The Quotable Palin

Two of my daughters, Brick and Chance, were perfectly nice things for Halloween but our eldest, Heavenly, wanted to be Sarah Palin. I was proud but annoyed. On the one hand, Sarah Palin seemed like a reasonably clever costume for a fifteen-year-old. (As it turned out, there was only one other pseudo-Palin in high school that day.) On the other hand, where was I supposed to get $150,000?

Heavenly was working on her accent and asked me for some hilarious Sarah Palin things to say. Because I'm a lot of fun I told her:

"Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."

HEAVENLY
Yeah, no, uh, I was more thinking things like "you betcha."

DAD
But everyone does "you betcha."

HEAVENLY
Never mind, I'll look something up on line.

DAD
No, see, it's a zinger. She's being sarcastic about habeas corpus. She killed with it at the Republican convention. It's funny because human rights are lame. Extralegal detention rules! Torture rocks! Drill, Marathon Man, drill!

HEAVENLY
Just say you don't want to help me.

--

Sarah Palin has her own favorite quote. See if you can figure out what it is.

Explaining the moral flaw in Barack Obama's hunger for "unlimited abortions":

"As defenders of the culture of life, John McCain and I believe in the goodness and potential of every innocent life. I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves."

Arguing for increased funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act:

"Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake. And the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are most vulnerable."

Laying out a case for war against Iran:

"It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens."

On Troopergate:

"We measure society by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. That's why I married a high school dropout and now he gets to fire the police chief."

No, I just made that last one up.

And Todd totally graduated from high school.

--

Sarah Palin is what you might call "intellectually incurious." I think when Joe the Plumber is talking to Sarah Palin he has to slow it down. So where'd she come up with such a fancy pants all-purpose bromide about measuring society by its treatment of whomever she's addressing at the time?

This is one of those quotes that seems to have gone rogue from whoever coined it, and now only exists in Rotary Club newsletters and after-dinner speeches at Operation Rescue. It has any number of original authors. According to the Yale Book of Quotations, Sarah Palin picked it up from her extensive reading of either:

Dostoyevsky
Pearl S. Buck
Hubert Humphrey
Ramsey Clark
Helen Keller
or
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson

(This is a pretty demanding reading list. No wonder she had all that friction with the librarian.)

But the Yale Book of Quotations has still missed one.

It's a 1943 letter from Winston Churchill to Herbert Morrison. Because it's a funny old world, he's talking about prisoners' rights.

"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to law, and particularly to deny him judgment by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious, and is the foundation of all totalitarian Governments, whether Nazi or Communist. It is only when extreme danger to the State can be pleaded that this power may be temporarily assumed by the Executive, and even so its working must be interpreted with the utmost vigilance by a Free Parliament. As the danger passes, persons so imprisoned, against whom there is no charge which courts and juries would accept, should be released, as you have been steadily doing, until hardly any are left. Extraordinary powers assumed by the Executive with the consent of Parliament in emergencies should be yielded up when and as the emergency declines. Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization."

I wonder if Churchill would have enjoyed Sarah Palin's joke about reading prisoners their rights, or if he would have thought she was kind of an asshole.

I know this sounds nitpicky. But she's the one who keeps bringing it up.

Comments

[beenthere 56]

This may be the funniest opening line I have read. Certainly worthy of the old days when blowing chocolate milk through my nose was commonplace.

[Oregon Ivy]

The true measure of a society is their willingness to keep voting in C- students to lead their country.

[mfrmorrobay]

Lipstick or no, she is but a yappy lightweight.
Maybe Fox will pick her up Wednesday morning.

[NABNYC]

There's not a thing I like about Sarah Palin, and in fact I consider her to be a very dangerous person. But I'm not sure she's nearly as dumb as people say she is. I think she's more practical and direct. She does not care about history, about being truthful, or about anyone other than herself. She does not care about literature or music or the news or other countries.

She's probably just your standard narcissist (beauty queen) who stumbled into politics rather than going onto TV, as she originally planned. She's ambitious in the limited way of the not very bright: she wants money.. She's gotten power, position, national attention, and probably will earn a lot of money now in speaking fees, writing books, hosting conventions, and that will be just fine with her.

And for all the talk about her being not so bright, I still think she's a lot smarter than George W. Bush, who got a pretty big pass from the media for many years. Because he's male? Because he comes from a privileged background?

[CaptainVideo]

Palin's responses to the mock phone call from Sarkosy (Sp?) reveals that she has the mental maturity of a 10 year old.

[Allablaze]

Palin is an opportunist, unqualified and unprepared. A McCain defeat will hopefully let Americans come to their senses, and realize this babe is not future White House material

[cheapslut]

Chris, with a daughter named Brick, you ought to change your last name to House.LOL

[dirtfreak]

I guess she doesn't consider Polar bears, moose, elk, deer and wolves vulnerable creatures when you're shooting at them from a helicopter.

[bngood40]

If Sarah Palin is so concerned about the most vulnerable in our society why does she have three lawsuits against the Native Alaskan Tribes. She wants to limit their fishing rights, their hunting rights, and prevent the native Yup'ik speakers from voting. Palin does not acknowledge the sovereignty of the Native Alaskan Tribes. If she wins her lawsuits it will set a precedent and the other Native American Tribes should be aware of the outcomes.Governor Palin also has personally tried to remove the polar bear and gray wolf from the Endangered Species List and put them on the Extinct List. Hunting these animals from an airplane is a felony in every other states but Palin found a loophole in the law and advocates it and rewards rhe hunters who murder these animals. Her objective is to eliminate all competition for the wealthy hunters and fishermen who come to Alaska for the game and fish. Why hasn't the media connected Palin to the terrorist group Alaska Independence Party since her husband was a member for 7 yeras and she has addressed their group in 2008.

[cheapslut]

She was spoon-fed the lines by McCain. "In a most delightful way"

[Mickey7]

'Intellectually incurious" Sarah is so concerned about protecting the vulnerable that she wants to cut funding for research in fruit flies that might actually lead to a cure for their disorders. You betcha.'

[valleygent]

NOV. 5TH 2008...SARAH WHO???

[robbor]

Heavenly, Chance and Brick...these have to be fictitious names chosen to protect their real identities.

[shel3364]

Or he & Sarah read from the same "Baby names" book

[andyboy]

Sarah Palin just said this to a crowd in Ohio. "We have more coal in the United States than oil wells in Saudi Arabia!" And they all applauded like idiots. Priceless. Let's burn that "clean" coal. Lies on top of lies. Coal doesn't burn clean. It's just a slogan.

[MsLiz]

I'm gonna go fill up my car with coal!

[cheapslut]

The infrastructure required to produce so-called clean coal on a massive scale would be so expensive that we would be crazy to build it. The only dependable solution is nuclear power. We can reduce the spent rods to powder and drop them on Iran. The Middle East could always use a night light. Maybe everybody would sleep a little better. I know I would.

[dirtfreak]

Sarah couldn't find any information on nuclear power because she kept trying to look up 'nucular'.

[cheapslut]

What we really need to think about building are two-stage reactor systems: the first for regular use, and the second to run on the spent rods. No more waste or pollution.

[andyboy]

Palin backed out of a 10 minute interview with Megan Kelly of Fox News and really miffed her. Megan whined that Palin promised to sit down with her and now all the viewers are going to be disappointed! Sarah is probably only too anxious to slink away back to Alaska to her new tarnished and bloodied image. Alan Greenspan, when pressed, will blame the fact that all governments are corrupt instead of his and his co-horts willing aquiesence to the corruption for the economic meltdown.

Sarah is back on TV promising to lower taxes AND balance the budget by 2012!

As if we can just keep spending money like drunken monkeys and never pay for it all. Fiscal irresponsibility and lies.

Sarah's stump speech speaks directly to the concerns of people making more than $250,000. she needs to do the math. This is a small group of voters. When running for office it's better to try to appeal to a large majority. It's almost as if Sarah doesn't know the people in her audience don't make that kind of scratch. Puzzling.

[Wiserone]

Not so puzzling and proves she wasn't that much of an innocent by-stander when her campaign manager, Nicole Wallace, came in with all the clothes bought at Sak's and Nieman's. She just thinks everyone shop's like she does.

[MsLiz]

It's almost as if the people in her audience don't know that they don't make that kind of scratch.

[cheapslut]

You would back out too, if you knew that Megan was going to ask you Earth-shattering questions like:"Do you open your eyes when you wqale up in the morning?"LOL

[cheapslut]

Let's try that one again with the proper spelling. I'm not surprised that Palin backed out of the interview with Megan. She was probably going to be asked Earth-shattering questions like,'Do you open your eyes when you wake up un the morning?" and "Now that you've had a chance to really,REALLY think about it, what newspapers do you read in the morning?"

[TMann99821]

Obama says $250K for joint income and $200K for single. However, Joe Biden said it would be $150K. Then Bill Richardson said it would be $120K. By the time this gets to a Democratic Congress, it will be back to $42K like Obama voted for in the past.

If Obama gets everything he has promised passed, it will cost over $1 Trillion.

He also wants to fine energy producers for CO2 emissions. Which in his own words "would cause electricity rates to skyrocket."

[RG5626]

While you may regret that Bush and Cheney won't have another four years to work their magic on the energy sector, don't be surprised if the cost of energy goes up no matter who gets elected.