Sarah Palin cannot speak. She cannot construct a clear, adult sentence. It is impossible for her to do. In ways its worse than Bush. Bush sounds like an idiot, but can form simple sentences. Palin cannot make a sentence that sounds remotely coherent.
One heartbeat away? You gotta be kidding me.
What, you not gonna show your work? No link to the particular incident that gave rise to that thought?
She’s always entertaining, if nothing else. Hopefully Fox hires her if the election shakes out the way it appears to be shaking out.
I remember the late, great Molly Ivins commenting that people forgot what a bad speaker HW was. She argued he was even worse than his son, that you can at least figure out what Shrub is trying to say but that Poppy would just ramble phrases without subjects or verbs.
I just happened to hear her on the radio. But for evidence I would point to… ALL OF IT?
“Reading level was and is calculated using a calculation of average numbers for sentences per paragraph, words per sentence, and syllables per word.”
In your post, Oliver, there were: 8 sentences, 2 paragraphs, and 6.25 words per sentence. I doubt that would yield a very high grade level.
Conclusion: OW = teh dumb.
And yet it was clear what I was communicating. I’m not running for vice-president, yet, I’m clearer than the candidate.
David Frum is taking shit from his NRO colleagues for saying that Palin is incapable of stringing three coherent sentences together on the subject of the economic crisis. Andrew Sullivan points out that this is the guy who coined the phrase “axis of evil,” and because he isn’t rooting for Palin he’s now being told to STFU by other Republicans.
As I’ve said before, Sarah Palin in the gift that keeps on giving. Not only does she seem to have guaranteed Obama the White House, but she’s also doing further damage to the Republican party. Honestly, I’m not sure if they’re going to survive after November 2008.
The problem with listening to Sarah Palin — apart from the migraine I get when I try — is that at her level of incoherence, it becomes a Rorschach Test: Listeners are exposed to random noise and their minds tell them what to hear.
Palin doesn’t even have to speak *words*! She could say “Gla, la, la…” and her supporters would say it means “Strong leadership, lower taxes.”
Meanwhile, Obama could say “I love America” x number of times, and Palin’s supporters would still only hear “I hate America.”
If Palin were President, of course, she’d face an entirely different speaking challenge: real foreign leaders are quick to notice incoherence and won’t merely “interpret it”: They are going to DEMAND a clear message.
What would the clear message be, then?
I think a key difference between George Bush, Jr. and Sarah Palin is that the former always had a better grasp of the accepted political speak.
But it’s really really really important to note that substantively, Bush is about as awful a Palin. The David Brookses and Megan McArdles of the world who are finally coming around to calling out Palin should be held accountable for supporting (vociferously in many cases) George Bush, Jr. By any intellectually serious onlookers, Bush was a child compared to either Al Gore or John Kerry. Bush is in way over his head, extremely coached, an empty vessel for extremists to use to pass their extreme agenda (less so in Palin’s case, btw), a religious nutjob’s religious nutjob, an appeal to far right fundraising interests.
The George Bush, Jr. administration, more accurately noted at the Cheney-Rove Administration has been a disaster for the United States and its people. Anyone remotely responsible for this administraiton (Brooks, McArdle, etc.) who has yet to apologize really ought to come clean.
“No link to the particular incident that gave rise to that thought?”
Palin got kudo’s, at least in some quarters, for her introduction speech, the acceptance speech and for the debate (leaving aside the ‘won’t answer the actual questions’ issue). In each case, she was reading material prepared by others; a review of the debate tape shows her always referencing something down on her desk (presumably cards) before any response, with the odd response mismatch probably occurring when there was no card for the particular question.
To be clear, being able to present material while reading it is a skill, one not possessed by most Americans, who sound stiff as a board reading a speech from notes, as they would reading from a teleprompter. Palin’s years as a sportscaster stand her in good stead on that front.
This, however, leaves her with zero non-disastrous occasions on which she’s had to interact without written material. The speeches and debate may have been impressive (leaving aside the actual content), but don’t count on that front.
Just from a pure performance standpoint, she really is incoherent in front of an interviewer or audience if she doesn’t have pre-written material
Wasn’t say I disagreed, mind. Just love me a good English mangling. Sans cable in the house, I miss some of them.
Palin read teleprompters better than W and answered questions better than Terri Schiavo.
What more can we ask?
She could say “Gla, la, la…”
You’ve been to church with her?