Sarah Palin Might Not Know What a Platform Is
Yesterday Sarah Palin did a phone interview with James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Most of it went pretty well -- lucky, he's a creep who likes children, that's an important sign; lucky, she's an asshole with children, small world, isn't it? -- but there was one ugly gotcha question:
Dobson:
The Republican Platform is the strongest pro-life, pro-family document to come out of a political party, even more so than the platforms during the campaigns of Ronald Reagan. There are principles there that I've been fighting for for thirty, forty years and you are trying to articulate those same principles, aren't you?
Oh jeez.
See, the problem here, for most Republican politicians, is that the platform is horrifying. A catalogue of revenge dreams and power fantasies, impossible and illegal, most of them involving women and scourging. It's the portrait in the attic of what Republican rule would look like, if the zealot half took over and pushed out the half who are just in it for the money.
It's not what you'd call a moderate document. Bob Dole, famously, claimed he never even read it.
That's what makes it a gotcha question, for most candidates. How to get around it. For Sarah Palin, what makes it a gotcha question is that I'm pretty sure she doesn't know that her party has a platform, or what one is.
He might as well be asking her the atomic weight of unbinilium.
So she goes into Palin bluff mode. What words does she have to work with from the question? "Platform." Good. We know that word. It's like a deck. "Pro-life." We heard about that at church. "Reagan." He was sort of like a young John McCain. Got it. Go.
Palin:
Absolutely, and Dr. Dobson thank you so much for recognizing that. This is a strong platform around the planks in this platform that respect life and respect the entrepreneurial spirit of this great country and those things, back to the social issues that are what Republicans, at least in the past, had articulated and tried to stand on.
Pause. Did that do it? Wait for next question. Darn it, he's not saying anything. That's okay, we can do this. Deep breath.
Palin:
Now, finally, we have very solid planks in the platform that will allow us to build an even stronger foundation for our country. It's all good and it's encouraging. You would maybe have assumed that we would have gotten further away from those strong planks. But no, they're there, they're solid, we stand on them and again I believe that it is the right agenda for the country at this time. Very, very clear and contrasted tickets in this election November 4th. People are going to see the clear contrasts, you just go to the planks in our platforms and that's where you see them.
And... done. Teacher, is that clock slow?
But Dobson isn't finished. He has a follow up. This must be what hell feels like.
Dobson:
In your private conversations with Senator McCain, it is your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?
I just remembered, I have an early out for band. Gotta go! No? Okay. Could you repeat the question?
What are the new words? "McCain" and "implement." Implement means "do."
Palin:
I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details of the different planks and what they represent. I'm very heartened that John McCain ... he doesn't want a Vice President who will check the opinions ... of me at the door and we talk about some of these and they're very important. It's most important though, as you're suggesting, that Americans know that John McCain is solidly there on those solid planks in our platform that build the right agenda for America.
Nailed it! Pencils down.
She's such a desperate doofus. I'm glad she has nice clothes.
I think we might actually miss Sarah Palin. But we won't know until she goes away.
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Sounds like someone's squirming because they have a plank up their arse.
Oh, those meanie media elitists. Have they no pity on poor little Sarah?
WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE CUT THE PULL STRING OUT OF HER BACK!
Miss Wasilla first runner-up Sarah Heath Palin probably thinks a platform is the stage on which she paraded in her swimsuit. If the winner cannot fulfill his duties, the first runner-up will take over. "Yipee! "cried Miss Wasilla.
Did she really say all this? Really? or is this a comedy skit?
EXACTLY what I was wondering. This is beyond belief. Astonishingly awful.
Dr. Dobson, our planks come from God fearing trees that grow in pro-american parts of our great country.
LOL!!!!
Sarah, here is a free lesson in speechh:
DO NOT speak in sentences longer than 5 words. Repeat after me: 5 words.
As in: John McCain is very nice. The platform is very nice. The planks are very nice. They are built with wood. Wood is very nice. Our great country is nice. My new clothes are wonderful. Nieman marcus is very nice. I want to be President.
This way you can actually sound somewhat co her ent
John McCain is very nice, you betcha. Also too the platform is very nice. Also tooThe planks are very nice. They are built with wood. Also too Wood is very nice. Our great country is nice. For sure My new clothes are wonderful. Nieman marcus is very nice. I want to be President, dang numb it.
tsk tsk sarah...it
The truely delectable thing about her is that she's a kind of "equal opportunity" candidate.
We're all painfully aware of how, with foot firmly in mouth, she's shown that she has little idea of what the VP's role actually is. A fact that Chris Matthews, in his astonishment and outrage, continues to hammer, and that Right Wing pundits, in their astonishment and disillusion, sputter and hopelessly defend.
Here, however, she sits down with Dobson, to all appearances a like minded, very very right "social conservitave," for a pretty simple interwiew. His adgenda's straightforeward, he want's to reasure his base that Palin, and in particular McCain, will adhere to the ultra "conservative" Republican Platform. What he find's out is that she's got not inkling what that platform is.
She sure spreads the wealth.
"When they came to us in Alaska with that Platform to Nowhere, I said 'planks but no planks.'"
Wait, wrong speech.
LOL
Heehee! That is clever! I'm borrowing the "planks but no planks" as I forward this article to all my "Independent" friends who will be horrified by the idea of up-holding the ultra-conservative, wacky RNC platform and all its "planks"
Matthew 7:3 paraphrased for Sarah:
"Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye but fail to notice the PLANK in your own eye?"
No fair quoting Jesus to the religious right -- they don't know the Gospels, they just re-read Leviticus over and over.
Chris, did you just hit the nail on the head??? YOU BETCHA!!! I read a NYT magazine article yesterday.
http://www
The McCain campaign threw Sarah Palin under the bus! She was ill-prepared for the position that John McCain put her in. After reading the NYT article, I remembered reading about how Gov. Palin was forced to study binders full of notes and McCain speeches. The media has been tearing her up because she can only communicate with cue cards in hand. On November 4th, she should go back to Wasilla and take a Political Science class. Maybe, just maybe she'll learn the role of the VP. Maybe she could read some books about Global warming and the possible cause(s). It's always been apparent to me that Sarah Palin hates the gotcha media and is always on the defensive. She shoudl just go quietly back to Wasilla or maybe she could take Tina Fey's place on Saturday Night live.
She probably spells JOBS with three letters! Oh, wait...tha
Biden and the JOBS thing was hilarious, it still makes me laugh.
But Palin's planks in the platform with planks going on and on and on... that's just pure gold! I don't think even Palin can top that! (Knock on wood!)
hmm, let's see: I take a plank--no,no, a STRONG plank, and stand on that one and take another strong plank and plunk it down in front of me and start buildin a platform that goes SOMEWHERE and just keep plunkin' 'em down and makin 'em solid and then dog goneit, there's that too, platform from the past that we stood on and then we have those platforms there that, too, we should and could plunk those down also and soon our platform is made of planks to, um, the pro-AMerica parts of this great country and then, PING PING, you betcha we got ourselves a new mavericky bridge to AMERICA! too
Great article Chris, hilarious, "Palin bluff mode", so spot on. But you could've at least provided a translation for the Palin tongue speak. ;) Do you think Dobson understood what she was saying?
Ha ha ha ha ha! Of planks and platforms. Just when you think she has outdone herself with her dumbness, she breaks her own record!
Nobody's perfect, but DAYYYUUUMM
"Sarah Palin Might Not Know What a Platform Is"
I beg to differ, oil rigs have platforms. As an “energy czar” she knows exactly what a platform is.
Yup, and she knows there are planks on a platform too.
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