Worst new pro-Palin talking point

In a column praising Sarah Palin, Pat Buchanan introduces the dumbest talking point yet -- she's governor of a state that is really big:

Liberals howl that Palin has no experience, no qualifications to be president of the United States. But the lady has more executive experience than McCain, Joe Biden and Obama put together.

None of them has ever started or run a business as Palin did. None of them has run a giant state like Alaska, which is larger than California and Texas put together. And though Alaska is not populous, Gov. Palin has as many constituents as Nancy Pelosi or Biden.

It must be exhausting governing all that empty land! Clearly she is ready for the vice presidency.

PS By this standard, Palin's job is more than seven times harder than Tim Pawlenty's. No wonder McCain picked her!

PPS I hear being governor of Siberia is also very challenging.

PPPS Delaware actually has about 25% more people than Alaska according to 2007 Census estimates.

Update 9/3 12:14 AM: TNR's Jonathan Cohn reports that Fred Thompson made a similar claim in his RNC speech tonight, saying that Palin is "a tough Alaskan governor who has taken on the political establishment in the largest state in the union — and won."

Comments

[Thad Anderson]

I thought the same thing when I heard that one . . .

Buchanan didn't mention that the Federal government owns 60% of the state (a fact I'm sure Todd Palin is very aware of, given his former membership in a secessionist party!)

[tom0063]

Pat Buchanan has evolved, and if there's one thing I've noticed about him on TV over the last few years, it is that he can be hilariously funny.

I think he is just playing this circus for the entertainment value.

I could be wrong, of course.

[Grass]

Heh, I guess the UK, France and Germany must be pretty easy to run as well. What's 200 million people when they barely have two thirds the land mass of Alaska?

[John PM]

Regarding the update, did Fred Thompson tell the RNC that the establishment that Palin "took on" in Alaska was Republican? Just wondering if the Republicans are getting ready to hang Ted Stevens out to dry (not that I would be sad to see that).

[MartyB]

I think you have a good point here as some Republican pundits have overstated Palin's experience a little too far. However, Buchanan does qualify his point immediately afterwards with the "populous" comment, so it seems silly to concentrate only on the one sentence.

Also, much of Alaska is "empty land" but so what? There is lots of empty land in Texas also and there are still competing interests for that land that it seems a govenor has some say over.

I think your comments understate her responsabilities with such a dismissal, which is just as much a distortion as any overstatement.

[Jinchi]

I think you have a good point here as some Republican pundits have overstated Palin's experience a little too far.

I think the actual complaint is that the Republicans haven't made a case on the merits for Palin at all. I know nothing about the woman, so I'm willing to accept that she might be a brilliant politician, with a fine understanding of national and foreign policy. But I don't give her credit for that by default. She has to demonstrate that it's true.

This is what Obama did, BTW. You can argue that the man has little experience, but he's demonstrated time and again that he understands foreign policy and has thought it through. He had specific objections to the Iraq war (most of which have proven prescient). And we all know his plan of action - whether we agree with him or not.

When Republican boosters counter with claims of experience based on Alaska's acreage or it's proximity to Russia you begin to wonder if that's the best they've got.

[ikl]

Not to be pedantic, but being "Governor of Siberia" if there were such a thing (Siberia is divided into lots of different Oblasts and Krai) actually would be a very, very big job. 40 million people lots of natural resource wealth as well as considerable industry and even a bit of agriculture. Certainly more important than being the head of state of many counties. Settlements that run from third world poor to relatively wealthy. Alaska = Yakutia (natural resources + lots of empty, cold land + 900K residents). Siberia is much bigger and more complicated.

[Speener]

You say it enough times - it becomes true.

I'm truly amazed at the ability of these supporters to make these comments with a straight face. Proximity makes someone a foreign affairs expert? Some of the people talking are smart people. Yet they are saying some dumb things.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but at the end of the day, it's still pork.

[Bob]

After reading a lot of Blogs about Sarah Palin I am convinced she has more experience and would make a better President than Obama or Hilliary and Joe Biden....see Hunter Biden Blogs...isn't on anyone's safe list. What has Obama done other than talk pretty and skip out on votes in the Senate?