Veepstakes

For the presidential debate on Friday, I viewed it on PBS while watching the debate-related tweets fly by on election.twitter.com (and tweeting about it myself, of course). Tonight, for the Biden/Palin-o-rama, I'll be substituting C-SPAN's awesome Debate Hub. It has some amazing features, which you can read about in Gizmodo's aptly titled "C-SPAN 'Debate Hub' Is the Political Social Media Web 2.0 Uber Geek's Wet Dream." Yee-ha!

I imagine that Tina Fey is hoping to have this week's SNL script all prepared for her again. Who needs comedy writers when you have this kind of gold:

Katie Couric: "And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious: what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?"
Sarah Palin: "I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media."
Couric: "But, like, what ones specifically? I'm curious."
Palin: "All of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me over all these years."
Couric: Can you name a few?
Palin: "I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too."
    — CBS News interview, 10/01/08 (video)

Oh wait, I forgot, that's unfair "gotcha!" journalism.

I do hope Joe Biden behaves himself. Really, he just has to give Palin enough rope to hang herself, without letting himself get tangled in it too. Just talk about what you know, Joe, and you'll be all set.

And, finally, can you name the last 10 VPs in 2 minutes? I missed 1. Can you name the last 10 VP losers in 10 minutes? I missed 4, but it should've been 3 (I forgot a very obvious one).

Comments

[Generic_Humanoid]

Well, I did not do too bad on those quizzes.

I was able to enter 9 of the last 10 V.P.s in 30 seconds, then spaced on Johnson's Veep (Humphrey, as in Hubert H. Humphrey, how could I forget that? There was an NFL stadium named after him!).

I was able to get 8 of the last 10 losing Veeps in about two minutes, although I think partial credit should be given for "Dole's running mate....the ex-NFL quarterback who co-founded some neo-nazi....errr, I mean....err, I mean terribly right wing leaning organization." I was also unable to remember remember McGovern's running mate, all I could think of was "that crazy guy from NE!

[Liz]

ARgh, I heard Palin's spokeswoman responding to the issue of her dancing around the question of which newspapers she read. The spin from her camp is that she didn't want to offend any paper by leaving them out, and that she was already thinking ahead to how Katie might respond if she named certain papers, so she was just being fair!

[Elena]

If Palin didn't want to offend anyone or be called biased, why didn't she just say "I read everything from (name of conservative publication) to (name of liberal publication)?" Anyone with half a brain could do that. And if she respects the press so much, why did she slam the "mainstream media" at the debate last night? She is absurd.

[Generic_Humanoid]

> Verbatim wrote:
> I forgot Hubert H. Humphrey, too. (although Verbatim forgot
> the comma before the 'too'....tsk tsk ;)

That makes us both lame...when I read your original post and then clicked the link I was thinking "OK, which obvious Veep did she forget?"

Then, in the middle of the test, as I was going backwards, I was thinking "Crap! Who was LBJ's veep? I know this one! Who was it?" and then I was stumped :(

The weird part about the losing Veep quiz was the ones I forgot...I had Goldwater's Veep down while pounding my head against the desk over Dole's and McGovern's....

[Leslie]

Love this post, but the title is GENIUS. (Unlike a certain VP candidate; how hard to pick a newspaper? Any newspaper!)