Palin on Kissinger

I have to admit I'm starting to feel sorry for Sarah Palin. The campaign's insistence on reducing her to the role of arm candy for McCain has clearly broken her confidence. She's melting down under the media kleig lights, as evidenced by her interviews with Katie Couric. This bit is so painful, I'm hurting for her.

Couric: You met yesterday with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who is for direct diplomacy with both Iran and Syria. Do you believe the U.S. should negotiate with leaders like President Assad and Ahmadinejad?

Palin: I think, with Ahmadinejad, personally, he is not one to negotiate with. You can't just sit down with him with no preconditions being met. Barack Obama is so off-base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met. That's beyond naïve. And it's beyond bad judgment.

Couric: Are you saying Henry Kissinger …

Palin: It's dangerous.

Couric: … is naïve for supporting that?

Palin: I've never heard Henry Kissinger say, "Yeah, I'll meet with these leaders without preconditions being met." Diplomacy is about doing a lot of background work first and shoring up allies and positions and figuring out what sanctions perhaps could be implemented if things weren't gonna go right. That's part of diplomacy.

To be fair, maybe she and Henry didn't discuss Iran at their little tete-a-tete but for crying out loud, is it too much to ask that she reads a newspaper once in a while?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Five former U.S. secretaries of state said on Monday the next American administration should talk to Iran, a foe President George W. Bush has generally shunned as part of an "axis of evil."

Engaging Iran is important because Washington's military options against Tehran are unsatisfactory, said the diplomats, who worked for Republican and Democratic administrations.

The five -- Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher, James Baker and Henry Kissinger -- all said they favored talking to Iran as part of a strategy to stop Tehran's development of a nuclear weapons program.

Not to mention that Katie opened the interview by noting that Henry supports talks. It's like she didn't even listen to the question because she was so intent on following the campaign's script but she hasn't quite memorized the lines yet.

As Atrios said this morning, the problem isn't so much that she's talking gibberish, all the politicians do that, it's that she's not using the accepted syntax. I'd add that the folksy speaking style that Bush used to great effect, doesn't work for her as well. The difference being I suppose is that Bush used it sparingly and deliberately, while it seems to be her real style. Where Bush came off as unpretentious, she just looks inarticulate. Worse yet, she no longer looks defiant and assured. She looks like a kid that got lost at the mall. One gets the feeling this campaigning thing isn't turning out to be as much fun as she thought it would be.

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