| | Maher: GOP should admit Palin isn't ready for the job
 Critics of Sarah Palin's shortcomings as a vice-presidential candidate have been finding it difficult to discuss her limitations objectively without being accused of condescension and sexism.
HBO host Bill Maher expressed his frustration with this trap when he appeared on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Tuesday. He made it clear that in the light of current economic problems, he was particularly worried about the prospect of "bringing someone to a complex issue who's not a complex thinker."
"You're caught between a rock and a hard place with Sarah Palin," Maher complained to Maddow, "because if you describe her accurately, there's no way you can do that and not sound condescending. Because she's not very bright about matters that a person in this position should be bright about, and she's completely not ready to take over this job."
"I heard people say, 'Oh, that was sort of a gotcha question that Charlie Gibson asked her about the Bush doctrine,'" Maher explained. "It's a gotcha question if she's trying to become Miss America. If she's in line to be the second most powerful person in the world, it's not a gotcha question."
"There remains still this big pushback, though, from the McCain-Palin campaign," continued Maher, "that if you ask any hard questions, really on anything, it's because you are out to get her and you don't think that she's going to know the answer and you're, in a sexist way, underestimating her. ... I feel like that's not a long-term strategy for marketing your vice-president."
Maher suggested that for Republicans to admit that Palin isn't ready for the job really "would be 'country first,'" but he doesn't expect that to happen. "The Republicans have put up now in the last 20 years Dan Quayle, George Bush, and Sarah Palin. Those are three absolute ciphers who had no place in a national election, and yet these are the banner of 'country first.' "
"The intellectual conservative base of the Republican Party forever and a day hated John McCain," Maddow noted, mentioning David Brooks, Richard Cohen, George Will, and David Frum. "I wonder if you think the Republican Party is going to have some unity problems, come November?"
"I don't really think so," Maher responded, "because that's what they're good at ... getting behind the guy on their team no matter who it is."
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast September 16, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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