So what?

Most of us who've had to make a speech had to because of some event or dinner that by tradition involves a speech or two, and almost all of us prepare in advance rather than try to ad lib and make a tit out of ourselves. In my case it was being best man at a wedding. I'd been to weddings where speakers had struggled through it because they'd only started thinking about it a day or two before so I began writing the speech a good couple of weeks in advance and had the bones of it down on cue cards. Couple of anecdotes, old joke re-worded to make fun of the groom, anecdote, lovely couple, many happy years together, good friends, charge your glasses - that sort of thing. While I have stood up and spoken since without cue cards it's only been on a topic I knew intimately well. Beyond that I think it'd be pretty normal to have cue cards in your pocket. As such I find it hard to understand what the fuss is over Sarah Palin doing something similar.

A close examination of the former vice-presidential candidate speaking at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville at the weekend revealed she had the words "Energy", "Tax," and "Lift Americans Spirits" scrawled in ink on the inside of her left hand.

So what if she's using notes? This isn't the usual political hypocrisy where the bastards tell us to do one thing while they live by a completely separate and altogether more cushy set of rules. She's not been telling the rest of us we can't speak with the aid of a few notes.

Ah, but...

Sarah Palin mocked President Barack Obama as 'a charismatic guy with a Teleprompter' during a speech only to be photographed with crib notes written on the palm of her hand.

Well? He is a charismatic guy with a teleprompter. She, on the other hand, is an arguably charismatic woman with a little bit of writing on her hand. See the difference? Teleprompter as opposed to six words written on someone's palm, seven if you count the one that had been crossed out. Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not a fan. I think she's barking mad and steered way too much by her belief in the 13 billion year old invisible sky fairy for anyone to expect her to be anything other than a social authoritarian, despite her libertarian pretensions with all this small government low tax guff. Why not go after her for that instead of this thinly veiled jibe about keeping crib notes on your palm? Fuck, why not take the piss out of her for being unaware that you can do that with small bits of paper these days? Why not point out the $349-$549 cost of entry to hear Palin speak, and ask questions about that and the $100,000 she was paid and which she says she's donating to 'conservative causes' that aren't being specified? Because she apparently said something unkind about The One perhaps? Well, let's have a look at the quote in context.

“This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any one king or queen of a tea party, and it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter,” she said.

If I was a picky sort, which I am, I'd point out that she doesn't even mention Obama by name there. Almost certainly she's referring to him but it's applicable to hundreds if not thousands of politicians the world over. She seems also to be lumping herself and other Tea Party big names in with the charismatic guys with teleprompters with the bit about 'any king or queen of a tea party'. What she is not saying is that she's better than him because he uses a teleprompter for speeches and she doesn't, and even if she was half a dozen words on her hand doesn't make her a hypocrite.

I know this was the Telegraph but I think the article comes under this heading: