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Just in case you missed it, the latest installment of Sarah Palin's CBS News interview with Katie Couric shows her to be ignorant on any and all Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision granting American women the right to abortion, with which Palin disagrees. Asked by Couric what other Supreme Court decisions she disagreed with, Palin couldn't name any, offering instead the type of circuitous and vague reply that has become her trademark (see also Huffington Post, Politico):
COURIC: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?
PALIN: Well, let's see.... There's, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but....
COURIC: Can you think of any?
PALIN: ...Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.
Palin also stumbled on our constitutional right to privacy as interpreted by the Supreme Court, a cornerstone of the Roe v. Wade decision: While she opposes Roe v. Wade, she agreed with Couric that the US Constitution guarantees the right to privacy to all citizens, but then seemed to feel that states have the right to overrule our constitutional right to privacy in the case of abortion. Here, again, Palin's reply borders on the wholly incoherent:
COURIC: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?
PALIN: I do. Yeah, I do....
COURIC: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.
PALIN: ...I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.
In other words, "states' rights" trump the US Constitution when it comes to a woman's right to privacy regarding her own body. I wonder what other constitutional rights Palin would like to see states given the power to take away.
Palin's Supreme Court gaffe is only the latest in a string of gaffes, in what has become something more like an epic saga than a mere interview. In past installments, Palin was unable to name for Couric a single newspaper or magazine she has read ("...All of 'em...."); was unable to provide a single example of John McCain's "maverick reform efforts" from his 26 years in the US Senate ("I'll try to find ya some and I'll bring them to ya."); and repeated her ridiculous claim that Alaska's proximity to Russia should be counted as foreign affairs experience ("...As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where, where do they go? It's Alaska....").
This person should never be allowed within a hundred miles of the White House.
Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com
