For weeks, Republicans told us the culprit in Sarah Palin's dismal interview performances were the questions. Tonight, her relative success in the vice presidential debate could also be attributed to the questions.
By now most people have seen the 500 video clips of Katie Couric's interview of Sarah Palin that CBS has been dribbling out over the last week or so. The cringe-inducing performances even had conservatives questioning her openly. Of course, the right wing faithful told us the real problem were the questions. They were gotcha questions.
Q:What newspapers do you read?
Rep: Foul! No one would ask that of a man.
Q: Name a Supreme Court decision you don't agree with?
Rep: Foul! She is an outsider and didn't need to concern herself with supreme court decisions. That's not something a president needs to know, they said with straight faces.
During the debate however, Palin benefited from Gwen Ifill's boringly predictable questions. It was as if she went to the campaign websites and turned their policy papers into questions. They were all so utterly predictable. None made you look at the subject from a different perspective. None seemed to be designed to elicit a thoughtful response, so she rarely got any.
Of course this suited Sarah Palin just fine. Now she could recite her talking points with generous helping of "Golly Gee Beav..." At one point when Joe Biden was responding you could see Sarah Palin giggling to herself with that giddy "she's asking all my questions" smile.
Traditional media training always emphasizes that it's not the questions that sink you, it's the answers. In Palin's case, the questions are the ones that help her sink or swim.
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