If you old enough, you surely remember when Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin shortly after she had been named as John McCain’s running mate back in 2008. It didn’t go well, primarily because it became obvious that Palin not only did not read any magazines or newspapers but that she was lying about it. It hurt early perceptions of her candor and character, and it also made her look woefully unprepared to potentially become the president of the United States. The interview definitely had a big impact, in large part because it served as a first impression of Palin for most of the nation.
Looking back, Katie Couric isn’t so sure that today’s candidates would be hurt by doing a similar face-plant in a debut interview.
TV news veteran Katie Couric says she’s not sure if the question about reading material she famously asked Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election would have the same impact in 2019 due to what she said was a “concerning” rise in anti-intellectualism.
Palin’s fumbling nonanswer when Couric asked her about what newspapers and magazines she read that had shaped her worldview — “All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years” — was met with mockery, but also raised serious questions about her suitability for the number two spot on Sen. John McCain’s ticket…
…But Couric said that she’s not sure the controversy would have the same effect in the current political environment.
“I’ve thought about that and have wondered, actually — that was in 2008 — if now in 2019 if someone didn’t know the answer to that question, or didn’t know the answer to a lot of other questions, if it would matter,” she said
“I think there’s such a reverse snobbery about intellectuals that I think it would almost be seen as a badge of honor. I think that’s really concerning.”
The former Today show host attributed this to an increase in anti-intellectualism and populism around the world.
“There’s kind of reverse snobbery, weirdly, about scientists, academics, elitists — whatever you want to call them,” she said. “So, I think it’s permeating our perceptions of what science is and what it can do for the world.”
There’s definitely a major uptick in populist/anti-elite sentiment that’s being felt globally, but it’s also doubtful that Palin was hurt as much as a lot of people think. She immediately became a hero to a big percentage of the people on the right precisely because she’d been made to look stupid for not doing things the elites thought she should do. These people identified with Palin and saw Couric as a snob.
What I think changed is that more mainstream upscale Republicans found it necessary to defend Palin (and McCain, for selecting her) in an effort to avoid a complete collapse at the top of the ticket. It wasn’t just her performance in the Couric interview that they had to defend. They also had to defend her performance in the vice-presidential debate. Throughout her brief time on the big stage during the campaign, she repeatedly demonstrated her unpreparedness to be president, and the Republican elites simply made up excuses for her and defined down the minimum expectations people should have in a vice-presidential or presidential candidate.
I’ve long argued that this dumbing down of expectations broke something in the Republican Party. The Tea Party revolution that emerged the next year seemed to flow seamlessly from the breach. The GOP reverted a bit to form in 2012 by nominating Mitt Romney who no one loved but was unquestionably qualified. But the voters had been primed by Palin to resist any standards about what a nominee should know or even about how they should act.
So, in a way, I don’t think the times have changed so much since Palin ran for vice-president as Palin’s candidacy changed everything that came after it. After having to defend her, the Republican Establishment was powerless to defend itself against the Tea Party or Donald Trump.
Long before Palin came Reagan and Bush II (Dubya). Both were proud of their ignorance and encouraged ignorance and suspicion of science and knowledge. Dubya was worse than Reagan, but both of them were hostile to science, intellectuals, reason, and knowledge. Republicans have lapped up this hostility for a very long time.
I should have refreshed my screen before I posted below! Then I wouldn’t have wasted the space on that comment–you said it better.
Oh I don’t know. I thought “stupidtsan” was pretty good.
Pliny, you’re really, really old but good comment.:)
Yet the mainstream media, and a lot of Twitter Democrats, can’t stop jerking off to McCain’s name. He, or at least his advisors, had to know how woefully unprepared she was yet picked her anyway. And given how he spent the last few years of his life, it’s doubtful he would have made it through two terms.
The McCain hagiography is puke-making.
I am, however, revolted and disgusted by that jerk in the White House continuing to diss McCain for his usual idiotic reasons. It’s just vile and stupid and frankly insane.
Frankly, the Maga 27% should be venerating McCain for perpetuating the stupid that led to their hero being elected. But logic and reason don’t happen with that crowd.
Speaking for myself, I blame McCain for a lot of what’s happening now. The continuing dumbing down of America. Thanks, McCain.
Amen to both of the above. Sarah Palin is the reason I have exactly zero patience for McCain hagiography.
While Caribou Barbie is not solely responsible for the dumbing of the GOP — as mentioned above, it started far earlier, and took a major step during the GWB Administration — the Palin pick was itself a very large step on the downward descent. It really signified the complete lack of regard given to expertise. Thus paving the way for the ultimate idiocracy we are currently living under.
I see Palin instead as another sorry chapter in the decades-old Repugnican War On Thinking. The Smirking Chimp preceded her. His stunted mental capacities were pitched to be attractive to his voters (in not so many words, “He’s stoopid, like you.” In 2004, to the Repugnican base, knowledge of French and some experience in the world outside the U.S. were worthy only of contempt). J. Danforth Quayle, although he had more credentials of a kind, appears in an earlier chapter.
Since the sixties, targets in this war have included public education and the academy. One result: some ridiculous majority of Repugnicans are climate denialists. They’ve been living in Stupidstan for a long time.
And now Repugnican politicians are at the Murdochs’ mercy. Talk about War On Thinking!
Quayle definitely set the stage for Caribou Barbie.
What get’s somewhat lost in all of this is that our current VP, Sharia Mike, isn’t any better than either of them. He just hides it better. Remember there’s a reason he’s called Mike Dense by a lot of people on both sides of the aisle.
And to think that Dan Quayle ousted the venerable Birch Bayh, via Reagan’s coattails. 1980 was the beginning of the end of the Senate as a (semi) august body. So many fine Democratic senators went down in one fell swoop … the troglodytes moved in, and the nastiness commenced.
It is an interesting point, but I think I see Palin as more of a symptom than a cause. She was the personification of the know-nothing populist rabble that the billionaire funders of the Republican party had been cultivating for years. You are absolutely correct in that the Republican party previously would have probably preferred to keep their rabble mostly off camera and in their churches and their racist, misogynistic messages as coded as possible, but the central fact that they needed white rural, and southern state voters to punch their ticket at extraordinary high rates pretty much dictates the strategy. Sure, she greased the runway (tundra?), but the tea party would have happened regardless and it has been a descending spiral of deviancy as Republican politicians try to stoke fear and hate in their voters by pretending that they are under attack by the others in order to win elections.
And not to malign the dead guy that just made the president look like a fool, but I do agree that McCain picking Palin was one of the low points of our democracy. I certainly understand the logic of the time- he was behind and needed to take a gamble, and Palin actually had a pretty good reputation (in an admittedly small population state). But you would think a conversation or two with her would have been enough to nix the idea. But unfortunately, sanity didn’t prevail and the bet went bust big-time- and not just for John McCain. But virtually the entire Republican party would have eventually become Sarah Palin one way or another, I think.
Back in 2012, either Boo or a commenter here characterized it this way:
“Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity worked long and hard on weaponizing the Stupid. And, when they were finished, it blew up in their faces.”
Which is another way of agreeing with what your characterization of Palin and the modern GOP.
Although we on the left like to say stuff like this “broke” the GOP, did it? They’re getting everything they want: gutted regulations, tax cuts for the rich, demonizing anybody who is not them, Supreme Court picks, etc. Some days I don’t think they think anything’s wrong at all.
McCain picked Palin for the simple reason that she was the preferred candidate of the Council for National Policy, a very influential far-right pressure group, whose support he needed. Read about it here.
Democrats have been Republicans’ partners in crime since at least the early 70s when they forced Nixon to resign. It’s easy to see, looking back, how it could be any other way. What’s Sarah Palin got to do with it?
1974 Nixon resigned under imminent impeachment.
1976 Carter centrist democrat elected.
(Carter fails.)
1980 Reagan.
(took 12 years to finally get…)
1992 Clinton the first true DINO
2000 Gore loses to Bush 2 by Republican controlled supreme court decision
2008 Obama supported by Wall Street funding takes office and names wall street executives to run the economy
2016 Hillary rammed down our throats by the establishment Democratic Party — she loses — blames it on Russians
2019 Sarah Palin broke the Repblican Party so badly that Donald Trump is now President of the United States.
Oy.
Bernie, is that you?
I’m probably Liza, after all, but if he’s still in it when I get to vote (a year from now or so), Pete.
Meanwhile I give (way) more money to Bernie. So, you got me there.
Wisconsinite…
Precisely!!!
Thank you.
AG
“2016 Hillary rammed down our throats by the establishment Democratic Party.” If by “establishment Democratic Party” you mean “millions of southern black voters who voted for Clinton over Bernie” then yeah, cool story bro.
…good god, not black voters, southern or otherwise. Are you serious?
If you believe Richard Hofstadter, this is
A) nothing new in American politics
B) cyclical in nature
Hopefully we ride this out and come through the other side.
Richard Hofstadter is of course must-reading. His work, as well as the work of those studying authoritarianism, convinced me that there is a stable undercurrent of citizens who for whatever reason (whether it’s learned, inherited, etc.) who find comfort in black-and-white thinking, caudillo-style leaders, and who generally despise those who dare to value progress. Yeah, that’s a fairly loaded way of putting it, I’ll admit, but I am not wrong. These folks will always be with us. It is just a matter of whether or not they can be contained. We’ve experienced first-hand over the last couple decades when a society’s institutions fail to contain them. My hope is that with enough effort we as a society will figure out a successful containment strategy.
The problem with “riding out a storm” is that…no matter how successfully people may have done so in the past…there’s always the possibility of a bigger storm.
And then comes a Hurricane Sandy or Hurricane Katrina.
As above, so below.
Can we ride out Hurricane Trump?
So far?
The answer to that been questionable at best.
One thing for sure…
We’re gonna find out, and soon!!!
Later…
AG
Even without Palin, we’d be where we are now. Palin was just the first step to taking the dog whistles public.
Actually, folks…
Richard Nixon is the one most responsible for the state of the Republican Party as it stands today…anti-intellectual and dumb as a stick. (Not Nixon…he was smarter than hell. The party.)
From Wikipedia:
Used it quite successfully, I might add.
I remember this very well. My maternal grandfather…the real “Arthur Gilroy,”… lived with my family when I was a small boy and taught me how to read, think, fight and understand how politics really works. He was an avid Joe McCarthy hater, and when Nixon was used as an attack dog against Stevenson I remember him railing about the state of the country. He didn’t have much bad to say about Eisenhower, but Nixon!!!??? And Joe McCarthy!!!???
Fuggedaboudit!!!
Our little black and white TV brought us the news, and he had a temper that knew no bounds regarding the Republicans of the day.
“Those SONS OF BITCHES!!!” he’d say, banging his cane into the floor.
“Those DUMB SONS OF BITCHES!!!”
Nixon…as I said above, no dummy himself although clinically paranoid at the very least…knew how to inflame the unwashed masses.
Bet on it.
He and Joe McCarthy invented the tactics that brought us Ronald Reagan, GW Bush and now Trump.
Interestingly enough, Nixon, McCarthy and Trump shared one advisor.
Roy Cohn.
And…he was smarter than all of them…although not even remotely electable at the time because he was:
1-Jewish
2-Homosexual
3-Deeply connected with the Mafia
and
4-A truly nasty-looking piece of shit, to boot.
But…he was their backroom advisor.
All of them.
Bet on it.
His cruel, vindictive spirit still lives on in Donald Trump.
Bet on that as well.
Maybe we should credit Cohn with inventing the modern Republican Party.
Or would that be “discredit?”
Whatever.
Later…
AG
P.S. Palin?
Just another airhead.
McCain?
Just another hustler.
Both simply inheritors of the Nixon/<]McCarthy/Cohn tradition.
McCain?
Smart?
Do you know in what position he graduated from Annapolis?
Fifth from last in his class.
God only knows what would have happened to him if his father and grandfather…both named John S. McCain, by the way…hadn’t both risen to the rank of four star general in the U.S. Navy. He probably would have ended up an Annapolis real estate broker.
McCain?
Phhhhhh…
Recently on two separate occasions told two Trumper’s that I bought a set of weights as I read in Time Magazine that it was very good for seniors to lift them. They both had identical guffaws at the mention of Time Magazine. I am like really, you won’t accept an article on best personal fitness practices because of propaganda that Time is liberally biased fake news. Weird times.
Maybe you’re too young to remember this, but Time magazine, founded in the 1920s, was the flagship of the Henry Luce Time-Life empire, and the weekly scripture of the establishment Republicans. They were also strongly influenced by Chiang Kai-Shek’s China lobby, which brought us both McCarthy and Nixon, but they had a genteel, establishment image. As such, Time was justly criticized by the Left, especially during the Vietnam war, as one of the chief propaganda organs for the MIC and all the forces that had promoted the war.
A lot of this has been misappropriated by the Trumpers, just like the whines of “McCarthyism!” directed at Trump critics. As AG correctly notes, Trump’s guru Roy Cohn was the brains behind Joe McCarthy.