Dick Cavett (and others) on Palin

Dick Cavett, brilliant as ever:

I wince and feel for her over the reports of how she is being tutored, guided and taught in marathon cram sessions of what might be called a crash course in Instant Experience 101. There’s something almost funny in the idea that she is being speedily stuffed, Strasbourg-goose-style, with knowledge she should have had before she was selected.

Instant Experience 101. That just about sums up the authenticity of Sarah Palin’s VP candidacy.

Despite the “Dick Cavett” title to this post, I can’t resist adding the following from Gail Collins:

Did you see her being interviewed by Charlie Gibson about foreign policy, trying to slither away from saying anything controversial and rewriting her own history whenever it suited her?

And

If you fire the governor’s chef and then charge the state a per diem for every night you sleep in your own house, does that make you an agent of change or Charles Rangel’s accountant? And the airplane, of course, was sold so ineptly that Palin should have been encouraged to consider a new career in the home finance industry.

And this from Bob Herbert:

While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail.

And

For those who haven’t noticed, we’re electing a president and vice president, not selecting a winner on “American Idol.”

And

You can’t imagine that John McCain or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or Joe Lieberman would not know what the Bush doctrine is. But Sarah Palin? Absolutely clueless.

And

John McCain, who is shameless about promoting himself as America’s ultimate patriot, put the best interests of the nation aside in making his incredibly reckless choice of a running mate.

But the bad news:

But there is a profound double standard in this country. The likes of John McCain and George W. Bush can do the craziest, most irresponsible things imaginable, and it only seems to help them politically.

And here’s Slates Jack Shafer:

Palin can’t blame her muddled responses on Gibson, who treats her fairly and conducts himself professionally. Never mind about her not being ready to be president. She wasn’t even ready for this interview.

And here’s an NYT editorial:

If [McCain] seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible.

It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking in awareness.

What made it so much worse is the strategy for which the Republicans have made Ms. Palin the frontwoman: win the White House not on ideas, but by denigrating experience, judgment and qualifications.

And

…what troubled us most about her remarks … was the sense that thoughtfulness, knowledge and experience are handicaps for a president in a world populated by Al Qaeda terrorists, a rising China, epidemics of AIDS, poverty and fratricidal war in the developing world and deep economic distress at home.

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