As I said before, as I said before...

There's an interesting article on Sarah Palin's debating style in today's New York Times. It notes that her demeanor in her debates during the Alaskan gubernatorial campaign was quite different from her demeanor during her recent interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric.

That had me a bit worried, until I got to this part-

"But just as she does now, Ms. Palin often spoke in generalities and showed scant aptitude for developing arguments beyond a talking point or two. Her sentences were distinguished by their repetition of words, by the use of the phrase “here in Alaska” and for gaps. On paper, her sentences would have been difficult to diagram. John Bitney, the policy director for her campaign for governor and the main person who helped prepare her for debates, said her repetition of words was “her way of running down the clock as her mind searches for where she wants to go.”

Then they reprinted a few quotes from her Alaska debates, and it seems that the main difference between now and then is that now she's hesitantly incoherent, and then she was enthusiastically incoherent.

I expect more of the same tomorrow night- you cannot turn somebody into a competent debater in a few weeks, especially if that person has no idea what they are talking about to begin with. At this point I really think she 'd lose a debate on the nation's economy, health care, or foreign policy to a bag of leaf mulch. I just hope people don't wind up feeling sorry for her. She certainly doesn't deserve it.