Correction on Sarah Palin

Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
THURSDAY SEPT. 25, 2008

Three weeks ago -- before Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson was announced -- I mocked the idea that the McCain campaign was afraid to have Palin face our mighty press corps, and I defended Palin as follows:

When they decide in a couple of weeks that Palin is ready to do so, she'll go and sit down with Brit Hume or Larry King or Charlie Gibson or some other pleasant, accommodating person who plays a journalist on TV and have a nice, amiable, entertaining chat about topics that are easily anticipated. . . .

Sarah Palin isn't Dan Quayle. She is extremely smart -- much smarter than the average media star who will eventually be interviewing her -- and she is very politically skilled as well. She didn't go from obscure small-town city council member to Governor to Vice Presidential nominee by accident. She'll be more than adequately prepared for the shallow, 30-second, rote exchanges that pass for political interviews in our Serious mainstream discourse. Anyone expecting her to fall on her face or be exposed as some drooling simpleton is going to be extremely disappointed. That might (or might not) happen with real questioning, but she's not going to face that.

I was so wrong about that -- the parts about Palin, that is, not the press (though, in fairness, Gibson was far more adversarial than I expected and Katie Couric was even better). Just watch these clips from her interview last night with Katie Couric. I'll be honest: watching this, I actually felt sorry for Sarah Palin:

(Continued here, with video.)