-- by Dave
It was Glenn Beck's turn to host new Fox News Analyst Sarah Palin yesterday. It was actually an incredibly boring interview, since Beck mostly seemed interested in whether Palin hung on his every word or not and bought into his theory that Obama is a radical black Marxist bent on destroying America. She did, of course.
It featured all of Beck's tired schticks, including his claim that Republicans like George W. Bush and John McCain are actually "progressives":
Beck: It killed me to vote for John McCain. And I voted for John McCain because of you. Um, John McCain is a progressive. John McCain -- he's an honorable man.
Palin: He is an honorable man.
Beck: He is an honorable man. And that goes a long way -- there's, I mean, that's a rare island to find. He's an honorable man. But he's also a progressive.
He's big government, he was for the bank bailouts, he was for the uh, uhm, health care. He's for all of it. He's for all of it.
Palin played along, pointing out: "Look what he's doing now!" and generally suggesting that those naughty wayward conservatives had gotten the gospel of Glenn and were back on the right track.
Beck seems utterly unaware that, in fact, Palin was for the bank bailouts too.
As you can see from the additional footage we included in the above video, Palin vocally supported the bailouts in her vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden, praising McCain's supposed work in trying to get the bailout package passed:
John McCain thankfully has been one representing reform. Two years ago, remember, it was John McCain who pushed so hard with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reform measures. He sounded that warning bell.
People in the Senate with him, his colleagues, didn’t want to listen to him and wouldn’t go towards that reform that was needed then. I think that the alarm has been heard, though, and there will be that greater oversight, again thanks to John McCain’s bipartisan efforts that he was so instrumental in bringing folks together over this past week, even suspending his own campaign to make sure he was putting excessive politics aside and putting the country first.
As Dave Weigel noted awhile back, this was just after McCain had "suspended" his campaign to return to Washington to attempt to push the bailout through.
In late September, Palin also defended the bailouts in her interview with Katie Couric:
Palin: That’s why I say, I, like every American I’m speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the tax payers looking to bail out.
But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Helping the — Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. Shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americas. A
And trade we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive scary thing. But 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation.
This bailout is a part of that.
That is, it's a defense of sorts. Actually, it makes no sense whatever -- it's just a big pot of policy-wonk words thrown together in a way that I think Palin hoped sounded like it made some kinda sense.
The only thing that's really clear from all this is that not only was Palin a full supporter of the bailouts, she was a big fan of health-care reform. In fact, she seems to have believed the bailouts would help reform health care. Eh?
No wonder her followers are similarly awash at sea.
Not to mention her interviewers.
Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.
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