I agree she does tend to respond more personally than others, but I think she’s gotten better at being more selective. There was a time when she’d respond to everything. The media likes to goad her.
The Letterman example you cited wasn’t all her. She was asked about on an interview with Matt Lauer. She didn’t bring it up first. I suppose she could have given a no comment. She didn’t really say all that much, and it sort of grew over the next day or so.
It can be tough deciding when to comment and when not to. If you say nothing then they just repeat it over and over and it goes unchallenged and it becomes accepted and people believe it.
That was one of my big complaints with W. He had this hands off attitude. He’d never repsond to anything, just let the media and the democrats and the left bash him incessantly, lie constantly, etc... He’d say “well, I’m the President and I’m above that, I don’t want to go down to their level”. But he’d just take it and look what happened. His approval tanked, the GOP’s standing tanked, and it led to Obama and dem dominance for 2 years.
He did a great job addressing the critics and the lies in Decision Points and on his book tour. He was great on Oprah, Leno, the Lauer interview on NBC. If he had done stuff liek that when he was in office and responded that way I think things would have been different.
So, I don’t think you needto respond to everything. But when the natl media and many in the dem establishment pretty much spent the past three days singling her out as the culprit and being responsible for a mass killing and assassination attempt, I think that rises to the level of something that merits a reply.
That was a good analysis. While I personally feel that Palin would have helped her image more if she’d simply expressed her condolences over the tragedy and, if she felt the need, added no more than something like, “This is not a time for either side to be accusing the other,” I think you made many excellent points.