Okay, okay, okay.
You've asked for it.
Repeatedly.
The problem with Sarah Palin is that she makes my head hurt, and my Bullshit Detector goes all fritzy on me because frankly, there's too damn many words attached to too damn little meaning. Scotty had words with meaning, and often if you looked beyond the obvious meaning, you could learn the truth. Same with Girl Scotty (Dana Perino) as well. Tony Snow's words had meaning, but their meaning was the opposite of the truth.
Sarah Palin's words have no meaning whatsoever much of the time. But we took her through a spin of the old Bullshit Detector anyway, and here is the result. If you're new to our little game, here's the deal:
CNN's questions are italicized for your pleasure.
Sarah Palin's responses are thick and bold, like in real life.
My comments are in plain text, which I'm sure means something too.
You seemed to be very much on your game. You get huge crowds. Even bigger crowds than John McCain. Why is that?
I think it's what I'm representing and what the message is and that is true reform of government that is so needed, and having a representative of someone who has a track record of showing that, yeah, you can, you can do this, you can reform, you can put government back on the side of the people, you can fight corruption.
Okay class, so who wants to diagram this sentence?
All right, I'll do it.
You can actually take steps towards helping our nation become energy-independent and all those things that we're talking about. I think that more and more Americans are realizing that, well, good, we have a candidate who has actually done some of those things and it's not just, talkin' the talk, she's gonna tell us how she's done this.
One thing nobody can say about Sarah Palin is that she's talkin' the talk. I have no damn idea what the hell she's trying to say. But apparently, the reason she's getting bigger crowds than John McCain (remember when they asked that question, several seconds ago?) is that more and more Americans are realizin' that, well, good, and also too, LOOK A UFO!
Let's talk about some of that, because, I mean, two months ago, it was all about who you were, where you were from and Wasilla, Alaska. I think, now it's just the economy. And you are the only person in this race with executive experience, who's taken over governments as mayor and governor. What will you do, day one, to tell the American people, things are changing for the better?
You know, that's a good point about that experience and we don't like to toot our own horn so we don't
Yes, if there's one thing we can say about the Republican candidates, it's that they never toot their own horn. Have we mentioned lately that John McCain was a POW? And also too, I have a metric shit-tonne of executive experience? Because it's true. Toot toot!
I don't talk about my experience that much in terms of years in office
Mayor: 6 years
Governor: Almost but not quite 2 years
or in positions that have been executive experience
Less than half a term as Governor of country's 47th Most Populous State
Mayor of Wasilla, Population 5469 in 2000 Census
Point Guard and Captain, Wasilla High School Girl's Basketball Team
Not to toot our own horn or anything.
but, I have, I do have more experience than [Democratic presidential candidate Sen.] Barack Obama does.
For example, Barack Obama never even played on a high school girl's basketball team.
You know, he had served for his 300 days before he became a presidential candidate and that wasn't in executive office, of course, but, as an executive, working with John McCain, we will take on the special interests and we will clean up Wall Street and some of the abuse of the power in Washington, D.C., also to first and foremost get government back on the side of the people, and, we do this economically speaking here, by cutting taxes, not increasing them, allowing our small businesses and our families to keep more of what they earn, and produce so that they can reinvest according to their priorities.
Who would like to make sense of THIS sentence? Anyone?
Fine, I'll do this one too.
Not politicians' priorities and special interests' priorities. Our small businesses, keeping more of what they earn, that allows them to create more jobs, they're gonna be hiring more people, that gets our economy going. That's what has happened in the opportunities that I've had in executive positions as mayor, manager, and as governor. It works. Reining in government growth, recognizing government certainly plays appropriate roles in building infrastructure, providing tools for our families, for our businesses, but then government kinda getting outta the way as you have great oversight making sure that there isn't the corruption and the abuse, but government, I think get outta the way and let the private sector do what it does best.
It also helps if you are in a state where you can take money from the big oil companies and redistribute that wealth (in a totally non-socialistic way, of course) to every man, woman and child in your state every year.
Yeah, but, I mean we're in a crisis right now.
We are.
And unlike Senator Obama, who just has one specific, intelligent plan on how to handle this crisis, John McCain has 239 plans for handling the crisis! He'll announce 21 of them today. One involves runes and chicken blood. I don't completely understand it, but then again my purpose is not to understand things. My purpose is -- something about reform and something else about government on the side of the people or something.
And the plans that you mention take time, you have to go through Congress. If you guys win, you'll both most likely be working with a Democratic Congress. It's gonna be a slow process. What I'm trying to find out from you -- from John McCain as well, day one, people want a difference, to make a difference in the economy, as we're seeing daily, swings in the stock market, houses going foreclosed on --
Mm-hmm. Well, day one, you bring in everyone around that table, too, you bring in the congressional leadership, and, assuming that there will be, certainly, Democrats, at that table, that's good, too, these are gonna be bipartisan approaches that must be taken, I have that executive experience also having formed a cabinet up there in Alaska that, you know, we've got independents and Democrats and Republicans whom I have appointed to our administrative positions to that, we have the best of ideas coming together in order to best serve the people.
Okay, everybody! Outta the way! We're backing up the Sarah Palin Word Dump Truck, because she's about to say another sentence.
Luckily for everyone involved, with Sarah Palin in charge of the Senate, shit will get... wait, what? Why the fuck should I care about Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution? She only gets to cast a vote in the event of a tie? And otherwise has no actual, major power in the Senate?
Stupid Founding Fathers.
John McCain, too, he's been known as the maverick to take on his own party when need be, to reach over the aisle and work with the other party also.
And all this time I thought we called John McCain "Maverick" because he was a very reckless pilot.
Now, Barack Obama has not been able to do that, he's gone with, what is it, 96 percent of the time with Democrat leadership. Not having that, I think, ability or willingness to work with the other side.
Which is why John McCain would never say something like,
"I voted with the President more than 90% of the time."
Of course, that's 100 percent this year but in fairness to John McCain, he rarely shows up for votes anymore.
So as an executive, we need to create that team that is full of good ideas and not let obsessive partisanship get in the way, as we start taking the measures to shore up our economy, which already Congress is working on with the rescue package, with some of the bailout packages, the provisions in there that can work, too, but it's gonna take everybody working together.
Who wants a nice, yummy bowl of Word Salad?
Will you and John McCain appoint Democrats to cabinet positions?
I don't know why you wouldn't, if they, if these Democrats are best suited to serve, and if they will not let obsessive partisanship get in the way of just doing what's right with a team effort, and support of the president to get this economy moving, and to win these wars, to meet these great challenges, I wouldn't have as my litmus test a party affiliation.
Absolutely, we'll appoint Democrats! As long as those Democrats hate women, love wars, don't know shit about the economy, have no respect for the Constitution, vehemently dislike gays and racial minorities, have no fucking soul, and lack a fundamental understanding of science. Then MAYBE we'll think about it.
Yeah. Uh, Joe the plumber?
Yeah.
Sorry, CNN guy. It took a minute to figure out who you were talking about. You mean the guy who isn't named Joe who is not a plumber who told Obama he was going to buy a business but he isn't that he said made over $250,000 per year but doesn't, whose taxes Obama would raise except that he wouldn't, and said taxes wouldn't be paid anyway because he doesn't pay his taxes anyway?
That's the Joe the Plumber you meant?
Socialism, it's come up on the campaign trail now.
Sure.
Like when we're protected by socialist Secret Service, you mean? Or when my son went off to fight with our socialist military? Maybe the local socialist police and fire departments that provide logistics at our rallies, which are often held in gymnasiums of socialist public schools. Or are you talking about the socialist roads we drive on to get to those rallies?
I'm sorry, what was the question again?
Governor, is Barack Obama a socialist?
I'm not gonna call him a socialist, but, as Joe the plumber had suggested, in fact he came right out and said it sounds like socialism to him and he speaks for so many Americans who are quite concerned now, after hearing finally what Barack Obama's true intentions are with his tax and economic plan, and that is, to take more from small businesses, more from our families, and then redistribute that according to his priorities.
I'm not going to say Barack Obama is a socialist. But Barack Obama is a socialist. (wink)
That is, that is not good for the entrepreneurial spirit that has built this great country. That is not good for our economy, certainly it's not good for the opportunities that our small businesses should have, to keep more of what they produce, in order to hire more people, create more jobs. That's what gets the economy going. So, finally Joe the plumber and as we talked about today in the speech, too, he's representing, you know, Jane the engineer and Molly the dental hygienist and Chuck the teacher and, and all these good, hard-working Americans who are, finally, were able to hear in very plain talk the other night, what Barack Obama's intentions were to redistribute wealth.
And redistributing wealth is bad. Unless that wealth is being redistributed to pay for me to sleep in my own house, or travel with my kids, or buy the support of voters via wealth redistributed from oil companies into the hands of Alaskan citizens.
Do you think his intention though, if not a socialist, is to move away from capitalism, true capitalism?
Well, anyone who would want to increase taxes at a time like this, especially with economic woes that are adversely affecting all of us, anybody who would want to do that to take more from businesses and our families, and then dole those dollars out according to their priorities, that, that is not a principal of capitalism.
Thank God, in a time of economic woes adversely affecting all of us, we have a champion in Sarah Palin to fight vehemently for the right of families making more than $250,000 to not have to pay their share of taxes.
Some are saying we're already moving towards socialism with the bailout, the banking industry investment that this government has made, that John McCain and Barack Obama have signed on for. What is your views on that and yet another possible supplement to the income of Americans.
We cannot start moving closer and closer to socialism. That will destroy the entrepreneurial spirit in America. That will punish hard work and productivity, and that work ethic that we try to instill in our children so that they will know that they can be rewarded for their productivity, for their hard work. We cannot move in that direction, that it should be so concerning for any American voter to consider that perhaps there are some who would like us to go there. Now, as for the economic bailout provisions and the measures that have already been taken, it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in playing an appropriate role to shore up the housing market to make sure that we're thawing out some of the potentially frozen credit lines and credit markets, government did have to step in there. But now that we're hearing that the Democrats want an additional stimulus package or bailout package for what, hundreds of billions of dollars more, this is not a time to use the economic crisis as an excuse for reckless spending and for greater, bigger government and to move the private sector to the back burner and let government be assumed to be the be-all, end-all solution to the economic challenges that we have. That's what's scaring me now about hearing that the Democrats have an even greater economic bailout package, but we don't know all the details of it yet and we'll certainly pay close attention to it.
For those of you playing along at home:
GOOD: Spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to help large investment banks and financial institutions who engaged in reckless and sometimes fraudulent behavior in the interests of greed.
BAD: Extending unemployment benefits for those hurt by the economic crisis, putting people to work by investing in our nation's infrastructure, increasing assistance through Medicaid and Food Stamps for families in crisis.
Got that? Fuck you, Main Street!
On its face are you against that?
On its face, I want to make sure that this is not being used by the Democrats as a time for bigger government, more dollars being taken from taxpayers to bail out anybody, any entity that's been engaged in corruption, in self-dealing, in greed, there on Wall Street or in D.C. that has adversely affected Main Street, so, on its face, I, what we're gonna need to know more about what the Democrats have in mind for this additional bailout.
Okay, the part you just said is the one that has already happened, genius.
You know, as, you're a fiscal conservative. As a fiscal conservative, I'm looking at the McCain proposals. And all of them seem to involve heavy amounts of government money, or government involvement, whether it be home mortgages or propping up the banking industry. I mean, are you square with that?
I beg to differ with that, because what McCain has talked about with shoring up the home mortgage market also to make sure that we, we're gonna have a level playing field here. He's not asking for an additional hundreds of billions of dollars, he's saying, OK, with the $700 billion that his colleagues and he there in Congress have already approved, let's make sure that the priority is, we're gonna help the homeowners who had been kinda sucked into the wrong mortgage, and that was via predatory lenders taking advantage unfortunately and exploiting too many Americans. He's saying let's take the dollars that are already there and let's best use them. Let's, he's not saying, more, more, more government intervention and more dollars. He's saying, let's best use the dollars that have already been approved.
In fact, let's put that on a bumper sticker:
What is your role going to be as vice president?
Well, we've talked a lot about that, John McCain and I have, about the missions that I'll get to embark on if we are so blessed to be hired by the American people to work for them.
I believe first and foremost is, I become the new Senate Majority Leader. Is that right? And also, the Speaker of the House. Basically, I will get to command the space shuttle and anchor the evening news. As I'm sure you already know, the Vice President gets their own castle in Minnesota. And in keeping of Dick Cheney's tradition, each night I will feast on the flesh of one innocent newborn baby.
It's gonna be government reform, because that is what I've been able to do as a mayor and as a governor. You take on the special interests and the self-dealings.
Self-dealings like making your state pay for you to spend the night in your house, or self-dealings like making your state pay for you and your daughter to spend four nights in a $700/night hotel or five nights in the Ritz-Carleton? Which kinds of self-dealings are we talking about?
Yep, you ruffle feathers and you have the scars to prove it afterwards, but you have to take that on to give the American people that faith back in their own government.
Do the scars come from the feathers?
This is their government and we gotta put it back on their side.
Gee, do you think "put government back on their side" was on the list of talking points we read before this interview?
So, government reform and energy independence, can't wait to work on that.
Also, creating an invisibility potion. I'm looking forward to that. And robots. Lots of robots. I'm also in charge of developing a salt export treaty with Micronesia. So, lots on my plate.
That's been my forte as the governor of an energy-producing state and as a former chair of the energy regulator entity up there in Alaska. So, look forward to that and that's a matter of national security and our economic prosperity opportunities.
Just want to pause for a second and ask if any of the words I'm putting together make any sense in the order I'm putting them. Kind of? Okay, that's what I was shootin' for.
That though, too, the other mission that John and I are anxious for me to lead on is helping our families who have children with special needs, ushering in that spirit to Washington, D.C., where we saw, we're gonna give every child a chance and a good educational opportunity will be provided.
Also, underwater cities. Building underwater cities will be in my portfolio also too.
That's gonna be a matter, too, of prioritizing the federal dollars that are already there and making sure that every child is given opportunity.
So that, like, No Child is, I don't know, Left Behind, or anything like that?
Yeah. Governor, you've been mocked in the press. The press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well. The National Review had a story saying that, you know, I can't tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.
Who wrote that one?
I shall boil them in acid.
That was in the National Review, I don't, have the author.
I'd like to talk to that person.
And boil them in acid.
But they were talking about the fact that your experience as governor is not getting out. Do you feel trapped in this campaign, that your message is not getting out, and if so who do you blame?
No, I'm getting my message out right now, through you and with you, Drew, to the American people who are watching CNN, and I appreciate this opportunity. No, you know that, I am obviously an outsider of the Washington elite and of the conventional, I think, media, targets or media characters that have been a part of this for years and, I think that is fine, that is good for the American electorate to understand. They have a choice here in our ticket of having the experience and the reputation that comes with John McCain as being the patriot and the maverick in the Senate, you take that and you combine it with a team member who is new and fresh with new ideas, new vision, new energy that needs to be infused into Washington, D.C., with that commitment to clean it up in D.C. Put government on the side of the people and fight hard for Americans. You have that, that combination and I think that some in the media, maybe in The National Review, they don't know what to make of that, they're like, gee, she's, you know, where'd she come from, surely, you know, it should be our job I think they assume is to, pick and, and be negative and, and find things to mock and, that's just I guess part of the political game, I guess. But we're very committed and focused and moving forward between now and November 4, getting that message out to the American people that our plan to get this economy back on the right track, and to win the wars, put government on the side of the people. It's the right thing to do, and, I think we have the right message, despite the mocking that comes our way.
Okay, who wants to diagram THIS -- okay, yeah, even I'm not that sadistic or masochistic.
Governor, our time is very short and I must ask you just two questions, one is on [Palin's former brother-in-law, Alaska State Trooper Mike] Wooten, if there's one thing that's followed you negatively --
Tasergate, right, right,
Or as we also like to call it, "Sarah Palin is Smart and Nice and Good and Pure and Awesome and Totally Not Corrupt and Doesn't Abuse Power Ever So Don't Say That She Does Because It's Totally Not True and Also Too She Is Very Cool and A Maverick Gate."
You call it Tasergate,
We sure do.
We also call John McCain "The Future President", we call the War in Iraq a "success", and we call a pile of dog shit "Cotton Candy".
We're not really much for reality.
Troopergate, whatever. The Branchflower Report said you were perfectly in your right, to fire [Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt] Monegan. But also found out that you violated the ethics. Was it a mistake to allow your husband to use your office to try to pressure the troopers to fire Mr. Wooten.
Not at all because A, that, the trooper who had tasered his kid and had, you know, made death threats against my family and said he was gonna bring the governor down and all that. My husband did exactly, I think, what any sensible, reasonable father, husband would do who was concerned about their family's safety.
Yes, what sensible, reasonable father or husband WOULDN'T co-opt his wife's position of elected office in order to weild power in an attempt to settle a personal vendetta against former members of his family?
But was it a mistake to allow him to use the governor's office to that extent?
Not when you look at other governors' track records when they had their spouse as for instance [former Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski] had his spouse as his top adviser, and she was in meetings, she was in the office so, you know, kinda, of a double standard here. But what Todd was what any reasonable husband and father would do. He followed the instruction of the Department of Public Safety's own personal security detail that is our personal protection. They asked Todd, you have a problem with this state trooper, he is a threat, you need to take that to the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. Todd did exactly that and then of course, he got clobbered for it, now in the media because there's a misunderstanding of what he's done. Our Department of Law in Alaska has right there on its Web site -- it said, if you have a problem with an Alaska state trooper, the paragraph says, you go to the Commissioner of Department of Public Safety and you share that concern with him. That's what Todd did. So no, I don't think that it was an abuse of power of my office at all. And I was very thankful that that report cleared me of any illegal dealings or anything else. I replaced the commissioner because he was not doing the job that I expect of my cabinet members. That is, you serve the Alaskan population up there. Of course he's a cabinet member who was assigned to do that, to the best of our team's ability and you have a lotta energy, you fulfill the vision that we have laid out for you, and he wasn't doing that and that's why he was replaced.
I'm very grateful that the report came out and said that I am pure and clean and never engaged in any wrongdoing whatsoever and am smart and I smell good and that I am the Queen of Sheba and that I have a bridge to sell you.
Governor, if in two weeks you're not elected, do you come back at the top of the ticket in 2012?
I'm concerned about and focused on just the next two weeks, Drew, and again getting that message out there to the American public. Thankfully, too, the American public is seeing clearer and clearer what the choices are in these tickets.
Which is why Barack Obama has a fairly solid lead.
I think, some revelation just occurred, not just with Joe the plumber but revelation occurred with Joe Biden's comment the other night that, he telling his Democratic financial donors saying that, he said mark my word, there's gonna be economic, and, or international crisis he said, if Barack Obama is elected, because he will be tested and he said there are four or five scenarios that will result in an international crisis with an untested presidential candidate in Barack Obama and -- first I think we need to thank Joe for the warning there.
Yes, it was quite a revelation when Joe Biden said that sometimes presidents have to face economic and international crises. I am sure many Americans, such as myself, were completely unaware of this. They were thinking, what does a president do, except throw the first pitch at baseball games? Now that they have learned that sometimes a president must make decisions -- wow, that changes everything. This totally explains why we've had such a genius as president for the last eight years, though.
But, Joe's words there I think, can shed some light, too, in terms of the contrast you have in the tickets. John McCain is a tested leader. He has gone through great adversity. He has the scars to prove it. He has shown his true leadership. It hasn't just been all talk, and Joe Biden's comments there about an untested, as he had said in the primary, unprepared candidate to be president, I think was very telling.
Yes, John McCain has really been tested in a leadership position. For example, there was the time that he -- ... well, okay, there was that other time where --... Hmm, well you have to admit that John McCain is older than Barack Obama.
Have you guys been briefed on any scenario like this?
On the four or five scenarios, that, well, who knows what Joe Biden was talking about, you know? It, all you have to do, though, is look back at Obama's foreign policy agenda and you can assume what some of those scenarios may be. As he considers sitting down and talking to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad or [former Cuban President] Fidel Castro or [North Korean President] Kim Jong Il, some of these dictators, without preconditions being met, essentially validating some of what those dictators have been engaged in, that could be one of the scenarios that Joe Biden is talking about is, as a result of that, that proclamation that he would meet without preconditions being met first. That could be a scenario that results in a testing of our country, and, the four or five other scenarios that he's talking about, I don't know, I hope that Joe Biden will explain it.
It's easy to see how the act of SPEAKING TO SOMEONE could be seen as a particularly "testing" situation for someone like Sarah Palin, who clearly isn't all that great at it. But Barack Obama has been fairly successful on the "speaking to people" front, so I think maybe we're okay.
Did Joe Biden get a pass?
Drew, you need to ask your colleagues and I guess your bosses or whoever is in charge of all this, why does Joe Biden get a pass on such a thing? Can you imagine if I would've said such a thing? No, I think that, you know, we would be hounded and held accountable for, what in the world did you mean by that, VP presidential candidate? Why would you say that, mark my words, this nation will undergo international crisis if you elect Barack Obama? If I would've said that you guys'd clobbered me.
If Joe Biden had said that, CNN would have clobbered him, too... but that isn't what he said. And if you had said that, you would have been socked away in Dick Cheney's hidey-hole for the next 13 days.
You've talked about America. And certain parts of America, that are maybe more American than other parts of American, Are there?
Ehhh, I don't want that misunderstood. No, I do not want that misunderstood. You know, when I go to these rallies and we see the patriotism just shining through these people's faces and the Vietnam veterans wearing their hats so proudly and they have tears in their eyes as we sing our national anthem and it is so inspiring and I say that this is true America, you get it, you understand how important it is that in the next four years we have a leader who will fight for you. I certainly don't want that interpreted as one area being more patriotic or more American than another. If that's the way it's come across, I apologize.
Yes, do not misinterpret me. I am merely saying that when I go to rallies and see all the folks there who hate black people and who call Barack Obama a terrorist and who hang him with a noose in effigy and put his face on stuffed monkeys and who kick black news reporters to the ground and slash tires of Obama supporters -- I get all misty-eyed, okay? That's "Real America". But those people aren't just in North Carolina. There are some in Ohio. There's some in Indiana, and Missouri, and Michigan. Even in Los Angeles, or New York City, or Philadelphia. "Real America" isn't a place on a map -- it's about who you hate in your heart.
PS: Here is a picture of a cat resting on a fresh bed of word salad:
UPDATE ALSO TOO: Here is a picture of a moose.