Inexplicably, George Stephanopoulos asked the president to respond to Sarah Palin's self-contradictory nitwit quote about nuclear weapons yesterday. Here was the president's pointed reply:
OBAMA: I really have no response. Because last I checked, Sarah Palin's not much of an expert on nuclear issues.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But the string of criticism has been out there among other Republicans as well. They think you're restricting use of nuclear weapons too much.
OBAMA: And what I would say to them is that if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff are comfortable with it, I'm probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin.
As Benen points out, the question should never have been asked in the first place. Nevertheless, the president's answer was strong.
But I'm wondering, since he's into demanding responses to stupid remarks, if I make a totally nonsensical statement about Sarah Palin, will Stephanopoulos ask her about it? Here goes. Sarah Palin's shoes have goblins in them and her remarks about oil-drilling are like flogging a bowl of pudding with a stick of pepperoni.
That's adequately silly. Okay, George, go for it. I'll wait for her reaction.
UPDATE: Stephanopoulos responded to Sam Stein about the question, and offered what I think is a reasonable justification for it. So I backpedal a little here. And the more I think about the president's response, the more at peace I am with the whole thing. The president actually managed to pivot the question back at Palin, with the somewhat obvious goal of trapping her into having to speak substantively about nuclear policy when it's possible she doesn't know what "proliferation" means. The missing puzzle piece here is getting the press to actually corner her and get her to speak substantively about policy -- an elusive task.