Newsweek's Evan Thomas: Palin 'Has a Little Bit of Huey Long in Her'

October 3rd, 2008 10:17 PM

Evan Thomas, Editor at Large with Newsweek, on Friday night likened Sarah Palin to Louisiana's infamous demagogic Democrat of the 1920s, Huey Long. On Inside Washington, a weekly show produced and aired over the weekend by Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, but first broadcast Friday night on the local PBS station, Thomas reacted to Palin's suggestion in the VP debate that the Vice President has a legislative role:

Here's what's disturbing: Either she didn't know, because actually the legislative role is just about zero as Biden says, or scarier she has a little bit of Huey Long in her. The kind of -- you could see her being a demagogue, saying “I got to do this, the rules are in the way, to heck with the rules, let's do it.”

Earlier on the October 3 show, Thomas (Newsweek's bio), until 2006 Newsweek's Assistant Managing Editor and before that the magazine's Washington bureau chief, contended she reflected the worst aspects of President George W. Bush:

The thing that worries me the most is she has this George Bush quality to make up her mind before she has the facts and she's dogmatic and, you know, she's impulsive, and the things that get you into trouble when you're President of the United States.

For DC area residents, this episode of Inside Washington will run at 7 PM Saturday on NewsChannel 8 on cable and Sunday morning at 9 AM on WJLA-TV channel 7.