Right To Wrong

Sure, Sarah Palin completely trainwrecked in that interview with Katie Couric. The right would support her on that no matter what she said...well, almost. You see, during that interview in one fell swoop, the Republican VP candidate just tore up 35 years of the right fighting Roe v Wade and endorsed the basic Constitutional argument supporting the decision. Steve Benen explains:

As jaw-dropping as Sarah Palin's interviews with Katie Couric have been, we'd heard rumors for days that there was more embarrassment yet to come. The rumors were, if anything, understating the case.

Last night, Couric and the "CBS Evening News" ran one more segment, posing the same questions to both Palin and Joe Biden. As you've no doubt heard, Palin talked about why she disapproves of Roe v. Wade, and why she also believes in a constitutional right to privacy. Asked to name other Supreme Court rulings she disagrees with, Palin offered humiliating gibberish. Her responses looked even worse, if that's possible, when compared to Biden's sound and sensible answers to the identical questions.

That "constitutional right to privacy" is THE fundamental argument behind the Roe v Wade decision, as dday points out at Hullabaloo.

I don't know if she believes in the right to privacy or if she believes in the words "right" and "privacy" and saw them together and took a stab at it. But this is a major, MAJOR no-no for the fundies and the wingnuts. She undermined the entire intellectual argument against Roe without even recognizing it. Taking her logic (if it can be called that), if there's a Constitutional right to privacy then there's a right to keep medical decisions confidential, not a state's right but a fundamental Constitutional right.

This is about 35 years' worth of arguments crashing down right now. If any backlash could cost her the nomination it would be over this. This reaches into Harriet Miers territory.

It's the fact that Palin was completely oblivious and ignorant to the main argument of Roe v Wade. That's in the right-wing fundie handbook, folks. If Sarah Palin is too emptyheaded to grasp the basic arguments behind the concept (and actually more than a few kudos to Katie Couric for going there) and commit a faux pas of this political magnitude, she' done. They can't blame the Evil Liberal Media on this one.