Sarah Palin: Crackhead?

umm...

Today Misstra Knowitall found himself in a pitched debate with his brilliant high school journalism students over the proposition that Sarah Palin is indeed a smoker of rocks. After watching a video of Katie Couric's interview with Palin in class (see below), one student remarked that Palin "must be on crack or something--she's twitching that much."

One of the most difficult things about being a teacher sometimes is figuring out how and when to come in as the "voice of reason" in the classroom (read: wet blanket) and try to redirect the conversation more towards whatever learning objective (thanks TFA) I had planned for that day. I argued that in journalism class it was okay to criticize a public figure, but not alright to suggest they are crackhead just because they obviously don't know how to speak in front of a camera.

"That's called libel," I intoned.

Another student diplomatically suggested that perhaps the Vice Presidential nominee was stammering so much because she hadn't fully recovered from an undiagnosed stroke.

*Sigh*

The frustrating thing about that moment was that the students were essentially correct. Their argument was not as nuanced as I would have hoped, but they had hit on something that was obvious to anyone who watched the video: Sarah Palin is not fit to be the next president of the United States. One of the saving graces of this election has been the idea that at least after January 2009 we won't have to be embarrassed to see our President out in public. At least we won't have to cringe every time this person gets up in front of a group of people and opens their mouth. At least we won't have to worry about our leader not being able to pronounce "nuclear." But with his selection of Palin, John McCain has ripped that silver lining off of the Presidential cloud. McCain is definitely on some scorched earth type stuff.

Oh, and yes Obama appears to be up big time right now, but mark my words: it ain't over y'all. It's just as important to ignore the polls when you're up as when you're down because there is still a lot of time left in this thing. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point McCain climbed back on top. Besides, I still think this election is going to be decided in the courts.

"Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is O..."

And if you're one of those people who feels the need to slow down at the scenes of car crashes, I'm sure you'll enjoy the clip below.

I know our whole economy is in danger of collapse and all that, but why is it hard to shake the feeling like I'm in that bank robbery scene from Batman? You know the one, where Joker's goons are running around the bank lobby with funny masks, telling everyone to hand over their money quick "or else"?

If I were a more cynical person, I might suggest that this "crisis" was an attempt by the supporters of the current administration to pull up a school bus up to the back of the Federal Reserve and make one last withdrawal.

With the White House bailout talks having disintegrated and McCain and the Rethugs seemingly making a fool of Treasury Secretary Paulson, this is like the part where the bank manager (William Fitchner) comes out with that shotgun and the whole operation goes to hell in a hand basket.

Treasury Secretary Paulson, you might want to take a look behind you.

At least when Clintonanddem left the White House, all they did was steal a couple chairs and remove the keys off of some keyboards. These dudes are trying to steal the whole economy.

Hee, hee. Bailouts for all!