The Writing on the Hand
February 10th, 2010I meant to comment on this story but got to it a little late, so it may be old news.
I would recommend the CNN video for the full effect of the former governor of Alaska surreptitiously reading her hand as she is being questioned.
She is getting better in terms of how she does in interviews, it seems to me. But teleprompters are classy and highbrow and writing on your hand is not. What was she thinking?
Is “lack of class” the criticism or that she is being hypocritical? Either way (and not writing as a Palin fan) this seems rather blown out of proportion. The issues with her go way beyond something this petty.
What fascinates me about her is the accusation that she is dumb. Is she? Was she just having a bad day when she did that really dreadful interview during the election? Was she railroaded by the media?
My impression is that she has been working really hard on her image- speech/ghostwriters, etc.
But writing on your hand when you are a person in her position and in the same speech making fun of the president’s teleprompter seems like a colossal blunder. So I guess a better wording of “what was she thinking” would be “was she thinking?” I do hate to be this blunt, but my concern is not lack of class or hypocrisy, but intelligence. She made a comment in one speech about not wanting “some guy with a law degree behind the lecturn”, but I’d rather have that than…
I supposed for a long time that, if a candidate was grossly unqualified for president, the electoral process would be able to weed him/her out in time. I now think I was wrong BUT the situation was not so cut and dry anyway with McCain because people respected his years of experience and service, blah blah, and he selected her. Now I guess I’m surprised that she is still getting so much attention. It seems to me that the media could do a lot to weed her but isn’t because of the celebrity factor or something. Or maybe because she’s a way to make Republicans look bad.
Granted, there is more to it than “being smart” in the sense you and I probably mean.