105 Ways to Give a Book

Palin Interlude

I wouldn’t do this, but I feel you may be looking to me to provide you with these latest Saturday Night Live Tina Fey sketches, and I dare not disappoint. As a compromise, I’ll just provide the link. Okay, the link and two of my favorite bits:
Palin: “Can I call you Joe?”
Biden: “Of course.”
Palin: “Okay, cause I practiced a couple of zingers where I call you Joe.”
That one actually explains a lot.
Ifill: “Governor Palin, would you extend same sex rights to the entire country?”
Palin: “You know, I would be afraid of where that would lead. I believe marriage is meant to be a sacred institution between two unwilling teenagers.”
Ooooh. Snap!

I found this interesting article in The Washington Post that helped me understand why so many people thought Palin did well in the debate. In “Artful Dodging Trumps Evasion, Studies Show,” it’s noted that:
... most people are extremely poor at spotting even dramatic discrepancies between questions and answers. They found the failure was especially acute when answers were semantically linked to questions... The psychologists found that irrelevant answers delivered fluently and with poise scored higher with audiences than answers that were accurate, on-topic, but halting.
Another editorial opinion blames, quite scathingly, the press for letting Palin off the hook. Me, I blame Joe Six-Pack. Mainly because I can’t believe that we can now use that expression as an endearing reference to the down-home, regular American in the political arena.
Category: 3 comments

3 comments:

tanita✿davis said...

I actually heard Molly Ivins use that phrase, "Joe Six-Pack" back in 2004 -- and it interests me that it's been adopted by just about everybody now... Huh.

Unknown said...

I had a library patron ask me "Who IS 'Joe Six-Pack'?" the other day, and I was tempted to gaze searchingly across the library and point: "THAT guy".

Montgomery Burns used the term on the Simpsons, it must have been before 2001 because that's when I stopped watching TV regularly.

But what I REALLY came here to say was that as long as Sarah Palin didn't actually soil herself during the debate, she was performing at or above expectations.

Isn't it wonderful to have a woman standing smack-dab in the center of the political arena? Wouldn't it be nice if she weren't a jackass? I swear, she's putting women back 20 years every time she parades her children around. Or opens her mouth.

Saints and Spinners said...

The first time I heard "Joe Six-Pack" I wondered if it referred to a guy drinking a six-pack of beer or a guy with a six-pack torso and a washboard stomach. (All I need is one more metaphor and maybe this imaginary guy can be a one-man skiffle band.)