Palin revises judges, newspaper answers

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin clarified two of her more memorable gaffes this week involving Supreme Court cases and her reading habits.

In an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric earlier this week, Palin was unable to list a decision other than Roe v. Wade that she disagrees with, but in an interview with Fox News on Friday, Palin listed the recent Kennedy v. Louisiana death penalty case as well as the court’s 2005 controversial eminent domain decision in Kelo v. City of New London.


Asked by Fox’s Carl Cameron to identify a case running counter to her judicial philosophy, Palin said, “a recent one, Kennedy v. Louisiana, where the Supreme Court will tell a state that they can't impose the death penalty — even [in the case of] a heinous crime of repeat child rapist, that a state, its rights were taken away by the Supreme Court, and we would not be able to decide for ourselves whether the death penalty in a case like that could be implemented or not.”

On the Kelo case, Palin said, “private property rights are so precious in this nation, and for the Supreme Court to have sided with government instead of the people, the property owners on that, that was frustrating.”

The Alaska governor also made mention of a court decision this past summer scaling back the punitive damages owed to victims of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

Palin also had an answer ready when Cameron asked what newspapers she reads.

“I read the same things that other people across the country read, including The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and The Economist and some of these publications that we've recently even been interviewed through up there in Alaska,” Palin said.

When Palin was posed the same question earlier this week by Couric, the Alaska governor fumbled the response, telling Couric, “Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years,” adding, ”I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.”

Reflecting on the Couric interview, Palin said she was “annoyed” by her treatment, adding the CBS anchor didn’t ask questions that reflect “what a vice presidential candidate stands for.”

“The Sarah Palin in those interviews is a little bit annoyed because it's like, man, no matter what you say you're going to get clobbered,” the Alaska governor said. “If you choose to answer a question you are going to get clobbered on the answer. If you choose to try and pivot and go on to another subject that you believe that Americans want to hear about you get clobbered for that too.”

Palin added that during the CBS interviews, “I did feel that there were a lot of things that she was missing in terms of an opportunity to ask what a vice presidential candidate stands for — what the values are represented in our ticket.”

“I guess I have to apologize about being a little annoyed, but that is also an indication of being outside that Washington elite, outside of the media elite also and just wanted to talk to Americans without the filter and let them know what we stand for.”