Winkin' and Blinkin'

Sarah Palin drew some boos and shouts of confusion today, when while speaking in New Hampshire she mistakenly claimed that the Granite State was part of the "great Northwest." "I like being here," she told the crowd in Laconia, "because it seems like here and in our last rally too -- other parts around this great Northwest -- here in New Hampshire you just get it." Yeah, and they can see Russia from there too...

Speaking of Russia, Ms. Winkin' also appears not to have been aware that eight high-level RUSSIAN ENERGY officials were in ALASKA on Monday to meet with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. They were there to talk with Conoco Phillips and Alaska officials about energy projects. Yeah, she's an Energy/Russian policy expert. Right on it, baby.

And I know that we've thoroughly established how little Senator Blinkin' understands about new media, but here is yet another bit of evidence. The Bits technology blog on the NY Times reports: "Trevor Potter, the general counsel for the McCain-Palin presidential campaign, sent a letter on Monday to Chad Hurley, the chief executive of YouTube, complaining that the video service, now owned by Google, had inappropriately removed McCain commercials from its site. The commercials incorporated snippets of television news broadcasts. Using provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the news organizations demanded that the commercials be removed from YouTube because they violated the organizations' copyrights...[Potter] argued that the excerpts of news broadcasts represented a fair use, which exempted them from control by the copyright owner...In one case, a McCain commercial included a clip of the CBS anchor Katie Couric talking about sexism in coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton. CBS argued that the use of the clip implied that it was endorsing the McCain campaign." Gotta fight for your right to Mash Up.

And just one more "Really?" moment: McCain called Hillary for advice on the economy??? "It's hilarious. It's like McCain is trying to copy her, but he's using a busted Xerox machine," said one of Clinton's top campaign advisers. "We were out in front on the economy. She was the first one to really pay attention to people's anxieties, and both Obama and McCain have been playing catch-up ever since." Hillary confirmed the story in a post-debate interview on CNN, although she said McCain called her several weeks ago, which at the rate that events are unfolding, might as well have been years ago.