A Pilgrim’s Digression

This is just downright bizarre.  Asked to name what periodicals she reads, Sara Palin can’t be specific.

I know I’m at risk of seeming like I’m piling on, since everyone else is talking about the Couric interview as well.  But what the hell is wrong with this woman?

She says she reads “all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.”  And then launches into this curious defense of Alaska, as if Couric had insulted the state.  You can see the perplexed look on Couric’s face as Palin goes off the track.

I confess I am at a loss here.  She can’t name one specific magazine or newspaper she reads regularly?  Not even her local newspaper up there in Wasilla?  She can’t name Time or Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal, even if the last time she read one of these was while waiting in a dentist’s office?

If it were just a matter of not being able to come up with a name, I would be more understanding.  But she seems to deliberately avoid the question!

The only conclusion I can come up with is that she is now so gun shy when it comes to answering questions from reporters that she’s afraid to even swing at a softball like “What newspapers or magazines do you read?”  Every candidate is asked this question at some point or other; it’s not a “gotcha” question.

In fact–dare I say it–it is her answers to the questions, not the questions themselves, that are shockingly bad.  The more I see of the Couric interview, the more stunned I am.  Every clip could be a SNL skit, with her dialogue left unchanged.