A few afterwords--Palin, Africa and Saks Fifth Ave.

Now that the campaign is over the postmortems are starting. Two of the most interesting revelations are from major news outlets, Fox and Newsweek. It’s nice to see that old media can still do the scooping. (The reality is they do most of the real reporting, but there are not getting paid for it anymore.) Anyway, the Palin revelations are at times amusing and frightening and also speak to what it does and does not mean to be a journalist in 2008.

So the Fox revelations, embargoed because of they were off the record are frightening. Forget Palin’s inability to even make a credible stab at what the Bush doctrine was. (Helpful hint here from John McCain, sung to the Beach Boys, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran, etc.) She did not know that Africa was a continent (it is!) or who were the countries in Nafta (U.S., Canada, and Mexico) Now here is a question. Forget for a moment that Ms. Palin had a reasonable chance at being president if the Repubs had won, how in the hell did she even get to be governor of a state? My middle school daughter knows that Africa is a continent and my 9th grade son knows what countries are in Nafta.

Now let’s think about Fox and its responsibilities. They knew before the election of Palin’s obvious deficiencies. If they had been told off the record that Obama had a daughter who was 17 and pregnant, would they have waited to tell the world, even though that information would have had no bearing on the President-elect’s ability to govern. Somehow I think not.

I will leave you with some other tidbits from the Newsweek—That the McCain campaign told Palin to get three outfits and get her hair done, she took that as license for a shopping spree; one aide calling it "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," She spent more than the $150,000 reported and she bought clothes for Todd as well! She wasn’t just nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency she was a checkbook away.

Also Obama apparently was caught on tape musing over the inanities of some of the questions he was asked. One reason, I could never be a politician, I can’t dignify a stupid question with, “Gee, Roger, that’s a good question,” while I’m think that was as dumb as dirt. According to Newsweek.com Obama said "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."