CNN: Sarah Palin Has Never Seen Russia From Alaska

Just when you thought the whole "I can see Russia from Alaska" thing couldn't get any funnier...CNN's Gary Tuchman delivers the goods: it turns out that Sarah Palin has never seen Russia from Alaska.

Tuchman went up to the part of Alaska from which you can actually see Russia, a remote island called Little Diomede located just 2.4 miles from its Russian twin, Big Diomede.

It turns out Gary Tuchman's trip to Little Diomede sets him apart from Sarah Palin -- because she's never actually been there, nor has she set eyes on its neighbor in Russia.

Here's the video of Tuchman's report:

Tuchman says that only 150 people live on Little Diomede, and that the town of Diomede has no streets and no cars. The poverty rate is over 40%, there is no television, and the only practical way to reach it is by helicopter. Anchorage (near Palin's hometown) is 550 miles away.

No Alaskan governor has ever visited Little Diomede, though indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens has made the trip. The town's residents barely knew who Palin was, and one of them didn't know she was the VP nominee.

It's going to be fun watching McCain-land spin this one, and it's going to be even more fun watching Tina Fey parody it.

Comments

[candlepower]

Please Please Please Please can Joe Biden make the trip to Little Diomede

Please oh Please oh Please!!

Big media will cover it
He can say "I wanted to make sure I had all the foreign policy experience my opposite number says she has."
Then he can talk to the chief and get the word from him about Palin not being there.
Woah Baby
It's good-night from her!
The only thing she's got is Sham and an absence of Shame- someone should pick out the relevant sections on shame in the New Testament for her-

[BarackMarley]

No wonder George Will and Newt Gingrich called Palin a huge, avoidable gamble.

Watch the Footage Here
http://newsone.blackplanet.com/elections/gingrich-and-will-call-palin-huge-gamble/

[JMBrodie]

Palin is really a poet. I get it now. How could I have been so blind? Slate nails it but running Palin's comments as poetry.

Here's a sample:

"Haiku"

These corporations.
Today it was AIG,
Important call, there.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)



http://www.slate.com/id/2201342/

[JMBrodie]

Slate nails it BY running Palin's comments as poetry....

My bad.

[Indieguy]

She speaketh in sound bites and incomplete sentences.

[DebbieinPhx]

So I’ve figured out something about Sara Palin. See what you think:

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV-R), the diagnostic classification system used in the United States, as "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and a lack of empathy."[1]
The narcissist is shown to display a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:[1]
1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement
6. is interpersonally exploitative
7. lacks empathy
8. is often envious of others or believes others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Sara Palin has deluded herself into thinking that despite not having an adequate education, despite being completely unqualified, that somehow whether by the grace of God or the prayers of a witch hunter she has been rightly chosen. If that's not crazy I don't know what is!!!!

"Sometimes I doth think the entire world has gone mad except Thee and me.
And sometimes I doth think Thou art a little odd."
----Wm Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

[Ramirez]

Run those nine characteristics past the name "Obama" and see what you get.

[JMBrodie]

Dude did go to Harvard and he wrote two books. And he might have seen Russia by plane if it flew far enough north on the way to Hawaii......

[pioneer8]

Impressive and thought provoking, for sure.

[CostaDelBarto]

All politicians probably have those attributes. Certainly McCain has admitted to pretty much 1-->9. I dare say a lot of really great and awful politicians share those traits. The question is not how they see themselves but what they actually plan to do with power once they attain it.

[E NUFF]

Do you notice how this description also fits the Scrub to a T!

I think Pain-lin is a clone between Bush & Cheney!

[Indieguy]

You nailed it. The pathology of Sarah Palin's mind is quite disturbing.

[Indieguy]

Sarah, please stop pulling things out of your rear and then expect us to believe them. You insult the intelligence of all Americans, even the really dumb ones.

[tapplegate]

Then tell Obama to quit lying about him voting against the war in Iraq. He was not even in Congress yet when that vote took place

[Indieguy]

Nice try. Of course Obama couldn't vote for the Iraq War and he 's never said he voted on it, but he has said he was against going to war in Iraq when the real war was in Afganistan.

[phloxy]

He never SAID he Voted against it.He said he WAS against it. Proven by the fact that he was videotaped saying it.

[sink]

I loathe Palin, just to say that up front.

But the point was not if SHE saw Russia but that the state includes proximity to Russia that makes her think about the fact that there's potential first contact with Russia. It's thin, to be sure, but this report is unfair to her (idiotic) statement.

[kat1park]

The statement is not unfair at all. If I ask you about your foreign policy, and you offer up to me that you can see Russia from Alaska, then you damn well better have seen it. Otherwise, you are lying and that is something that we as voters do not have to pretend to be OK with. Especially not coming from the freakin' morality police that is the Republican party.

[galinha]

When you say you have seen something when you haven't, isn't that um...., a LIE?

[Indieguy]

It's making it up as she goes along and peppering it with LIES.

[E NUFF]

In Alaska I think they call it "FOLKLORE"

[Indieguy]

In addition, it's sociopathic. I can tell a lie and people will believe me because I'm Sarah Palin. This is very pathological stuff.

[strangelet]

Actually -- and I despise Palin as an untruthful opportunist -- I don't think she herself ever said she, personally, had seen Russia. I think it was something like "You know, there's a place in AK where you can see Russia from".

Still a stupid statement to make with respect to foreign policy experience, but not actually a lie.

Nevertheless, I look forward to her having to explain that she never said it. Denials are great confidence killers.

[kat1park]

She offered it up as experience. How can you offer something up as experience that you haven't actually experienced? Thus, the inference that she had actually been there. I do not believe people are reaching on this at all. If someone said I have Iraq war experience, you would assume that it means they have been to Iraq or at least met the Iraqis or been involved in some type of foreign policy decisions involving Iraq. She has not been there. She has not met the people. She has done nothing to help them. For sure this is a lie, any way you spin it.

[Ramirez]

You are making up the part about her saying she saw Russia.
Here is her quote from the Gibson interview:

"They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska -- from an island in Alaska."
-- Sarah Palin

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=5782924&page=2

[kat1park]

It doesn't matter if she says she actually saw Russia. She offered up the fact that Russia was in close proximity to Alaska as foreign policy experience. If she hasn't even been to the part of Alaska that is giving her this so called foreign policy experience, people have a right to know that. They also have a right to know that she has done nothing for these people and has not even spoken with them or tried to do anything to help some of the most impoverished people in her state. Give me a break! She is ready to send the country to hell in a hand basket on Day 1!

[Indieguy]

Then I take It you mean that the people living on Little Diomede or have traveled there and have seen Russia have foreign policy experience. So sorry, nice try, but Sarah implied that she could see Russia and that it gave her foriegn policy experience. Absurd, totally absurd.

[sposton]

Alaska's proximity to Russia does in no way provide her with any foreign policy experience! She would be laughed off the stage anywhere else in the world, but not in the US! Here she is chosen to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Blame it on American exceptionalism. We are "special". ;-)

[Bitsko]

Gov. Palin -- that island needs a bridge ASAP!

[DebbieinPhx]

Yeah, and she's got the money to build it too

[sharpstyx]

This particular debunk was such a farce, did you see the mayor of this town. Now i know why people were so impressed with palin.

Riddle me this batman, alot of people said the charlie gibson question about the bush doctrine was a gotcha question, how was it a gotcha question when she will as vice president, if they win, have to defend that doctrine, that shes never heard of, to foreign heads of state that shes never met. What about the publications shes read to keep up? She couldnt remmeber her hometown newspaper? Time magazine, newsweek, USA today, The new york post? rolling stone or does she get all her info from fox noise and the bible? Just because she thinks shes Joe 6-pack(Uhhh) doesnt mean she gets to play ignorant. I know joe 6-pack and he doesnt come off as a dithering id iot.

[DebbieinPhx]

mmmm. You may be right... but honestly, this woman is NOT a well educated person. She just isn't. I know this because I have grown up around educated people, I attended 12 years of college, two post grads and a J.D., I think I'm fairly good at spotting a well educated person, and I'm sorry, I think she's as dull as a box of rocks. Call me silly. I can't see it.

[Buddy McCue]

I don't know, but I'd guess that she DOES read some kind of paper or magazine. I think that in this interview, she just forgot what she was supposed to say to a question like that.

[Lotus19]

"Joe 6-pack?" LOLOLOLOLO­LOLOLOLOLO­. There is something seriously wrong with that woman

[blogsrus]

Yea, now. Don't let this site get as petty as FOX news, please. Doesn't matter.

[violettefemme]

Petty? It's people like you, and the MSM, calling caring about blatant lies "petty" that put this country where it is today, after 8 years of being told how lies don't matter.

[blueskybigstar]

No lie is petty.

[FACINGREALIT]

There is a difference between knowing something is a lie (Fox) and reporting it as truth then knowing something is a lie (HuffPost) and reporting it as a LIE! Don't EVER open your mouth again and try to compare Fox with HuffPost or you will be FLAGGED as incapable of blogging - ANYTHING!

[Yve72]

"...but we share a maritime border with Russia..."
SO.

Well I'm of mixed Palestinian & Jewish ancestry! I think I'll just fly over to Israel & West Bank and be the savior of the Middle East peace process!

[djwfutbol]

Actually, there are a few small Russian villages in Alaska left over from a hundred plus years ago when there were pretty close ties between the areas.

Of course, the current inhabitants are Americans of Russian descent but perhaps they still provide valuable insight into the mindset of their relatives still in Asia whenever the governor calls upon them for their opinion.

The view of things from Khamchatsky may be no better than the view of the world from Juneau but its good we have an eye on one another. I, for one, am going to start watching Portugal. A tricky bunch, those Jesuits.

[Hollis-Greene]

What would the lives be like if the people of that island were still Russian citizens???

The U.S. bought Alaska from Russia... remember.

[rainlion]

Okay, not to be nitpicky... but her actual quote responding to Charlie Gibson's question was:
"They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska -- from an island in Alaska,"

I don't can't recall her saying She's seen Russia, nor McCain saying it. In the long run, this doesn't matter - there are plenty of things she can and should be called out on. No need to make a mountain out of this statement - she's got loads, take you pick

[USexpat]

Your comment isn't "nitpicky" at all.

However, I might add that I've actually met someone from Little Diomede. When he is home he can see Russia everyday, if the fog lifts long enough. I'm not sure what that qualifies him for, other than he can see the home of his not so distant relatives. And I'm pretty certain that meeting someone from either of those islands is more than Caribou Barbie can claim.

I'm more concerned with the top of the ticket. McCain has his own view of the world:

He thinks Czechoslovakia still exists (did this at least twice)
He referred to the border between Pakistan and Iraq
He referred to German President Putin
He can't seem to keep straight whether Al Quada is Sunni or Shia
He gets Sudan and Somalia mixed up

McCain/Spears 08

[BiGnBulKY]

and McCain had no clue that Spain was a Nato Allie