Back in the late-1990s, some wizard of a network program executive had the clever idea of giving NBA legend Magic Johnson a talk show of his very own. Magic had recently retired from basketball and was still basking in the glory of his struggle with HIV. From the perspective of the network and the syndicators, it was an ideal situation: They had a truly beloved figure hosting a show, and they could send a positive and politically correct message to the public.There was only one problem: Magic couldn't actually talk, which isn't exactly ideal when you having him hosting a talk show. He was marble-mouthed to the point of being almost incomprehensible, and it took him forever to get to whatever passed for his point. The Magic Hour was cancelled after eight short weeks.
Sarah Palin is just like Magic Johnson, but better. After all, I never spent fourteen months masturbating to fantasies involving Magic. At least not that I'd admit to in public.
The former governor of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Alaska became America's Sweetheart as John McCain's running mate. A strain of populism that suggests brain trauma has always found a home in America's heart, as has taking forever to say nothing at all noteworthy. This makes her a dream come true to network scumbags the world over, particularly at Fox News, where original thinking is only tolerated if you have a spectacular rack.
It shouldn't have surprised anyone that Fox would give Palin a shitload of money to be their exclusive talking head. No one was even all that bothered that, as was true with Magic Johnson, talking isn't Sarah Palin's strong suit.
It was a given that she would debut on The O'Reilly Factor. The Factor's host, Bill O'Reilly, is a magical and rare combination of dishonest and stupid, making him the star of a network that cherishes both. No serious person watches cable news to actually learn anything, and Fox has mastered the form. It is the former governor's natural spiritual home, as the transcipt from her Tuesday debut aptly demonstrates.
PALIN: They don't like the message. They don't like the common sense conservative solutions that I think I represent and I articulate as I explain what I believe are some solutions to the great challenges facing America. They don't like to hear it.You know, I'm almost sorry that Palin isn't president. There are few things I'd rather see than an Oval Office address concerning the great American "uncomfortableness."
O'REILLY: It's true. That's true, but there are a lot of conservative politicians giving that message, and none of them are as attacked personally, as vehemently as you are. And that's just a fact.
Now, President Obama's poll numbers sinking. I think it's the unemotional response to terror, as I said, and the health care debacle. Anything else in play?
PALIN: Of course they're sinking. It was just a matter of time before more of that reflection of the people's uncomfortableness that they feel towards this administration is manifesting in these poll numbers. There is an obvious disconnect between President Obama and the White House, what they are doing to our economy and what they are doing in terms of not allowing Americans to feel as safe as we had felt and people finally saying, "You know, this is not the representative form of government that we thought that we had voted in." After a year of time, people are saying, "No, we want the White House, we want President Obama to hear from us. We want these common sense solutions with health care, with jobs, with the economy, with the war on terror to be implemented so we can get back on the right track."
She could also serve as the Political Science Professor in Chief, travelling from sea to shining sea, explaining how a government "we had voted in" is not of a "representative form." That might prove to be the most intellectually compelling presidency of my lifetime. For example, is Sarah seriously suggesting that, since Barack Obama only received 53% of the point, he should adopt 47% of John McCain's agenda to be "representative?"
But the O'Reilly interview wasn't just about Palin's expertise on civics. She's also something of a economic policy expert, as this exchange proves.
O'REILLY: But isn't it true that no human being could lower the unemployment rate at this point? I mean, I don't like the massive spending. I think it's going to bankrupt the nation. But I — you know, I'm saying to myself, "If Sarah Palin and John McCain were in, could they bring unemployment down under 10 percent?" And I'm not sure you could.You know, sort of how the government got out of the banking industry's way. That worked out just fine, didn't it?
PALIN: If the question is can any individual politician change the job forecast outlook, no. But what government can do is get out of the way of the private sector being able to seize opportunities to grow and to thrive and prosper and hire more people. You do that — a politician, a policy does that by reducing taxes on the job creators, by getting government out of the way of the private sector.
In this, Palin's experience is invaluable. As governor of Alaska, she got out of the way of the private sector by implementing a windfall profits tax on the oil companies - just as the world price of oil was shooting into the stratosphere - and gave $1,300 to every man, woman and child in the state.
But let's move on to the serious stuff: foreign policy. These are deadly serious times, and the world needs the steady hand of a smoking hot girl without a job at the helm.
O'REILLY: Last time you were here I asked you about Iran. And that's coming down the pike now real fast.Obviously, we're past the time of talking about sanctions and needs to talk about "financial sanctions and the sanctions on petroleum, the refinery projects." Who can argue with that?
PALIN: Yes, yes.
O'REILLY: I mean, this is the under-reported story. We're keeping a very close eye on it. But in the next few weeks Barack Obama is going to have to do something with Iran.
PALIN: Yes, he is.
O'REILLY: What would you do?
PALIN: Well, the — the time for talking about sanctions — I think we've passed that. Even the last couple of weeks we have passed that. And we need to follow through on those financial terms that are favoring some Iranian businesses and Iranian regimes.
O'REILLY: But you figure that they're doing that, right?
PALIN: No, I don't think that they are doing it or we perhaps would see some...
O'REILLY: Would you attack them? Would you let Israel attack them?
PALIN: I think that we can still head in that direction of the financial sanctions and the sanctions on petroleum, the refinery projects.
What Mrs. Palin perhaps isn't aware of is the fact that the United States has imposed every sanction it can on Iran since 1979. Perhaps the governor is referring to the need to get Russia and China, in particular, on board with the United Nations sanctions regime.
To accomplish that, she would need to convince the Russians and Chinese that sanctioning Tehran is in their national interest, which is a challenge, since it isn't. the Iranian nuclear program doesn't threaten them in the slightest, but a unipolar world with the United States as its sole superpower does.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that administration of President Bush and the Republican Congress got the U.S indebted to China to the tune of a trillion dollars. Try telling your credit card company what to do. Let me know how that works out for you.
Journalism is, however, something that Sarah Palin knows a lot about, having majored in it at the 37 collages she attended. Her views on the recent book, Game Change, are enlightening.
O'REILLY: OK. I want to run you two clips from that show and have you react. The first one is from one of the authors of the book "Game Change," John Heilemann. Roll the tape."Being there" is clearly an important journalistic exercise, as Sarah Palin clearly knows. If a journalist is not present at the debate preparation of a candidate, it clearly shouldn't be reported on because it didn't happen. That's an exciting new standard, and one that would have made the presidency of Richard Nixon a happier time for everyone who wasn't Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist and the Democratic National Committee.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN HEILEMANN, CO-AUTHOR, "GAME CHANGE": She still didn't really understand why there was a North Korea and a South Korea. She was still regularly saying that Saddam Hussein had been behind 9/11. And literally the next day, her son was about to ship off to Iraq and when they asked her who her son was going to fight, she couldn't explain that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: That's pretty nasty, isn't it?
PALIN: Well, it's pretty made up, too. I — I think that these reporters — who were not in any part of what I was doing there as a VP candidate, I think I explained a lot of this in "Going Rogue," in my book.
O'REILLY: Is he...
PALIN: I was there...
O'REILLY: Is he lying?
PALIN: They were not there.
However, if a candidate is thought to be palling around with terrorists, the American people need to know about it, even if Bob Woodward wasn't actually at the scene of the palling.
O'REILLY: Was it a lie that you thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11?Wait a second. If you're "asking questions" about Saddam's involvement in 9/11 as late as the fall of 2008, how can you not be blaming him for it, at least implicitly? Was she also "asking questions" about, say, Norway's possible connections to 9/11? How about Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany, where the terrorists actually did come from, and was well know as early as 2001?
PALIN: You know what, on that, I did talk a lot to Steve Schmidt about the history of the war and about where, perhaps, the 9/11 terrorists came from and could there have been any connection to Saddam.
O'REILLY: OK, so that's...
PALIN: So I admit that I asked questions about it.
O'REILLY: ...that's not a lie but it's — right. But you didn't — you weren't blaming 9/11 on Saddam Hussein?
PALIN: No. No, no, no.
O'REILLY: And the shipping out of your son to Iraq, you didn't know why, that's a lie?Did a lot of people get fired during The O'Reilly Factor on Tuesday that I didn't hear about? Because I'm pretty sure unemployment is at 10%.
PALIN: See the — these reporters were not there. And I think that these are the political establishment reporters who love to gin up controversy and spin up gossip. The rest of America doesn't care about that kind of crap. It's...
O'REILLY: I agree with you. I agree with you.
PALIN: The rest of America, we are concerned about a 10 percent unemployment rate...
O'REILLY: But they want...
PALIN: ...a 17.3 percent underemployment rate...
But I have to agree with Governor Palin. The American people clearly don't care if their candidates are functionally retarded or not, and they haven't for a long time.
However, I'd suggest that's a big part of the problem.
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