The Hermetically Sealed Presidential Debate

Posted by on October 7, 2008 at 2:01 pm. NO Comments :

Heading into the final month of campaigning, John McCain is showing signs of desperation. His aides have announced that they cannot talk about the economy or they will lose. So they are resorting to personal smears and distractions. Sarah Palin is doing her part by associating Barack Obama with controversial figures from the past that he had little to do with.

All of this makes the stakes for tonight’s debate much higher for McCain who is falling farther behind in both national and state polls. But the debate format pretty much excludes any possibility for either candidate to make any significant movement.

The questions will from a group of allegedly uncommitted voters in the audience and on the Internet. Then moderator Tom Brokaw will select the actual questions the candidates are asked. There will be no follow-up questions from either the questioner or Brokaw. There will be no reaction shots following the answers. The candidates must stay within their “designated areas” and may not directly question each other.

Given these rules, I don’t why they even need to be in the same room. The format prevents any real interaction. This debate promises to be no more enlightening than a series of alternating clips of each candidate’s stump speech. The candidates can ignore the questions without repercussions, and their answers will never be challenged in a way that makes them accountable.

Designing the debate in this manner is a disservice to voters who will not get to see how the participants perform when challenged. It was negotiated months ago by representatives of the campaigns who obviously feared putting their candidate into a situation that could harm them politically. As it turns out, it will be a big advantage for Obama because it is McCain who needs to make a mark if he hopes to stop Obama’s momentum. This format will make that much more difficult for McCain.

Consequently, I predict that nothing of note will happen tonight, and McCain will hit the trail tomorrow with more and louder accusations and slander. He and Pit Bull Palin have much better luck manipulating the press at their rallies. They have even taken to corralling the media into virtual cages, not allowing them access to the candidate or even their supporters.

You can smell their fear. But so can the viewers, voters and the press. This election is all but over.

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Bill O’Reilly Thinks He Is Proof Of The Existence Of God

Posted by on October 5, 2008 at 5:17 pm. NO Comments :

I may have to read this book after all. Bill O’Reilly’s new auto-bloviography, “A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity,” contains this enlightening affirmation of the divine:

“Next time you meet an atheist, tell him or her that you know a bold, fresh guy, a barbarian who was raised in a working-class home and retains the lessons he learned there.

“Then mention to that atheist that this guy is now watched and listened to, on a daily basis, by millions of people all over the world and, to boot, sells millions of books.

“Then, while the non-believer is digesting all that, ask him or her if they still don’t believe there’s a God!”

There is so much wrong with that that it’s hard to know where to begin. I’m not even going to address his obvious narcissistic egomania because some targets are just too easy. But I will point out that the story O’Reilly tells is probably better evidence of the existence of Satan. Who else would give such an obnoxious, divisive, racist, self-absorbed, ignoramus such a prominent platform? Well, Rupert Murdoch would, but that’s just redundant.

I have to wonder, though, from his own perspective, if he is saying that the only way he could ever have risen to prominence was by an act of God? That would actually make sense. Or does he think that divinity is validated by how many morons you can attract? Or is he comparing himself to other famous demagogues with humble beginnings like, say Hitler?

Maybe O’Reilly thinks that we should all be amazed at the miracle of someone who was born into modest circumstances and later became successful. Does he think that that has never happened to anyone before him? He certainly doesn’t give any credit for proving God’s existence to anyone else with similar achievements.

Finally, does O’Reilly really believe that an Atheist confronted with the question above would respond…

“Hallelujah. I never knew that a white, American, Harvard graduate could become a TV personality and make millions of dollars screaming at people and spewing hatred for anyone that didn’t think like him. Obviously there’s a God. I’m saved. Just get me a white sheet and a shotgun and point me to the nearest church?”

I’ve heard of being born again, but does that mean you have to start over with the ignorance of an infant, behave like a baby, and believe that the whole world revolves around you?


John McCain’s Smear Campaign

Posted by on October 4, 2008 at 9:55 pm. NO Comments :

As John McCain’s prospects for election diminish, the incidence of dirty tricks and nasty campaigning are likely to increase. Almost every event and news story in the past couple of weeks has resulted in voters trending more to Barack Obama. Polls show Obama gaining support after the conventions, after the first presidential debate, after the Wall Street legislative activity in Washington, and after the vice presidential debate. With less than thirty days until the election, McCain’s desperation is showing. As the Republican angst escalates they will more aggressively execute the tactics that McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, articulated a few years ago in a newspaper editorial:

“The premise of any smear campaign rests on a central truth of politics: Most of us will vote for a candidate we like and respect, even if we don’t agree with him on every issue. But if you can cripple a voter’s basic trust in a candidate, you can probably turn his vote. The idea is to find some piece of personal information that is tawdry enough to raise doubts, repelling a candidate’s natural supporters […] It’s not necessary, however, for a smear to be true to be effective.”

The onslaught of political mud has already begun. Top Republicans told the Washington Post that:

“Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama’s character, believing that to win in November they must shift the conversation back to questions about the Democrat’s judgment, honesty and personal associations.”

It appears that Sarah Palin has been tapped to be the campaign attack Pitbull (with lipstick). This afternoon she made the outrageous and offensive assertion that Obama associates with terrorists:

“Our opponent though, is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

This is the sort of garbage that can be expected between now and November fourth. McCain has nothing else upon which to campaign, so he is resorting to slander, lies and defamation. The candid confessions of Republican operatives, including McCain’s campaign manager, that they intend to pursue this strategy, should remove all doubt as to what depths they will sink. And from now on, any attack that emanates from the McCain camp must be viewed through the prism of these admissions.

They have told us in advance that they will be personal and tawdry, and that they don’t care about the truth. These are their words and their stated objectives. We must remember that and make sure that every voter knows it as well.

Just for the record: It may be John McCain who was really “pallin’ around with terrorists:”


The Myth Of The Liberal Media: Tax Cuts

Posted by on October 4, 2008 at 1:15 pm. NO Comments :

For more evidence that the Rightist claims of a liberal-dominated media is nonsense, take a look at this report (pdf) from the Center For American Progress. Their analysis shows how the top media companies in the United States would benefit from John McCain’s tax cuts for the wealthy:

Does anyone really think that these multinational corporations would work to defeat a candidate that is promising them $1.44 Billion in tax relief? Especially considering that the other candidate, Barack Obama, is promising to raise taxes for the wealthy and for corporations.

Anyone who persists in the notion that the media is biased against a deregulating, corporate tax-cutting, friend of monopolies like McCain, is just being being willfully ignorant.


Sarah Palin: Back In The Protective Arms Of Fox News

Posted by on October 3, 2008 at 5:40 pm. 3 Comments :

As I predicted, Sarah Palin followed up her debate performance with an interview in the safety of a friendly harbor – Fox News. Carl Cameron managed to get the exclusive post-debate sit-down with Palin, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Cameron started off by eliciting an admission from Palin that John McCain gave her an “atta girl” after the debate. He then sought to uncover whether she felt that she had surprised Joe Biden:

“Did you catch him off guard? Was there eye contact between you and he that he didn’t see?”

That sounds like witchcraft to me. How could there be eye contact between them that he didn’t see? Did she hypnotize him? According to Rich Lowry of the National Review, much of the male TV audience was bewitched:

“I’m sure I’m not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, ‘Hey, I think she just winked at me.’ And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.”

If there were starbursts ricocheting around my living room, I must have been distracted by the burning in my eyes at the thought of Lowry’s perverse infatuation. But getting back to Cameron, his next question addressed Palin’s outright false assertion that troop levels in Iraq are lower now than before the Surge:

CAMERON: There was a lot of criticism that you misstated when you talked about us being at pre-surge levels in Iraq. Walk us through your math and what you were thinking you were talking about.

PALIN: Just — well, as victory’s getting closer and closer, we know that we’re going to be able to draw down those troops. Send them to Afghanistan, not specifically those Striker Brigades or those troops, we’ll have more resources to be able to put into Afghanistan, and start what I believe, and what I believe our commanders have referred to also as, the principles of a surge there also in Afghanistan, in a counter-insurge strategy that should work.

Huh? The only things missing in that response was a bewildered “such as” and a heartfelt “for the children.” Not only did her answer make no sense, it thoroughly ignored the question. Did we hear about how her math brought her to the conclusion that troop levels were below pre-Surge? Nope. Did Cameron bother to follow up? Nope. His next question began by praising her and got sillier after that:

CAMERON: Folks said, wow, that was like Sarah barracuda out there last night. Because it was back and forth and you were taking on Joe Biden. Do you think you surprised him by the way in which you were prepared to sort of go after his record and Obama’s? What was the body language and the psychology between the two of you on that? Because he was sighing a lot. And some folks thought that you kind of exasperated him.

PALIN: Well, again, at least my sort of view was, it was pleasant. And it was a lot of fun.

Cameron appears to be obsessed with whether Palin surprised Biden. But at least he dragged out of her the earthshaking revelation that she had fun. Having failed to get her to psychoanalyze Biden’s sighing, Cameron jumps to her remarks regarding Dick Cheney and the “flexibility” of the office of the Vice President. He asks her what she meant by that:

“That thankfully, our founders were wise enough to say, we have this position and it’s Constitutional. Vice presidents will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it’s going to be sort of this other duty as assigned by the president. It’s a simple thing. I don’t think that was a gaff at all in stating what the truth is. And that is we’ve got flexibility in the position. The president will be directing in a lot of respect with the vice president does. The vice president, of course, is not a member – or a part of the legislative branch, except to oversee the Senate. That alone provides a tremendous amount of flexibility and authority if that vice president so chose to use it.”

Huh? Once again, the bulk of her response was gibberish. The part that wasn’t gibberish was frightening. She actually believes that the vice president oversees the Senate and has authority over it if she chooses to exercise it. Cheney’s machinations notwithstanding, the vice presidency is defined in Article II of the Constitution which outlines the Executive branch of government. The VP has no role in the Senate other than to cast a vote in the event of a tie. But Palin thinks otherwise:

“You know, we might be bleeding our authority over to the Legislative or Judicial branch to do our job in the Executive branch as administers.”

The notion that the Executive branch can simply “bleed” its authority over the other branches of government is both idiotic and dangerous. But, again, Cameron didn’t bother to draw out any further explanation of that stance.

Sadly, this is the best we can expect from the McCain/Palin camp. She will almost certainly decline any press availabilities that expose her to any real inquiry. She did tell Cameron that she wants to do more press saying…

“I look forward to speaking to the media more and more everyday and providing whatever access the media would want. My life is certainly an open book […] I beg to differ with the notion that I was reigned in any way. But, if there was any of that, it’s over. And we got to be out there.”

So as to allegations that she has been kept from the press, it’s over, even though it never happened. And now she promises to provide “whatever access the media would want,” as long as the media is confined to Fox News. Only there will she be given opportunities to spin, lie, babble, and paper over her previous inanities. For example, a few days ago Palin couldn’t provide Katie Couric with either a newspaper she has read or a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with. Cameron allowed Palin a do-over on those questions and Palin rattled off newspapers and case law as if she were a legal historian. You don’t think she used the intervening days to bone up the subjects with notes from her handlers, do you?

Palin still has not held a single press conference and likely will not before election day (See The Palin Watch). So despite her promise to be more accessible, I would advise against holding your breath. You still have so much to live for.


Sarah Palin: Beauty Queen At The Debate

Posted by on October 3, 2008 at 12:42 pm. NO Comments :

With a brilliant smile and a confident swagger, Sarah Palin faced Joe Biden, and America, in the first and only vice presidential debate. But the face she presented was that of shallow Pollyanna with a woefully insufficient grasp of issues and facts.

Let’s set aside for the moment that she was flatly wrong when she said that there were fewer troops in Iraq than before the Surge. And never mind that she doesn’t know the name of the American commander in Afghanistan. Palin’s big problem was that she outright refused to answer the questions that were asked. Now, that is a venerable debate tactic and, when used skillfully, can be quite effective and undetectable. However, when Palin did it she clumsily announced that she was changing the subject, and then proceeded to deliver her memorized talking points.

What might have been an enlightening exchange between the candidates was severely constrained by a format and a moderator that discouraged direct interaction. The question arises as to whether Gwen Ifill was cowed by allegations that she would be partial due to the upcoming publication of her book on race in American politics. We may never know if that’s the case, but we do know that Ifill was a virtual non-entity on the stage and failed to ask probing follow-ups of either candidate. That could explain why Palin expressed such satisfaction with the event in her closing remarks:

“I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they’ve just heard. I’d rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.”

First of all, she wasn’t asked any tough questions and I suspect that that is what she really liked. Secondly, the Mainstream Media to which she refers doesn’t apply filters to her interviews. The Gibson and Couric affairs simply allowed her to speak on her own, and any resultant embarrassment was of her own doing. Thirdly, her impression of speaking to the American people appears to rely heavily on the help she receives from her speech writers and a teleprompter.

Her statement above is a thinly veiled declaration that she intends to have no further association with the media for which she is so dismissive. I predict that she will have maybe one more interview with a reputable national journalist (probably Brian Williams), then will scurry off to the more comforting embrace of comrades like Hannity and Limbaugh and the Washington Times. By November 4th, she will not have had a single open press conference for the entire election cycle.

The fact that she relates so closely to Dick Cheney, whose warped and unconstitutional view of the Vice Presidency she shares, alarmingly foreshadows the sort of secretive cabal she seems even now to be shaping. The last thing this country needs is another administration that aspires to conceal itself and its actions at every turn and reside outside of public view in a secret undisclosed location.

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Frantic Conservatives Trying To Ditch The Sarah Palin Debate

Posted by on October 1, 2008 at 3:29 pm. NO Comments :

Let’s face it. They have a right to be scared. Conservative activists have seen Sarah Palin humiliate herself and her Party repeatedly. She can’t name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads, or cite a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade, or give an example of McCain’s maverickiness. She doesn’t know who Hamas is. She adopts Obama’s policy toward cross-border attacks in Pakistan (then denies that she did so). And she asserts that her fresh face and new ideas (see Barack Obama) make her a better candidate than Joe Biden because he is just an old guy who has been in the Senate for a long time (see John McCain).

She has still only been permitted to be interviewed twice in the thirty-three days since McCain tapped her for his VP. She is being purposefully sequestered from the media and any serious inquiry into her positions or her past. There have been conservative commentators calling for her to be dropped from the ticket for the good of her Party and the country. And last week McCain suggested that the VP debate be postponed until some undetermined date and replaced by the first presidential debate.

Obviously, they don’t want the debate to proceed. And the latest evidence of that is a new effort to remove the debate’s moderator, Gwen Ifill of PBS. The argument is that Ifill has authored a book that prevents her from being objective. “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama,” is scheduled to be released January 20, 2009. The book is a study of how…

“…the Black political structure formed during the Civil Rights movement is giving way to a generation of men and women who are the direct beneficiaries of the struggles of the 1960s.”

For the book Ifill interviews Obama, as well as Republicans like Colin Powell. By all accounts, the book is not political advocacy, but an exploration of race in contemporary politics. But the controversy being manufactured by the likes of Fox News, National Review, and Human Events is a thinly disguised attempt to kill the debate. Even if their allegations were valid, it would be very difficult to find a replacement for Ifill literally on the eve of the debate. They would have to find someone who was able to immediately clear their calendar and then would still come to the event unprepared – no research, no questions, no context for engaging the participants. The only viable option would be to delay the debate to some undetermined date, just as they tried to do last week.

This is yet another transparent attempt to sabotage the debate by having it canceled or by preemptively discrediting the results. How convenient to have a reason to disregard the whole affair should Palin, true to form, embarrass herself. This dust up could also have the effect of influencing Ifill’s performance as moderator. She may decide to bend over backwards to avoid the appearance of bias and, consequently, display bias in favor of Palin.

We can only hope that the cynical manipulations of the rightists orchestrating this controversy are not successful, and that Ifill relies on her own sense of professional ethics and not the rantings of frightened partisans.


Another Media Mea Culpa For The War In Iraq

Posted by on October 1, 2008 at 11:03 am. NO Comments :

In a book review for Bob Woodward’s latest installment of his Bush chronicles, the New York Times’ Jill Abramson decides it’s time to salve her guilty conscience. Woodward’s “The War Within” serves as the impetus for her confessional.

Abramson reveals her misgivings regarding the Times’ coverage of the build up to war with Iraq after citing a passage from Woodward’s book wherein he admits that he had not done enough at the Washington Post to expose the weakness of the administration’s arguments for the existence of WMDs and for going to war. Abramson followed up that citation by saying…

“I was Washington bureau chief for The Times while this was happening, and I failed to push hard enough for an almost identical, skeptical article, written by James Risen. This was a period when there were too many credulous accounts of the administration’s claims about Iraq’s W.M.D.”

Thanks a lot. Another too late revelation of dereliction of duty that resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Iraqi civilians. How exactly does this expression of regret compensate the victims of a disastrous and deadly war? How does it repair the damage done to both Iraq and America, who is now on the brink of bankruptcy partially due to having wasted a trillion dollars fighting an imaginary enemy.

This is not the first time that prominent figures in the press have sought absolution for their failures:

Woodward previously expressed these thoughts in an online chat:
“I think the press and I in particular should have been more aggressive in looking at the run-up to the Iraq war, and specifically the alleged intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction stockpiles.”

The New York Times issued this mea culpa:
“Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper […] while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.”

New York Times editor, Bill Keller personally apologized:
“I’ve had a few occasions to write mea culpas for my paper after we let down our readers in more important ways, including for some reporting before the war in Iraq that should have dug deeper and been more sceptical about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction.”

CNN reporter Jessica Yellin weighed in with this bit of uncharacteristic honesty:
“The press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president’s high approval ratings. And my own experience at the White House was that the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives.”

Even Bill O’Reilly announced that he was wrong (but it’s OK because, he says, everyone was wrong):
“Now I supported the action against Saddam because the Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton, William Cohen, the CIA, British intelligence, and a variety of other intelligence agencies all told me Saddam was making dangerous weapons in violation of the first Gulf War cease-fire […] I was wrong in my assessment, as was everybody else.”

I am willing to concede that a lot of people, reporters and politicians alike, were wrong, but not everyone. There were many who opposed the war, who saw through the administration’s lies, who spoke out about the fraud that was being forced upon the nation. The sane objections were mostly confined to alternative sources that were ignored or ridiculed. But even the mainstreamers quoted above seemed to have known at the time that they were being less than responsible with regard to their reportorial obligations.

Now Abramson joins those who have seen the error of their ways. Or have they? Abramson is the Times’s managing editor for news, but this revelation appears in a book review rather than in the news pages. And there has been little evidence that the press has altered its behavior. Keller, the Times’ editor noted last year that…

“The administration has subsidised propaganda at home and abroad, refined the art of spin, discouraged dissent, and sought to limit traditional congressional oversight and court review.”

But even with knowledge of that, the administration’s press releases are often reprinted or broadcast virtually verbatim as news. Some of that can be seen in the current Wall Street affair that is characterized as a crisis that demands the immediate implementation of the White House’s untested and hysterical solutions.

It isn’t enough for these people to confess their sins and be on their way. I don’t want to sift through another collection of apologies for the next disaster that they feel so sorry for having misreported or ignored. They need to initiate real reform that addresses the root causes of these journalistic failures. And they need to fire those who have let down their papers, their readers, and their country. When steps like these are taken, I will start to take seriously their assertions of regret. Until then, they are still just covering up for themselves and the Washington insiders on whom they are pretending to report.


This Week With John McCain

Posted by on September 29, 2008 at 12:12 pm. NO Comments :

It seems fitting that John McCain sat down with George Stephanopoulos yesterday on a program called “This Week,” because the name itself carries the suggestion that what you hear McCain say will only be operative for a limited time. Next week may be a different matter entirely, and last week has succumbed to history’s dust bin.

The tone of the interview was set early on with McCain answering the second question in a distinctly political dialect:

Stephanopoulos: Congress has to pass a stimulus plan for the middle class, which extends unemployment benefits, adds infrastructure funding, and sends money to the states to shore up their budgets. Are you for that, as well?

McCain: I am for keeping taxes low. I am for whatever steps we think we need to be taking right now.

Wow! So, by extension, he’s against whatever steps he thinks should not be taken. That’s a courageous stance.

It was also noted by several observers that McCain would did not look at Obama at all during the entire debate. Even when they shook hands, McCain quickly turned away. This behavior was somewhat eerie and obviously purposeful. When Stephanopoulos asked him about it he said:

McCain: I was looking at the moderator a great deal of time. I was writing a lot of the time. I in no way know how that in any way would be disdainful […] I’ve been in many, many debates. And a lot of the times I don’t look at my opponents because I’m focusing on the people and the American people that I’m talking to. That’s what the debate’s all about.

Got that? He was looking at the American people. That’s why he was unable to glance at his opponent, to whom he was presumably engaged in discourse, even once in an hour and a half. Did he have a magic mirror that allowed him to see voters in their living rooms as they watched the debate on their TV machines? Would he also decline to look at Putin and other world leaders with whom he meets in order to keep his gaze on Americans that he is imagining?

Next up, Stephanopoulos asked McCain about Sarah Palin’s assertion that she, like Obama, would approve of cross border incursions into Pakistan to target Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. This is contrary to McCain’s own position, though he denies it:

McCain: She would not – she shares my view that we will do whatever is necessary. The problem is, you don’t announce it.

The problem is Palin did announce it, as did McCain in the same sentence that declared that he would not. McCain further argued that, while Palin said what she said, she shouldn’t be held to it because it was said while someone had a microphone picking up what she said, and besides what she said was the same thing that he was saying and that she did “just fine.” Can we hold him to that?

McCain also defended Palin from criticism she’s received, much of it from conservatives, that she is unprepared for the position that McCain has thrust her into.

McCain: Listen, I’m so excited about the reaction that Sarah Palin has gotten across this country, huge turnouts, enthusiasm, excitement. She knows how to communicate directly with people. They respond in a way that I’ve – that I’ve seldom seen. You know, they can complain all they want to. I’ll rely on the American people.

The American people have resoundingly rejected Palin. She has the lowest favorability ratings of anyone on either ticket. And it isn’t because she is getting bad press. In fact, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post is reporting that many journalists are “censoring their comments about Palin to avoid looking like they’re piling on.” He also notes that CBS has more embarrassing responses from the Couric interview that they haven’t aired. So if CBS and others in the press were more honest and candid, the public’s view of Palin would be even worse.

That’s what McCain had to say this week on “This Week.” I can’t wait to hear what he’s going to say next week.


Random Thoughts: McCain, Palin And Olbermann

Posted by on September 27, 2008 at 3:22 pm. 1 Comments :

Just a few things that are running through my idle mind:

On John McCain: In last night’s debate, McCain suggested that folks check the website of Citizens Against Government Waste to confirm his allegations about Obama’s congressional earmarks. What he didn’t say is that CAGW is a McCain front group that has endorsed him for president, donated $11,000.00 to him or to PACs he controls, and is run by Orson Swindle, a long-time associate and an adviser to his campaign. Not exactly a neutral source, eh John?

On Sarah Palin: Did you all notice that Palin was AWOL for the post-debate commentary last night? Joe Biden appeared on every broadcast and cable news network, as VP candidates traditionally do following presidential debates. Palin appeared on none. The McCain camp must be terrified of her slipping out of her cage.

On Keith Olbermann: It just occurred to me that Olbermann has been mocked mercilessly by rightist pundits and bloggers as nothing more than a glorified former sportscaster. I wonder why they don’t direct that same ire toward Sarah Palin, who holds a degree in journalism and pursued a career as a sportscaster in her early professional life. If they think that Olbermann is unfit to be a political commentator based on his sports background, then surely they must think that Palin is similarly unfit to be vice president. Either that or they think that Olbermann would make a great VP.