew Yglesias puts it, "all this liberal sneering at public officials for not having, you know, a in-depth knowledge of policy matters is exactly why we’re seen as out of touch."
It's not actually surprising that Palin would get confused about what costs taxpayers and what doesn't, since she's been touting her record as a fiscal conservative crusading against corruption while gleefully omitting that she left Wasilla millions in debt after her tenure as mayor.
You'd think that the media would be involved in reorienting public debate towards substantive issues. But instead the press has decided that Mark Davis is correct and that the campaign shouldn't be about issues at all, but rather about character, speeding our political conversation into a full blown reality show.
--A. Serwer
COMMENTS (9)
I can see her now "gleefully" omitting things left and right. Isn't it easy enough to bring up her shortcomings without using dopey adjectives like that?
Posted by: Chris | September 8, 2008 4:08 PM
John McCain didn't know how Social Security works either: remember when he said that the fact that current workers pay the benefits for retirees--you know, the structure of the program--was a "disgrace"? What are you, an elitist who looks down on people who don't know how government programs work?
And by the way, it was Rick Davis who said the election would be about character.
Posted by: Bob | September 8, 2008 4:12 PM
Uhhh... Ya might want to check on that. Apparently, they already knew and the quote you attribute to Palin is incomplete (here's the whole thing) -
Republican presidential nominee John McCain also voiced support while his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said that Fannie and Freddie "have gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers. The McCain-Palin administration will make them smaller and smarter and more effective for homeowners who need help."
Here's the link to the COMPLETE story -
http://www.recordpub.com/news/article/4357921
So, better check your "facts" first...
Posted by: submix8c | September 8, 2008 4:42 PM
Please stop talking about Sarah Palin! We are just playing into the Rove playbook. Put the focus back on McSame. Her problems aren't going to go away, whether we talk about her or not. But we are taking the heat off McSame: his flip-flops, his catering to the extreme right-wing, his temper, his lack of judgement, and so on.
Posted by: chasrusnak | September 8, 2008 4:44 PM
That's it, "shift focus", don't respond to the proof of distortion of facts...
Done here, nothing to see, move on...
Face it the Democrats are shooting themselves in the proverbial foot! Wasn't going to vote, but this kind of blather has convinced me and my wife to register and vote just to wake your myopic butts up!
Posted by: submix8c | September 8, 2008 4:49 PM
p.s.
Liberal Intelligence
Military Intelligence
Oxymorons - morons!
Posted by: submix8c | September 8, 2008 4:54 PM
A wee bit harder to criticize Palin when the Progs have hitched their wagon to a purfessur who acquired most of his foreign policy experience by taking his little princesses to the International House of Pancakes. At least Dobama now perceives the subtle nuances that distinguish the taciturn Swedish pancake from the Janus-faced Belgian waffle, even without any white stuff on top. But how can he appease both these threatening foods simultaneously?!
Btw, Prez. W got most of his education at an IHOP down Texas way, and we know all too well how that has worked out.
Posted by: Sylt av lingon | September 9, 2008 2:05 AM
Obama and Biden in a late night tête-a-tête over hot cocoa:
THE O-MAN: “The other day, Joe, I watched one of those ‘History Channel’ documentaries about the Nazis and that guy Hitler.”
JOE BLOW: “Yeh, that’s good stuff, plays well with the ‘clingers’ in Scranton. Lots of blood and guts and daffy heroics for the slobbering rubes.”
THE O-MAN: “Correct. Correct. However, Hitler seems to be quite a problematic figure—
shouting and gesticulating uncouthly, degrading the environment, underfeeding slave laborers. I think the video made a few other accusations against him too.”
JOE BLOW: “Yeh, sure, Barry, nasty piece of work, that Hitler.”
THE O-MAN: “Well, here’s the concern that haunts me night after night—after we take office, what am I supposed to do about that guy?”
Posted by: Sylt av lingon | September 9, 2008 2:23 AM
Palin's views on abortion are cuckoo and she has no foreign policy qualifications; however, she should be critiqued for real failings, not manufactured ones.
Perhaps a correction on your part is in order.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/09/did-palin-make.html
Peter Viles, senior producer for Real Estate at LATimes.com on Palin's alleged gaffe:
"There is no "gaffe" here. Congress earlier this summer -- in the housing bill that both John McCain and Barack Obama supported but didn't bother to vote on -- gave Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. a blank check* to invest in Fannie or Freddie. It OKd a big bailout. Perhaps in your book a blank check freshly signed by Congress is not "too expensive." Perhaps you trust the government not to spend a blank check. Perhaps pigs have wings. Palin was right: The very existence of a blank check means that Fannie and Freddie are too expensive to taxpayers."
Posted by: Colugo | September 9, 2008 1:33 PM