Palin Reads (A Lot)!

Carl Cameron of GOP TV interviewed Sarah Palin on October 3, giving her a make-up exam after she embarassed herself chatting with Katie Couric, and following the vice-presidential debate. Referring to Governor Earmark's interview with the CBS anchorwoman, Cameron asked "what happened?" and Palin responded

Well, OK. I'll tell you. Honestly. The Sarah Palin in those interviews is a little bit annoyed. Because it's like, no matter what you say, you're going to get clobbered. If you cease to answer a question, you're going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try to pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about, you get clobbered for that, too.

But, in the Katie Couric interviews, I did feel that there were a lot of things that she was missing, in terms of an opportunity to ask what a V.P. candidate stands for. What the values are represented in our ticket....

The Governor of Alaska failed to answer questions because she was "annoyed" that she was not asked the questions she wanted to answer and instead had to "pivot" to go to those more to her liking.

But that was not the best answer. Asked by Cameron "Well, what do you read?', Palin replied

I read the same things that other people across the country read, including the "New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal" and the "Economist" and some of these publications that we've recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska.

The vast majority of Americans do not read either The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or The Economist. (And any self-respecting pro-Israel populist, as Palin pretends to be, would eschew that magazine.) According to Wikipedia, here are the 2007 circulation figures they've obtained for the publications which Palin claims to read and implies average Americans typically read: a) New York Times, 1,120,420 weekdays (more on Sunday); b) Wall Street Journal, two million worldwide; c) Economist, 1,300,000, approximately half of them in North America.

Even assuming the nearly impossible, that readers of these three publications are mutually exclusive (and that a majority of Wall Street Journal readers are citizens of the U.S.A.), approximately three million Americans, out of an adult population of 200-250 million, read either of the two newspapers or the magazine. Yet, Sarah Palin reads all three- and still poses as "Joe Six-Pack."