Sarah Palin: "We've got to stand with our North Korean allies."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm sorry for not blogging the past few days. I've been a bit under the weather.

But I can always count on Sarah Palin to pull me back in...

Yes, Sarah Palin, the most amazing living American, who, appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show today -- where she knows she won't be asked any tough questions and where she can pretty much say whatever she wants without being challenged -- made a rather significant gaffe:

Co-host: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? [...]

Palin: But obviously, we've got to stand with our North Korean allies. We're bound to by treaty –

Co-host: South Korean.

Palin: Eh, yeah. And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

Now, Think Progress's Alex Seitz-Wald is right that "malapropisms can and should be forgiven for frequent public speakers." Everyone makes mistakes. Think about Joe Biden, for example, who frequently needs to extract his foot from his mouth.

But Biden's problem is that he is sometimes too honest (for a politician) or just says embarrassing things. In Palin's case, her problem is that she's lazy and unserious. Time and time again, what she reveals is that she doesn't think, let alone think seriously, about... well, about pretty much anything other than the marketing of the Palin brand.

Think back, for example, to that Katie Couric interview during the '08 campaign. As I put it back then, "[h]ere's Palin, running for vice president, on the national stage, saying silly and stupid things and at times unable even to answer Couric's questions in any coherent, let alone meaningful, way, and showing a complete lack of experience, engagement, expertise, and even basic understanding of the issues." Whether it was her comment that she had foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia, her general incoherence in response any and every policy question, her inability to name a single Supreme Court case, her cluelessness on the separation of church and state, her ridiculous claim that she'd been "hearing about" Biden's speeches since she was in the second grade, or her inability to name a single newspaper or magazine she reads, she exhibited not a tendency to commit malapropisms but a general ignorance about policy, politics, and, well, pretty much the entirety of the world around her.

Is it any wonder that Palin later accused of Couric "badgering" her, even though all Couric did was ask some fairly innocuous questions and, treading softly, give Palin every opportunity not to embarrass herself? Is it any wonder Palin recently said won't "waste time" with Couric if she runs in '12?

Nothing has changed. The Sarah Palin of '08 is the Sarah Palin of '10. The only difference is that her brand is bigger -- with a couple of best-selling (ghost-written) books, a (phony) reality TV show, an even bigger ego, a place of prominence in the Republican Party, and the tantalizing allure of a presidential run.

So back to her latest gaffe. Should we make anything of it? On its own, maybe not -- I suppose anyone can confuse North and South Korea in this context, and she probably knows that the North is the totalitarian one (surely she knows at least that?) -- but it's just one more piece of evidence that her public utterances are really just a string of talking points and ignorant assertions, that is, that she speaks without thinking, and without ever having thought about what she's talking about (including on rather serious issues like this one).

Is it any wonder the vast majority of Americans, including no less an authority than George W. Bush himself, think she's unqualified to be president?

Palin accuses Couric of "Badgering" her

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In her soon-to-be-released memoir of self-congratulation, self-aggrandizement, and victimization, Going Rogue, Sarah Palin apparently writes -- or takes credit for writing, given that she didn't actually write the book, a right-wing ghost-writer did -- that Katie Couric, in that famous, defining interview last year, was "badgering" and biased.

This took me back to the five-post "Painful Palin" series I wrote on the Couric-Palin interview:

-- Not to belabor the point, but...;

-- "Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah";

-- Mocking Biden, lying, and spewing crap;

-- SCOTUS cluelessness; and

-- Tearing down Jefferson's wall.

Palin can blame Couric all she wants -- and, of course, Palin is nothing if not full of blame -- but it was that interview that finally broke the repulsive Palin myth that had ruled the media narrative pretty much from the time she stepped onto the national scene as McCain's running mate. Remember, she was spun well by her admirers on the right. She seemed to be charming, a breath of fresh air, just what Washington needed. But none of that was true, of course. The Couric interview revealed her to be a fool, thoroughly unprepared for national politics, unprepared for public life generally.

To Palin, though, anything tougher than the softballs the bedazzled likes of Sean Hannity lobbed at her must have been seen as "badgering." With Couric, she couldn't even answer simple questions about politics. Was she put on the spot? Maybe, but isn't the ability to deal with pressure part of the test? In flunking that test -- with Couric and then with Charles Gibson -- it became clear why the McCain team had sought to keep her out of the media spotlight, refusing to answer any questions at all for much of the campaign, and why it sent her off instead to rally the mob, with occasional stops to be idolized by those infatuated with her on the right.

She's a twit, you see, and the Couric interview proved it. And instead of accepting responsibility for failing, she resorts to lashing out, as usual, against her perceived enemies, against all those who dare challenge her. That's the story of Sarah Palin, a nasty, vindictive thug who plays the victim and hen tries to push her weight around. And if it's biased to challenge her, to ask a few tough questions (if not all that tough), to present her with the truth, then all she is is a lie, both to herself and to the world. Which pretty much sums it up.

Shameless in the morning

By Capt. Fogg

Fox may just be the most busted name on television, but it never seems to affect them or the faithfulness of their coven. We've heard plenty from them about how President Obama is a racist and the lack of evidence doesn't keep them from clinging to the slur or using it to disparage anyone who dares disagree. It also doesn't keep them from airing obnoxious and personal racist attacks without any disguise at all. What else would you call Bo Dietl, pulling on his eyes and mocking CBS anchor Katie Couric for looking Chinese and "oriental"? Probably the same thing he would call me if I put burned cork on my face and said "Holy Mackerel, Andy": a racist idiot.

Ten years ago, she looked American. Today she is an Oriental,

Dietl remarked, as though nobody of Asian ancestry could possibly be an American. As though nobody with dark skin could possibly be one either. As though Dietl weren't a nasty little racist prick.



Dietl, who is a frequent Fox contributor, former Bush appointee, and midwife to the "birther" hoax, chose Imus in the Morning simulcast on Fox for this infantile insult. In any other venue, he would immediately be fired and Imus, if he had a brain in that zombie-like head of his should have thrown him off instantly, but of course Imus is Imus and all he could do was to call Curic a rodent in that whiskey and heroin voice of his, but of course it was on Fox and the racism and ugly slander is fair and balanced, you dirty liberals.

Sure, they'll have an excuse, it wasn't racist, he was misunderstood, liberals have no sense of humor and yada yada. We've heard it all before. They'll get away with it because Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, and their employees are pigs who deserve nothing better for Christmas than to be visited by the ghost of Bruce Lee, who can demonstrate to them just how hilariously funny it is to be Chinese.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Palin feels exploited, blasts Couric and Fey

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In an interview with conservative John Ziegler, Sarah Palin lashed out at Katie Couric and Tina Fey for exploiting her during the campaign:

I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year and Katie Couric's ratings have risen. I know that a lot of people are capitalizing on, oh I don't know, perhaps some exploiting that was done via me, my family, my administration -- that's a little bit perplexing, but it also says a great deal about our society.

Right, because Fey and SNL have never targeted anyone else, Democrat or Republican. It was all about Palin -- she, and she alone, was their object of ridicule. Actually, I found SNL's treatment of Palin rather tame, and Fey, hardly some vicious comedian, brought an undeniable humanity to her characterization of Palin. It was funny, but it wasn't nasty. How did it exploit Palin any more than any other comedic impression of any other public figure?

And, right, because it was Couric's fault that Palin stumbled and bumbled her way through that interview. It's not like Couric was just luring Palin into gotcha moments, waiting in ambush with tricky questions to trip her up. Last time I checked, a vice presidential candidate ought to know a thing or two about, oh, say, the Constitution, or the economy. But she didn't seem to know much about anything, and the Couric interview exposed her as both a liar and an idiot, which is why it had such resonance during the campaign. Simply put, it exposed her for what she is, an unqualified extremist without much of a clue. And yet I found Couric's treatment of her, like Fey's, rather tame.

Palin wasn't ready for Prime Time, as the saying goes, and she certainly wasn't ready for Couric and Fey. Being lampooned on SNL simply comes with the territory, as do interviews with benevolent network anchors. But she didn't want to face any such scrutiny, comedic or otherwise, and she certainly didn't want to have to answer any tough questions. Which is why she preferred the friendly confines of partisan GOP rallies, where she could feed the frenzy of the mob, and one-on-ones with the likes of Sean Hannity, where smiles, approving nods, and right-wing banter allowed her to play well to the party's base.

Noam Scheiber has written that "Palin's resentment of elites was the key to understanding her." I tend to agree, though I would add that her ignorance and self-absorption -- that is, who she is, not just what she resents -- are very much the driving forces of her life, or at least seem to be.

Ultimately, to Sarah Palin, what happened in the election wasn't her fault, it was everyone else's: Couric's, Fey's, the Democrats', even McCain's. And instead of taking responsibility for herself, her response is to lash out at her enemies, real and perceived alike, claiming that she was exploited, that she was a victim, that "society" is against her.

She may find comfort in such delusion, but delusion is all it is.

Painful Palin: Tearing down Jefferson's wall

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I was going to write a post debunking Palin's response to Katie Couric's question about the separation of Church and State, but my friend Steve Benen, who knows a lot more about this than I do, beat me to it.

Make sure to read Steve's post here, as well as this interesting article by his former colleague from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rob Boston, on Jefferson's famous letter to the Danbury Baptists, from 1802.

In brief: While Biden takes a firm stand in support of the separation of Church and State, noting that the Founders "took religion out of government" (but not out "the public square"), Palin waffles, declaring that Jefferson's original intent was to ensure that "government did not mandate a religion on people" and, in populist mode, talking up "the wisdom of the people," and defending the people's "right" to "express their own religious view" in public.

What Palin offers here, in an awkward way, is a limited (and one-directional) understanding of one of the core principles of American constitutionalism. As Boston explains, Jefferson held that religious liberty, or freedom of conscience -- given that "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God" -- requires "a wall of separation between Church & State." In other words, just as there mustn't be a state-sponsored religion, so too mustn't there be a religion-sponsored state.

Evidently, Palin just doesn't get it. But, then, she's a theocrat. Jefferson would not be amused.

Painful Palin: SCOTUS cluelessness

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I wrote in advance yesterday about Palin's inability, when asked directly by Katie Couric, to name a Supreme Court other than Roe.

Here's the clip, which doesn't disappoint. I'd call it incredible, but Palin's cluelessness is, alas, all quite credible. I'd call it amazing, but nothing about her amazes me anymore.

Whether she's an idiot or a moron, I'll leave up to you. What she certainly is is someone who has never had to deal with, or engage with, the key issues facing her country. And if she couldn't name an actual case or two, at least she could have mentioned an issue that has come before the Supreme Court, like segregation, privacy, or the rights of the accused. Or, to take an issue her running mate knows a thing or two about, torture.

But... no. She just mentions "rulings." -- "Going through the history of America, there would be others." Couric presses her, but... nothing. And her fumbling around is just pathetic.

Note, however, that she is an anti-abortion extremist yet believes, like any good liberal, that there is (in Couric's words) "an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution." Yes, she's cluelessly self-contradictory.

Watch it:

Painful Palin: Mocking Biden, lying, and spewing crap

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Am I spending too much time on Palin? Maybe. But it's important for voters to keep in mind not just what a joke she is but what it says about McCain that he picked such as joke as his running mate. Plus, you know, there's the debate on Thursday.)

My "Painful Palin" series -- for the first two installments, see here and here -- looks at the Palin-Couric interview, parts of which are still being aired on CBS.

Here's the deal with the clip below: In her stump speech, Palin mocks Biden for being in Washington for so long. Needless to say, she doesn't mention his accomplishments, nor his expertise. But she does claim that she's been "hearing about his Senate speeches since [she] was in, like, second grade," which was, like, 1972.

This is ridiculously stupid on so many levels:

1) Was Palin really paying attention Biden in second grade? If so, what does that say about her? -- that she was some sort of crazed political junkie even at a young age. This seems unlikely. More likely, she's lying.

2) How can someone with next to no experience or expertise, someone who is so utterly unprepared for national politics and so applingly unqualified for the vice presidency, mock someone like Biden, who has not just expertise in areas like foreign policy and national security but an impressive legislative record and a long career of engaging with the issues that matter to Americans? Well, obviously Palin can, and does, but does so without even a hint of irony or self-awareness.

3) Biden has been in Washington a long time -- while living the whole time in Delaware, remember -- but so has, of course, McCain. Shouldn't Palin be mocking McCain? If she was listening to Biden's speeches in 1972, surely she was listening to McCain's speeches from as early as 1982, when he was elected to the House? No, because she's clearly lying.

4) Keep in mind that Biden was elected in 1972. Which means that he didn't actually enter the Senate until 1973. Was she really paying attention to Biden's candidacy for the Senate in 1972? No, because she's clearly lying.

5) Thankfully, Katie Couric asked her about this -- actually, challenged her on this. Given that she has a 72-year old running mate, is it not "a risky thing to say"? In response, Palin denies her comment was meant as a joke, that, in fact, she meant it as a compliment, referring to Biden's "lot of experience," "tremendous amount of experience." "Oh, no," she claims, "it's nothing negative at all." But of course it was. Watch the clip. Listen to the tone, the final inflection. She's obviously making, or trying to make, a joke. And Cindy McCain, right behind her, laughs, like it's funny to mock Biden's Senate career. (She's apparently as unironic and un-self-aware as Palin is.)

6) She claims that, in contrast to Biden, she's "the new energy, the new face, the new ideas" (and that "voters are going to have a choice"). She has some energy, I'll give her that, but it's hardly any more energy than Biden has. I give her her new face, too. But new ideas? What new ideas? Other than spewing empty promises of cleaning up Washington -- like she knows anything about Washington -- she just repeats Republican talking points, including, in her one and only Q&A with the press, agreeing with Bush's approach to terrorism, supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while tying the Iraq War to 9/11, and buying into, obviously without understanding, the warped agenda and worldview of the neocons. She may present herself as an outsider and reformer, but there's actually nothing new about her "ideas" at all.

Once again, though, she's clearly lying -- right to Couric's face, right to the American people, right to all of us.

And so it's just more of the same from Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin 2.0 (?)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

According to the Politico's Jonathan Martin, Sarah Palin is about to be re-introduced, "tak[ing] a more forward-leaning approach and do[ing] additional interviews in the weeks ahead."

First, though, she's spending some quality time at "McCain's cabin in Arizona" prepping for Thursday night's veep debate.

And "do[ing] a round of conservative talk radio interviews." After all, since she can't quite cut it with Gibson and Couric, and won't even try with Brokaw and Stephanopoulos, nor even Blitzer and Cooper, she requires a more friendly environment. So, no doubt, her interviews will, post-re-introduction, be more like the Hannity infomercial than serious exchanges with serious newspeople.

But, before all that, there's still the not-so-little matter of more Couric tape to consider. Martin explains:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

Now there's a clip I'm looking foward to watching. Perhaps Marbury slipped her mind -- you know, because conservatives don't seem to care much for judicial review these days. And perhaps she just doesn't care much for, oh, say, Griswold and Brown and Miranda and Lawrence -- you know, for obvious reasons.

Couldn't she at least have mentioned Bush v. Gore? I'm sure she's a big fan.

**********

UPDATE: Atrios has "some sympathy for Palin," and Benen agrees that she "probably knows about as much as plenty of lawmakers on the Hill." Still, "it's a reminder that Palin is struggling on two parallel levels: she's painfully ignorant and she hasn't learned how to hide her painful ignorance."

For the record, I have no sympathy for her. She's what I would call, as I have called others before, a dangerous idiot -- dangerous because she's such an ignorant ideological extremist.

Trade missions to nowhere

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yeah, so you remember Palin's assertion, in her interview with Katie Couric, that there'd been "trade missions back and forth" between Alaska and Russia? (She was responding to Couric's question about whether there'd been "any negotiations... with the Russians." She didn't give any specifics and quickly, if awkwardly, moved on, claiming that she's been monitoring Putin and watching out for a Russian invasion.)

Well, there's a good reason she didn't give any specifics and didn't want anything to do with Couric's question. As Alex Koppelman points out at Salon's War Room, there never were any trade missions.

A previous governor, Democrat Tony Knowles, led one in 1997, but "[t]hat seems to be about it for Russia-Alaska trade missions lately." "When asked for examples of trade missions with Russia that have taken place under Palin's watch, gubernatorial spokeswoman Kate Morgan refused to answer the question."

If anything, there has been disengagement under Palin, not engagement. For example, according to Koppelman, a Seattle Times article published a couple of weeks ago "noted that Anchorage is host to an organization called the Northern Forum, a council of regional governments from all the northernmost countries of the world. But the Palin administration cut the Forum's budget from $75,000 to $15,000, and stopped the practice of sending representatives to its meetings."

So there you have it.

Yet another lie from Sarah Palin.

"Anonymous Liberal" gets it right

By Carl

When I watched the highlights of yesterday's twin train wrecks in the McCain campaign yesterday, I said to myself, "well, the only reason that John McCain cut out of the David Letterman taping (video at link) was to do damage control for the earlier massacred Couric-Palin interview.

In the course of that interview, Sarah Palin all but signaled John McCain's intention to vote for the bailout package. And if it wasn't his intention, it is now. She equated not voting for it to initiating a new Great Depression, and you can almost hear the one-liner from Obama: "He voted FOR the Great Depression, before he was against it!"

Not that he couldn't use this line anyway.

Too, Palin's "I'll get back to you" comment regarding whether McCain had ever passed a single piece of legislation that increased regulations was pretty much butchered, and showed her to be totally lost at sea when it comes to answering questions she doesn't know the answer to.

Anonymous Liberal posts a brief transcript of this exchange (video at link):

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick, though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about — the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some, and I'll bring them to you.

Now, I'm no Republican, but I can think off the top of my head of at least two bills that McCain supported that increased regulations on education (No Child Left Behind) and homeland security (the Patriot Act). I can't say that he *pushed* for passage of either of those, but I do know that the McCain-Feingold bill set new regulations regarding money in political campaigns and is indeed his signature bill in the Senate!

It's OK to draw a blank in an interview and say "I'll get back to you," but your damned handlers ought to be on a phone in another room, getting those answers to you. And if they can't get to you during the taping, they ought to get you as you walk out and hand you a slip of paper, so you can turn around and go back to Couric and say "McCain-Feingold" for her to add later.

So The Anonymous Liberal gets it right that McCain's stunt was damage control, to appear on Couric in the next news cycle... yes, news cycles can now be measured in hours, not days...to shore up his credentials. And kudos to Couric for asking a tough question.

But McCain suffers far more from his obfuscation to Letterman than he does from the stunt. If Senator McCain had been honest with Letterman, and said "Listen, I have to do damage control today, and if you'll keep it under your hat, I promise to drop by at the earliest opportunity to appear," Letterman would have been fine with that, and the endless replay of "Hey Senator, I have a question! Can I drive you to the airport?" wouldn't be getting more airplay than Sarah Palin's gaffes would.

Indeed, McCain could have called Letterman during the taping (both The Late Show and The CBS Evening News tape around the same time) and perhaps made a surprise appearance. This would have salvaged the day, and truly mitigated the unmitigated disaster that was the Palin interview.

As it is, McCain managed to limit its exposure, first by "cancelling" campaigning, and then by cancelling on Letterman, both dishonest acts of cowardice. And now, CNN is reporting that McCain wants to delay the VP debate! I wonder if he's thinking of replacing her with someone who's a bit more.. .seasoned. After this story, it's possible.

Letterman said it best last night: "What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"

Presidents are supposed to multi-task.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Painful Palin: "Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah."

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, there was more disturbing hilarity last night during Palin-Couric II, with Couric trying to be nice and Palin getting lost here, there, and everywhere. (For my comments on some of Palin-Couric I, see here.)

It's so bizarre, in a way.

Here's Palin, running for vice president, on the national stage, saying silly and stupid things and at times unable even to answer Couric's questions in any coherent, let alone meaningful, way, and showing a complete lack of experience, engagement, expertise, and even basic understanding of the issues.

She said, for example, that the U.S. should never second-guess Israel with respect to Iran. (See first video below.) Couric pressed her softly, exposing her incoherence and double-speak, but all Palin could do was fumble around with, and become entangled in, her verbiage.

She also responded with incoherence (and cluelessness) to Couric's question about the bailout. (See second video below.) She clearly looked uncomfortable, if not somewhat embarrassed. As Melissa McEwan puts it, "Palin's answer is just a rambling mess of jumbled talking points haphazardly strung together in a way that makes no sense, while she glances down at her notes. 'Not ready for primetime' doesn't begin to cover it."

And then there were her comments about Alaska's proximity to Russia and how that geographic fact somehow gives her valuable foreign policy experience. (See third video below.) Here's the exchange:

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada. It-- it's funny that a comment like that was-- kind of made to-- cari-- I don't know, you know? Reporters--

COURIC: Mock?

PALIN: Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.

COURIC: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials.

PALIN: Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of. And there in Russia--

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

In other words... nothing.

Her claim is being mocked because it's mockable. Being the governor of the state next to Russia, to the remotest part of Russia, doesn't provide her with any foreign policy experience at all. She mentioned "trade missions" but was unable to give any specifics. Instead, she suggested that she's been monitoring Putin and watching out for a Russian invasion. Which is just plain stupid.

There is no way this woman should be anywhere near the vice presidency. Watch the videos -- and laugh -- but remember that she is the Republican nominee and that the race is close.

Is Hillary running or is that Amy Poehler?

By Edward Copeland

Obviously, I've been on the record quite often as being against Hillary Clinton, partly because I don't believe she stands for anything other than political expediency and her own ambition, but mostly because I don't believe she can win the 2008 General Election, an election that should be a gimme for the Democratic Party.

Ever since the October debate where she flubbed the question on illegal immigrants and driver's licenses, the Clinton campaign has destroyed their argument that she's withstood blistering attacks from the GOP for years and would be best equipped to fight next year. The most important thing about that debate was that it would have been a mere blip in an otherwise smooth-running campaign, but that self-inflicted wound showed the world the Hillary and her campaign live in a bubble as impenetrable as the one in which Dubya resides.

First, the campaign leaks to Matt Drudge that it was all Tim Russert's fault, then they decided that all the other candidates from the "all boys club" were piling on her because she was a woman. When that spin backfired, they denied that they were saying she was being attacked for her gender, but because she was "winning," despite the fact that no vote had been cast.

Then, Bill Clinton comes riding to the rescue and perhaps the most talented politician of his generation shows he's a bit rusty, first by appearing to be trying to protect his woman (going so far as to equate criticism of her to the Swift Boating of John Kerry), then by undermining her spurious claims to be an integral part of everything that happened in his administration by trying to say Hillary's health care reform failures were all his fault.

Still, Hillary tries to take credit for the good stuff and her surrogates, such as former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, make crazy claims like saying she was "the face of foreign policy" during the Clinton administration. When she wanted credit for the Clinton economy, Barack Obama correctly pointed out that she wasn't the treasury secretary, that was Robert Rubin.

This week — and we're barely halfway through it — Bill and Hillary have each offered moments that must puzzle even those who support her candidacy.

While stumping in Iowa yesterday, Bill said that he'd opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, when there is ample video and other evidence to prove otherwise. Then, on later stops, he changed his wording to say he opposes it now.

For me though, this week's capper, the most damning evidence of the Hillary's delusions, that make comparisons between her and Dubya even more striking, came during a one-on-one interview Katie Couric.

When Couric asked if Hillary would be disappointed if she doesn't win the nomination, Hillary responded:

“Well, it will be me."

Couric reasonably said that she has to have considered the possibility that she won't win. Her reply: "No, I haven't."

There is a line between confidence and a sense of entitlement. Most candidates don't like to admit that they might not win, just like most who get asked questions about accepting a vice president slot, brush it off. That's perfectly understandable. This was different. Her entire demeanor in the interview made it seem as if she was living up to Amy Poehler's parody of her on Saturday Night Live where she gave an early acceptance speech for the presidency, assuming that it was a given that she would not only win the Democratic nomination but the presidency as well.

The 2008 presidential election truly is the most important in a long time and the Democratic Party and the country as a whole cannot afford to become a victim to one person's fantasies.

When and if Hillary starts losing contests, we may see a meltdown that will make Howard Dean's scream sound like a whisper.

KATIE COURIC - BEHIND THE SCENES

NOT SO PERKY ANYMORE. ITS FUNNY THAT SHE IS AWARE OF DAN RATHER ON YOUTUBE, BUT SOMEHOW THE FACT ESCAPES HER IN TERMS OF HERSELF ...DOOH !..I IMAGINE THIS IS WHAT THE OLSEN TWINS WILL BE LIKE WHEN THEY HIT 50

HERE IS THE FAMOUS RATHER COAT CLIP