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Monday, February 08, 2010

The Writing's on the Palm

I don't particularly like or dislike Sarah Palin, but I'll have to admit she has comic genius. The Media had a conniption fit and gave widespread coverage regarding her scribbling a few words on her hand (allegedly notes?) during the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville.

Her response? She wrote "Hi Mom" on her palm while campaigning for Rick Perry in Texas. Let's see if the Media gives that one as much coverage. The Media will look foolish whether they do or don't cover it since it has more or less the same level of relevance (i.e. none) as the "notes" at the Tea Party.

These events led one commenter at Gateway Pundit to quip:

Next speaking stop, she will have “John 3:16″ on her hand.

Media goes mad trying to figure out the code; calls for separation of palms and psalm...

39 comments:

Susan's Husband said...

I found the claims that it was a cheat sheet for questions after her speech the most laughable. Yeah, I am sure the single word "energy" would enable a completely rote response to a question on "energy".

From my public speaking experience I understand exactly what she was doing. If you are warm to a topic you can get going and completely forget to hit other key points, so it's very handy to list exactly like that of the key topics. It also implies you know your stuff, you just need that first handle on the topic.

Bret said...

But didn't she have her whole written speech in front of her? What would she need a cheat sheet for anyway?

Susan's Husband said...

I don't know if she had her speech there. She's spoken extemporaneously at length previously. Maybe she wanted it as a high level outline to keep her on track. I can't imagine how else such a limited amount of information would be useful.

Susan's Husband said...

Based on this video clip (content warning: contains Joy Behar) it looks like Palin also did an interview and that's what the writing was for.

Harry Eagar said...

' I can't imagine how else such a limited amount of information would be useful.'

Depends on your concentration level, I guess.

Ron Reagan Jr. asked who needs to write 'taxes' on his hand to remind himself not to forget 'taxes' at a Tea Party convention. Good question.

Harry Eagar said...

' I can't imagine how else such a limited amount of information would be useful.'

Depends on your concentration level, I guess.

Ron Reagan Jr. asked who needs to write 'taxes' on his hand to remind himself not to forget 'taxes' at a Tea Party convention. Good question.

erp said...

Just reminders, the kind I now have to jot down to remember the simplest tasks.

Why this is an issue?

Susan's Husband said...

It goes both ways. My problem is too much concentration — I can get locked on a topic and forget to switch to something else equally important. That's what my notes are for.

erp said...

I envy your ability to concentrate so hard everything else is blocked out.

Harry Eagar said...

It probably won't decide whether she is the next president.

She should have written: 'Avoid birthers and Nazis'

Bret said...

Did you see that Obama's press secretary got into the act? He wrote "hope" and "change" on his hand for a recent press conference. Pretty funny also!

I'm glad to see people are maintaining a sense of humor.

Harry Eagar said...

Some are. I have the impression, though, that the ones who tried to make this an issue are not amused.

I suspect that a big part of Palin's popularity is that she seems not to take things too solemnly. I dunno if that is a winning strategy in the long run, but it helps make her the girl next door.

The thing about writing on her hand would have been taken in the old days, I think, as a quirk. Some people now want to make it a character flaw, and their opponents want to make it a constitutional issue.

It does tend to distract from her message, such as it is, which is, I never met a racist kook I didn't like.

erp said...

Harry, I don't remember the Constitution speaking to writing notes on your palm?

Palin never met a racist kook she doesn't like! Care to mention a few?

Harry Eagar said...

Tea party convention in Nashville was loaded with them.

The attendees appear to have been close to 100% kooks, not all of whom were racists, though a good fraction of the leadership is.

Susan's Husband said...

erp, he's just following in that modern journalistic fad of making things to smear political opponents as racists. You just loosen your definition of "racist" and conflate physical proximity with friendship and there you are.

erp said...

Whew! Thanks for the heads-up SH. For a minute there I thought Harry meant that Palin was cavorting with the Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan, but it's just those pesky code words for racist again.

BTW - referring to our president as a professor has been decoded by crack government decryptors to be ruthless and vicious racist attacks on him.

Harry Eagar said...

If Stormfront isn't racist, nothing is.

Hey Skipper said...

For a minute there I thought Harry meant that Palin was cavorting with the Rev. Wright and Louis Farrakhan, but it's just those pesky code words for racist again.

Ouch.

erp said...

Harry, pls. provide some links.

Harry Eagar said...

here

erp said...

Tancredo is Stormfront? I can't be bothered with videos, what did he say that was racist?

Susan's Husband said...

A better question is, what is the standard of judgementMr. Eagar wants to promote? That if there is an event X, then we can ascribe both similar views and friendship between any pair of speakers? That is, I can label anybody who has spoken at an event with, say, Michael Moore, as Moore's friend and ideological companion?

I wonder if Eagar is just following something that came by on jorno-list. I think that would count as a promotion and we should congratulate him.

erp said...

I remember Josh (Charles & Andrew too) before BDS consumed him.

Re: Tea Party convention in Nashville.

I haven't seen an agenda, so all I really know about it is snippets I've read on different blogs and the blogfather's first person account in the WSJ, however, if it were a gathering of skinheads and/or white supremists, I think there would have been howling across every media worldwide.

Harry Eagar said...

Sheesh, you asked for a link and I gave you Tancredo's address, complete with hearty audience cheering.

It should have been especially interesting to you, erp, since Tancredo alleged that naturalized citizen voters 'can't spell vote' and need to be required to take literacy tests.

I'd guess that nobody in the room had any idea what it takes to get naturalized; and we can take it as certain that Tancredo, despite his status as a congressman, knows less about becoming naturalized than any naturalized citizen knows.

I didn't say the audience was full of skinheads, I said 100% kooks -- they were all birthers.

I dunno whether Palin bothered to look at the guest list; not her style, I think. But if she saw Tancredo's name, she ought to have had, at least, first thoughts. He is hardly an unknown quantity, except perhaps to Palin.

Guy, I am on several rightwing bullet point lists, notably CEI and the Libertarian Party, but except for an occasional emission (5 or 6 times a year) from the National Association of Black Journalists, not on any leftish lists.

erp said...

Harry, I am deeply offended by your implication that I'm a racist.

Susan's Husband said...

Mr. Eagar;

I am still waiting for an answer as to whether you will accept my application of that same principle to other people. Or is it only Palin who can be tarred by fellow speakers at an event?

Harry Eagar said...

erp, I was implying that you are a naturalized citizen who can spell 'vote.' You said you are an immigrant.

* * *

'whether you will accept my application of that same principle to other people'

Yes, of course, goes without saying, although I did say so about the person you are thinking of at RtO during the 2008 campaign.

It can get complicated, though. I cannot now remember whether it was '00 or '04 when Bush Jr. visited BJU.

BJU is now integrated but those of us who know Brother Bob understand that it was not always so. I considered that visit pandering to racists (dog-whistling in current political jargon) but with a figleaf of deniability.

Rev. Wright's church: Inexcusable.

erp said...

Harry, I guess I'm not as accurate a writer as I thought. My parents were immigrants. I was born in the Big Apple and I thank my folks every single day for making that possible.

Guilt by association is tricky. Bob Jones so what -- what Bush said matters, not the venue.

BTW - I have no problem with private entities admitting whomsoever they wish -- even red neck universities.

No women at the Augusta Golf Club -- fine. No blacks or Jews or whites or gun toters or even aged New Yorkers somewhere else also fine.

As long as no public funds or facilities are involved, it's okay with me.

Harry Eagar said...

Well, now I'm going to recast then. I do have a problem with that.

I have a problem, for example, with keeping black veterans out of the American Legion. I have a problem with keeping black people out of a church. (Not that I would want myself to join either kind of organization.)

The government can do something about it when it's a public accommodation, less when it's not, but just because it's not illegal doesn't make it also non-racist.

Bush Jr.'s visit to Bob Jones is kind of a template for the Tea Party convention: partly racist and 100% kook, and signaling: 'I'm OK with that.'

Not all Tea Party events qualify as racist, but the Nashville convention did.)

Bret said...

erp wrote: "I have no problem with private entities admitting whomsoever they wish..."

I personally think it's generally immoral for private entities not to admit people based on race, religion, gender, etc. so I think that means I have a problem with it.

On the other hand, I don't support having the government force private entities to admit people they otherwise wouldn't for whatever reason.

erp said...

Harry, if the American Legion receives public funds, they have no right to limit membership. If it's private, they can exclude whom they please, but I would hope that no veteran of any color would want to be members either.
Bret, like Groucho Marx, I'd never want to join an organization that would have me as a member. That said, the law of supply and demand would work just as well in this area as it usually does everywhere else.

If a lot of people were offended by a private entity excluding different groups, membership in and/or donations would fall off and they'd either change or go under.

OTOH if same sex, similarly hued or like-minded people of any kind want to organize for whatever legal reason and they aren't using any of my taxes doing so, it's really none of my business.

What's moral and immoral or fair or unfair is a whole other kettle of fish.

Harry Eagar said...

erp, I took those two examples because the Legion and many churches (notably the Southern Baptists) have histories of excluding people according to skin color.

erp said...

Harry, that doesn't answer my question about whether the American Legion is a private or public organization.

It doesn't seem very godly, but I guess churches can admit or exclude anyone they want.

Harry Eagar said...

If they're racists they can. I'm not getting your point.

The Legion is a private, racist, terrorist group. Aside from excluding black patriots, it has a history of beating pacifists to death.

erp said...

Harry, according to this, prior to WWII, the American Legion flirted with Mussolini and some legionnaires did some union busting. Could this be your reference to beating pacifists?

A Google search of the American Legion + colored, Negro, black or African-American veterans came up empty of articles on exclusion of same and from a cursory look at the articles, it seems the American Legion is some sort of a quasi-governmental entity.

Did some American Legion chapters, especially in the south, exclude blacks in the same way they were excluded from almost every other part of southern life -- no doubt they were, but from what I can tell (pls. post non-video links if you have any that say differently), there was no institutional bias against black veterans in the American Legion.

Harry Eagar said...

erp, remember the book about Americans in Paris I reviewed a few weeks back? There was a chapter there about black World War I vets coming back to New York City who were excluded from the Legion.

It happened in the South, too, of course, but no reason for self-satisfaction among the Northerners.

The beating to death of 2 Hutterite boys (a German Pietist sect similar to Mennonites, though not so anti-tech) by the Legion is another historical example.

'Union busting' is a nice way to put it. How about torture -- beating a man, pounding nails into him, setting him afire and throwing him over a cliff?

It's too bad Americans don't know anything about their own history, It's interesting stuff.

erp said...

Harry, odd that Google wouldn't have accounts of those terrible happenings. They're not exactly pro-military.

I'm guessing all this happened before the end of the war when the military was desegregated.

About that book review, I couldn't find it on your blog and emailed you asking about it.

Harry Eagar said...

And I emailed you back. Didn't you receive it? The review is also available at Amazon, the book title is 'Americans in Paris.'

I cannot answer for Google. The murders of the union men and the Hutterites were in the '20s. The Legion is less violent nowadays, mostly just a place for drunks to tell each other lies.

erp said...

Apparently the American Legion is no different from any other men's club. That's why I find it so amazing/amusing that women would want to join them ... found the review -- thanks.