Sarah Palin ABC Interview Is Over.....Now Lets Review...She Was Confused About Entitlemment Programs

UPDATED

The Sarah Palin interviews on ABC are over, and I think it was more cheap theater than a political event.  While there was a reporter on camera, the substantive politician forgot to show up.  And the reviews I suspect are going to be harsh.  Most reviews I  suspect will look like this from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sarah Palin, talking about domestic policy with ABC’s Charles Gibson in his second day of exclusive access on Friday, seemed confused about entitlement programs — and unaware that Congress has little say in significantly reducing the costs of Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

When she seemed to equate these entitlement programs to agencies “where we can find efficiencies in every department” Gibson lectured her that agencies are not involved in entitlements. Palin — who as governor of Alaska should be well versed in Medicaid since it is a joint state and federal program — did not skip a beat, just plowing on about the growth of government.

* On earmarks — McCain is on a crusade to ban them –Palin did not make full use of an opportunity by Gibson to persuasively explain why she was for the infamous Alaskan Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it –after it was dead in Congress. She said she just read the “writing on the wall. … That project is going nowhere … circumstances have so drastically changed,” she said. “You call an audible, you deal with reality and you move on.”

* She justified an earmark for an Alaskan study on the “mating habits of crabs” because it was done, she said, in the open.

* The anti-abortion Palin said Roe v Wade should be reversed and the question of abortion be decided by states. She said she wants to reach out to the other side on this issue to work to reduce abortions and find “greater support” for adoptions. No mention in question or answer of her teen unwed pregnant daughter.

The text of one of the more laughable segments by Ms. Palin was about the matter of entitlements, as sourced below from Politico.

GIBSON: So let me break some of those down. You talk about spending. How much smaller would a McCain budget be? Where would you cut?

PALIN: We’re going to find efficiencies in every department. We have got to. There are some things that I think should be off the table. Veterans’ programs, off the table. You know, we owe it to our veterans and that’s the greatest manifestation that we can show in terms of support for our military, those who are in public service fighting for America. It’s to make sure that our veterans are taken care of and the promises that we’ve made to them are fulfilled.

GIBSON: So you’d take military off the table, the veterans’ benefits. That’s 20 percent of the budget. &Do you talk about entitlement reform? Is there money you can save in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

PALIN: I am sure that there are efficiencies that are going to be found in all of these agencies. I’m confident in that.

GIBSON: The agencies are not involved in entitlements. Basically, discretionary spending is 18 percent of the budget.

PALIN: We have certainly seen excess in agencies, though, and in — when bureaucrats, when bureaucracy just gets kind of comfortable, going with the status-quo and not being challenged to find efficiencies and spend other people’s money wisely, then that’s where we get into the situation that we are into today, and that is a tremendous growth of government, a huge debt, trillions of dollars of debt that we’re passing on to my kids and your kids and your grandkids … It’s unacceptable.

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