No. You’re wrong about my being wrong. I’m right.
One of the things that has bothered me the most about the outgoing administration has been their willful ignorance. That is, not just that they don’t know something or they know it incorrectly, but frequently they refuse to let anybody correct them on it. This Presidential/Vice Presidential policy known, I believe, as “The Stick My Fingers In My Ears And Hum ‘The Song That Never Ends’ Doctrine,” has reared it’s ugly head time and time again, just like Pootin rearin’ ‘is head over Alaskan airspace, donchaknow.
Speaking of the Republican party’s last, best hype for the future, Palin has been executing “The Stick My Fingers (Etc.) Doctrine” with surprising ease. Almost as if she’s had lots and lots of practice.
At the one and only VP debate, Palin somehow managed to squeak by with people giving her a draw against Biden despite the fact that she clearly didn’t know anything about the Constitution. She declared the Constitution to be “flexible” on the role of the Vice President in government. It was Joe Biden who quickly pointed out the facts. The Constitution is not flexible on the role of the Vice President, the VP is part of the Executive branch and not some fourth branch of the government unto itself, and the VP’s assigned duties are very, very narrow with regards to direct influence on how the country is governed.
But Palin must have been in her fifth refrain of “It goes on and on, my friend” by that point, because Think Progress has the footage of her on the local news telling a kid that the Constitution gives her not only the duty of breaking ties in the Senate, but powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal legislators. No, she is, indeed, Super-Legislator!
Q: [Third Grader] Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”PALIN: Aw, that’s something that Piper would ask me, as a second grader, also. That’s a great question, Brandon, and a Vice President has a really great job, because not only are they there to support the President’s agenda,—they’re like a team member, the teammate to that President—but also, they’re in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to they can really get in there with the Senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. And it’s a great job and I look forward to having that job.
October 21st, 2008 at 8:43 pm
I worry for Brandon, now thinking this is true.
Though not as much as I’d worry for myself if she managed to get elected and tried to make it true.
Dick Cheney understood the Constitution and tried to ignore it. I don’t think Sarah Palin’s ever actually read it.
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
If Piper would have asked that question as a second grader, (she was apparently a year ahead of Brandon) how does it happen that Sarah didn’t know the answer when she was asked to run for Vice President and still doesn’t know it?