Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« James Pethokoukis Posts Update Geoff's Unemployment-Projection Chart | Main | Open Thread wth 1983 graphics, along with new Open Thread rules »
June 07, 2011

Sarah Palin and This Stupid Paul Revere Thing

God, I hate this whole stupid thing.

Look: Sarah Palin was speaking casually, not in an interview, but while doing something else, in a queue or something. Instead of saying "Paul Revere warned the colonists about the British," her brain skipped ahead to the last part of the sentence, and thus said "Paul Revere warned the British."

The left and the media -- but I repeat myself -- is going bananas over this. Here's what they postulate: Sarah Palin, former mayor, former governor, former nominee for vice president, didn't know that Paul Revere's mission was to warn the colonists of a coming British attack.

They are claiming that she does not possess the common knowledge possessed by a first grader.

Plausible? Is that as plausible as "She tongue-tripped while speaking"? Let's run the tape of Sarah Palin making this statement.

Whoops! #Hacked! #WhoCanISue?

That seems to be Barack Obama combining simple arithmetic with his knowledge of American government and history and coming up with the answer that he's "visited fifty seven states" and still has one more to go.

And then immediately says that by "one more" he means "Alaska and Hawaii," which, breaking out my World Atlas, actually appears to be two states.

So he thinks the country has 59 states? Or 58, including the apparent "Double State" of Alaskawaii?

Even if you give him a break on that -- he thinks the country has Forty nine states? Or forty eight?

Isn't fifty a rather easy number to remember? His own home state -- allegedly (but I kid) -- is immortalized in a television program called Hawaii Five-O, the Five-O noting that Hawaii is the fiftieth state.

I suppose the show was filmed after Alaskawaii was partitioned into two different states, most likely for administrative convenience, since they're a thousand miles apart and having nothing at all in common, except I think they both have salmon and probably both get The Super Station. (But is it really?, Sean Spencer just emailed me to ask.)

So how could he think America has 49 states (or 47 plus a hitherto unknown Double State)? Or 59, as he actually said?

And crucially, does anyone in the media believe, or postulate, that this is evidence that Obama is not just not terribly intelligent, but actually, in fact, profoundly mentally challenged with an effective knowledge base beneath that of a first grader?

No, they don't. And neither do I, actually. I don't cite this video to prove Obama is dumb. I cite it to prove the media is dumb. And also dishonest.

What is the operative assumption the media demonstrates in never, not even once, alluding to this strange conception of American state numeration Obama apparently subscribes to? That a simple brain-fart is commonplace and says nothing about the speaker's intelligence whatsoever.

And in Palin's case?

Well. That assumption just goes out the window. She's actually a Mentally Retarded Female, despite not wearing the government-ordered MRF bracelet.

Is that really the conclusion I am being invited to draw from these facts?

Really? That, it is seriously proposed, should be my take-away?

So, we have a case of two slips of the tongue. One completely embargoed by the media, and the other a source of "real news" chatter -- and because the media cocoons itself in a reinforcing bubble of group-think in which the "right" is defined by David Frum and Meghan McCain and the "left" is defined by Daily Kos Diarists.

Not even Kos himself; no, Kos is a centrist. Just a common-sense guy who believes in stuff you should obviously believe, as reporters do.

But his diarists... welllll, some of them tend a little left.

Bloggers have a reputation -- well-earned -- of being rather juvenile and stupid. And part of that juvenility and stupidity is due to the fact that most of us work on a clock of a half hour to an hour: Every 30 to 60 minutes, another post has to come up, whether it's a keeper, or it's a bit dumb, or whatever it is.

Even so, just because you're occasionally going to Post Stupid, doesn't mean you have to Post Retarded. You don't have to throw all common sense and intelligence out the window just to please your more rapid and indiscriminate readers. If you do that, then Sarah Palin's "flub" winds up saying a lot more about you than about her.

Like this fucking idiot, who I guess is paid a real salary to work at what is usually thought to be a real media organ.

This is apparently what this moron thought was "interesting" and "hot" this day. Of all the interesting stuff in the news, this nitwit seemed to believe that we must all pay strict attention to a commonplace slip of the tongue.

Now: Is that a good writer? Is that a writer with a keen sense of discriminating between the trivial and the meaningful? Is this a writer demonstrating a capacity for interesting thinking, or even just the ability to recognize things of interest?

And of course I don't just want to pick on this particular nobody. Just because this particular nobody, who thinks it's a Stop the Presses moment when a political candidate flubs a sentence on the trail (akin to those various internet ankle-biters who wish to Stop the Presses because you just wrote "Your" when you meant "You're"), was able to secure a paid gig at a national website when I can think of about one hundred conservative bloggers who aren't, what's the word, gaytarded enough to toss out partisan idiot-bait like this who would never even be considered for such a position because Oh my God, they might say something critical of Obama and embarrass the company, well, the point isn't this particular nobody.

The point is that the media is generally made up of morons and hacks who all seem to agree that this is a very telling moment indeed.

Can they answer me why this moment should be telling, and Obama's 57 states (or his various other gaffes, flubs, and stupid utterances) should not be?

No, they can't, and not only can't they, but they never will even try. Because they don't have to. Because they live in a world hermetically sealed from any contrary thought and it's easier for them to pretend the question was never posed at all -- that the question simply does not exist -- than to embarrass themselves in attempting to justify the wildly divergent treatment of the two cases.

Just as a note, I do this all the time myself. If I attempt to write "That ABCNews reporter really ate Weiner's lunch in play-acting a shy, withdrawing manner, encouraging Weiner's bully instincts to kick in, and making Weiner demolish himself," how that often comes out is as...

That ABCNews reporter really eight Weiner's lunch...

Now, do I really think that "eight" is a verb? No. What my brain does -- and I imagine everyone's brain does this -- is work on parts of the sentence five or eight words ahead while dumping the previous words into the "automated grunt-work bitchwork" lobe of the brain (I believe that's the actual anatomical designation, but please look it up).

So while my brain is focused on the last half of that sentence, the dumb part of my brain actually instructing my fingers which keys to hit on the keyboard is often doing dumb shit like issuing the command "TYPE 'eight'" rather than "TYPE 'ate'," as the smart part of my brain actually left a note to do.

But let's pretend that such typos and verbal stumbles and brain-farts are really, really, really important indicators of intelligence, except in such cases as we don't wish them to be, such as Barack Obama being apparently unable to work the simple mathematical operation of subtracting 2 from 50.

Yes, yes, dying, dum-dum dinosaur media, by all means, let's talk about interesting stories like this.



digg this
posted by Ace at 12:41 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "I think it was grump928 who made an outstanding po ..."

Don Black: "is everyone over on the main page, slapping f5 lik ..."

JackStraw: ">>The long-shredded pretense to impartiality is su ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "Wakandyass it is! ..."

Don Black: "NYR 0 COL 0 end 1st p 🏒 ..."

Alberta Oil Peon: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Puddleglum at work: "[i]173 167 I’ve often speculated that the re ..."

Moron Robbie - If this is how Georgia hires attorneys, imagine how they manage elections: "If the Wakandians hadn't been isolationists then t ..."

Ciampino - Bloody 'experts' again ...: "158 For being the alleged "birthplace of civilizat ..."

sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying to us for decades [/b][/u][/i][/s]: "got to have a spread of alternatives, amirite? ..."

Bulgaroctonus : "167 I’ve often speculated that the reason th ..."

Hairyback Guy: "Anita Bryant > All Other Female Crooners ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64