Sarah Palin on Oprah: Comments

For the first time in a long time, I watched Oprah yesterday to see her interview with Sarah Palin.  I will admit I've watched Oprah before, unlike some others (the last time, I believe, was when Dave Ramsey was on).  I will also admit I haven't been too thrilled with Oprah since she openly endorsed Barack Obama for president, but that is her prerogative.  I think the "did Oprah snub Sarah" story was overblown (and so did Sarah, according to yesterday's interview), but given the hyperpartisan environment present in the 2000s, such a story was inevitable.

Enough with the preliminaries.  I'm sure there are another thousand people who want to speak their piece (yes, that was used correctly) about this interview, so let's get to it.

First of all, Sarah Palin gave a great interview with Oprah.  Yes, I'm a huge Palin fan, as anyone who reads this blog regularly (hi, Dad) knows, but I'll admit she's not always had good interviews before (see Couric, Katie).  This one was good.  Sarah was charming and personable, and she gave good answers to almost everything Oprah asked.  (No, she didn't answer Oprah's question about 2012.  I can totally understand why; would you want a three-year campaign?  It was bad enough watching Obama run for two years.)

Now, I know that some people slammed Oprah's interviewing in this episode, but I thought her questions were mostly quite fair.  She covered a majority of the topics that needed to be covered.  The only issue I had with her questions were that she re-asked Gov. Palin about her reasons for resigning immediately after she had just answered the question.  And, really, must we revisit that again?  Apparently some people simply refuse to accept the truth of the matter.

So, all in all, I'd say this interview was nicely handled by both Oprah and Sarah.  Of course, others will see things differently (for example:  if you must, you can see some rather nasty comments at Oprah's site's own write-up of the interview).  But with a few more interviews like this one, I totally believe that the real Sarah will triumph over the false characterization propagated by many with an agenda.

Video of almost the entire interview (while it lasts):

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3 (Couric interview clips omitted due to CBS copyright)



Part 4



Part 5



All this, of course, is to promote Gov. Palin's book, Going Rogue, easily available to you via the link on the right side of the page.  Note:  I do receive an incredibly small kickback commission for each copy sold via this link.