Got journalism?

Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin (video below, 9½ minutes) another of those “gotcha journalism” questions: what newspapers and magazines she read before becoming McCain’s running-mate. “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years.” She literally could not come up with the name of a single newspaper or magazine. And then went on to suggest that the question demonstrated a stereotype of Alaskans as being out of touch with the rest of America, a stereotype Palin has in no way subverted.

Asked whether a 15-year-old girl raped by her father should be prevented from having an abortion, she replied, more than once, that she would “counsel” the girl to “choose life.” I guess it’s something that she knows better than to give her true position out loud, which does not involve any counseling because she does not believe in the girl having a choice. But she did volunteer that she wouldn’t send the girl to prison if she did abort, which I think is jolly generous of her.

Asked three times about the morning after pill, which seems to be the minimum for her to give a semi-straight answer, she said that she personally would not “choose to participate” in that type of contraception. She did not cop to any plans to remove that choice for other women.

She said that she personally would not “judge” gay people, which I think is jolly generous of her. And she even has a gay friend, who “happens to have made a choice that isn’t a choice that I have made”. Great. We’ve finally found a choice she’s willing not to judge people for, and it isn’t really something one chooses.