Why is Sarah Palin lying about having gone off teleprompter? People I trust have spoken to people who were there, and if she went off teleprompter, she somehow nonetheless managed to deliver exactly the remarks that she handed out to the press beforehand.
What I don't get about this lie is the pointlessness. I expect politicians to lie. But I expect them to tell the standard sort of lies about how they will give us all $5 solar cars by 2010, and never, ever sleep with their staff. This seems like some sort of bizarre compulsive disorder.
It puts me in mind of a famous quote by a UN chief: "You Americans never make simple stupid moves. Only complicated stupid moves that make the rest of us think we might be missing something."
What am I missing?
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I am a bit confused- you can "go off teleprompter" and still remember the lines you were going to deliver. Did she claim she was giving "off the cuff" remarks?
She claims she looked at Ohio and just spoke from her heart.
Maybe she actually memorized her speech? "Off teleprompter" > "off the cuff". Admittedly, here in Houston we've been kind of busy and I've missed the last few days of campaign coverage.
what are you missing? a LINK!
OK. I googled it.I dunno, maybe she really did have it memorized. also why is the media making a big deal of this?
I think it's as simple as she's a liar.
I she claiming that her heart speaks exactly what the speechwriter last wrote on it? That is the long-standing old pol norm; but I thought her monination was about introducing something fresh into politics?
Megan,
You need a link. I have no idea what story you are referring to.
Palin's lying about this because she's lying about everything. Some pathological liars prefer lies to the truth even when there's no need to lie. It gets their juices flowing or something, I guess.
As for "why Ohio," I'd guess she's been told sucking up to Ohio might be kind of, oh, shucks, important in this here election. Sort of like how McCain pimped out one of his POW stories by changing the details to suck up to Pittsburghers.
There is nothing these idiots won't lie about. Nothing.
They want to hide the fact that the McCain campaign team wrote up her entire speech, locked her in a room, and made her memorize it before the Convention. Admitting this would undermine her purported authenticity.
Link here.
"There Ohio was right out in front, right in front of me," Palin said. "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”
Of course, Megan is being disingenuous here - nowhere does Palin say she was making off the cuff remarks.
But of course, if you are going to be a shill for Obama - as Megan is - you are just going to interpret everything the other said says as a "lie". It's not in good faith.
I'm guessing she's lying about this in part to implicitly contrast herself with Obama.
One of the sillier anti-Obama themes out there on the internet (and talk radio) is that Obama can't speak well without a teleprompter, and is thus an empty suit.
If Palin *can* speak without a teleprompter, well then, she must be smarter!
That's the message I think they are trying to get across.
What you are missing is that Republicans recruit charismatic pathological liars because they are perfect tools. The crazy remorseless glint in Palin's eye is all you need to know. Even David Brooks is frightened by her now.
I think there are two prongs to this and both are about appealing to a religious base. First, the story parallels the David/Goliath narrative (one woman armed only with her faith facing impossible odds and succeeding by saying what was in her heart). At the same time this is the perfect lie for those for him media bias has literally become an article of faith. Reporters report this as a lie, because they know first hand it is, but since they can't produce any evidence that it is a lie, people who don't believe the media become more convinced it's true. What comes out is the battle of Sarah vs. the Scorners, and that is exactly the fight the McCain camp wants its base to see.
Who cares if she lied about her teleprompter? I didn't care when Clinton lied about sniper fire in Bosnia either.
This is a high stakes election. Obama supporters should be making the case that McCain might start a war with Iran, or that Obama can extend medical insurance to most of the uninsured, or whatever. If an undecided voter checks in and finds complaints about teleprompters that's not going to cut it.
I am so sick of this election. I want to stop paying taxes to make it go away.
Megan,
As far as I can tell, there is no lie here. She doesn't appear to have said she "spoke from her heart" to the people of Ohio, and, thus, implying she was ad libbing it. I have seen people claim that the McCain campaign said she winged it, but I have seen no actual quotes from the campaign to this exact phrasing, and "winged it" still does not equal ad lib.
However, Eric is correct- this incident, if it occurred, is certainly highlighted to draw a contrast between Palin and Obama. This is why Obama supporters still get angry over this story.
One of the sillier anti-Obama themes
Have you SEEN him without the teleprompter? Man can't string a complete sentence together without one, which is why he started taking it to rallies.
Hope he remembers to bring it to his tea with Achmadinejad...
I don't think she's lying. I think there were perhaps some moments where the prompter scrolled too fast or she otherwise lost her place, but she kept going from memory. And I think a couple days ago she threw this out as a throwaway line in a campaign stop. Nothing important here. Just a "lipstick on a pig" moment, if you will.
This is not uncommon. Politicians on a campaign trail give the same stump speech so much that they repeat the same exact words and rhythm perfectly. Or to use a common enough phrase, they know it "by heart".
I remember one video package from when Steve Forbes was running for the GOP nomination, where about a dozen appearances around New Hampshire were clipped together, showing him giving the same speech, word for word, beat for beat.
I suspect that the traveling teleprompter that appears at more and more presidential (and VP) campaign stops is not that the candidates don't know the speech, but that its there as a security blanket.
In the YouTube era, every little stumble, every pause to gather thoughts, gets spun by opponents as the candidate being 'stupid' (see Bush, George W.). Which is why the added security of the prompter is being used, more and more.
Too much is being made of both Obama's and Palin's teleprompters.
Maybe the story (either by Trapper or Palin) is merely incorrect? It makes more sense if she meant not the speech to the RNC, but the one at her first appearance with McCain -- which actually was in Ohio.
See your previous blogpost. OK, have you ever heard of athletes being 'unconscious' in their performance, 'on' and not trying to do anything but the performance. So she seemed not to find the telepropmpter scroll and felt relieved in connection with 'Ohio' before her.
The last 28 years of Republican electoral politics?
Megan who are these “people [you] trust” that you spoke to? As I recall you rather emphatically defended the New Republic when they got busted printing Scott Beuchamp’s lies on the grounds that you knew people who worked there and couldn’t imagine that they would be so reckless as to do such a thing.
Man can't string a complete sentence together without one
He certainly could in the voting rights class I had with him. Of course that was nearly 10 years ago, so perhaps he has suffered mental decline since then.
(The McCain campaign put out a quickly disproved story that the teleprompter broke after her speech. The base loved it. She was lying to fire them up further. It's as simple as that.)
She said "the teleprompter got messed up." People who could see the teleprompter during the speech said it didn't.
"She claims she looked at Ohio and just spoke from her heart."
Megan, using your own criteria, this statement of yours might qualify as a lie just as well.
People who could see the teleprompter during the speech said it didn't [get messed up].
Difference is, she actually had to use it, they didn't. If you don't actually have to use something, then your tolerance for timing hiccups is probably going to be a lot greater than if you are using it.
Some people have a tendency to make things just a little bit better than they actually were. It wasn't enough that she gave a speech that was received rapturously by the assembled throng, she had to do it without a teleprompter.
Maybe it's insecurity, I don't know. All I know is that if she can end up as President, then something is seriously wrong with the way we govern ourselves.
There are conservatives I respect and liberals I despise. This woman is an empty pantsuit, regardless of party affiliation.
The guy running the teleprompter didn't stop for the long applause lines. The result was Palin had to catch up to the teleprompter from memory at times.
That was the story I heard the day after the speech. Nothing in Palins remarks in the column contradict that. What is the point of this story?
The story only makes sense in the context of the media coverage of her initial convention speech. People were saying that it only proved she could read a teleprompter. I'm not sure how much more is proved by the fact that she can also memorize a speech verbatim. Every kid in the high school play can do as much. But it was the press that started the teleprompter discussion, and if I were Palin I'd get off the subject as soon as possible.
She said "the teleprompter got messed up." People who could see the teleprompter during the speech said it didn't.
Who on Earth monitors it closely enough to know that, aside from the person actually using it?
M.C.,
I don't know. We are again having an argument about the Republican VP candidate vs the Democrat P candidate.
Who has more experience? Obama or Palin?
Who asked for fewer earmarks? Obama or Palin?
Who least needs a teleprompter? Obama or Palin?
Even if you believe Obama marginally wins all of these arguments, he is completely crushed on these points by McCain.
True, also if you’re not the person actually using it, you’re probably not going to be looking at it as much – even if you can see it from where you sit – and less likely to notice problems as the person who has to use it. Unless it did something blatantly obvious like shooting sparks or smoke it might not even be noticeable to anyone other than the person who has to rely on it.
Palin, like most Republicans, lies when it suits her purpose. She continually lies about telling Congress to take the Bridge to Nowhere and shove it, because the base laps it up. She's so mavericky, maybe even the fact that she's brazen enough to continue telling this lie so long after it's been conclusively debunked works in her favor. She's so ballsy, she just keeps on lying even when everyone knows it's a lie! That's the kind of person I want #2 in the nation! Who cares if it's a lie, it sounds good and she defiantly keeps saying it! Yeah! Suck it, wimpy truth-valuing libs! Better an exciting, pleasing lie than a boring, painful truth!
Palin is the very epitome of that social-climbing, status-obsessed girl you knew in High School. She had to be head cheerleader, she had to be Class President, she had to be Homecoming Queen, she had to be Most Popular and Most Likely To Succeed, and heaven help you if you got in her way.
What the hell? Are all Atlantic bloggers now obliged to slam Palin? Would someone point out where Palin clearly made a claim of something that she knew to be demonstrably false? And why does no one subject any of Obama's statements to similar standards of critique? What makes The One so inscrutable?
She's so ballsy, she just keeps on lying even when everyone knows it's a lie! That's the kind of person I want #2 in the nation!
Why are your standards higher for #2 than they have been historically for #1?
Megan, using your own criteria, this statement of yours might qualify as a lie just as well
Palin did not say, as Megan claims, that she "spoke from her heart". I gave the exact quotation from Palin above, and there was nothing at all in it about speaking "from her heart". So, of course Megan is lying - by Megan's own criteria of what constitutes "lying".
But all of us who are not Obama shills (as Megan is) can give her there benefit of the doubt and understand what Palin meant by her statement - we understand that she meant that when the teleprompter went ahead of where she was in her speech (as everone acknowledges happened) she had to find a way to continue with her speech even without the use of the teleprompter until she caught up - and she did this by using the Ohio delegation to help focus on what she was saying.
Now Obama shills like Megan are not going to give Palin the benefit of the doubt, and are going to purposefully misconstrue the meaning of every Palin statement. Because that's what shills do. But we shouldn't retaliate against Megan and purposefully misconstrue what Megan was saying; we ought to at least attempt to be better than that. If Megan want's to continue to shill for Obama by purposefully misconstruing what Palin says, so be it, that's her right.
It has to do with the Obama is just-a-pretty-talker meme. You remember in Fred Thompson's speech where he called Obama's convention speech a "teleprompter speech." While this is redundant given the setting (and Fred was using one too), my low-information friends regularly bring up the word teleprompter while attacking Obama.
It's silly, stupid and salient.
Simply chalking it up to a lie is way too simple and convenient. Lots of people here hate Palin; fine. But as Megan points out, this would be a monumentally stupid lie, with only marginal possible gain. I'm sure some foam-mouthed Republican hater will point that this empirically proves that she's a "compulsive" liar, but such people are a distraction.
I think the explanation is somewhere in the middle: it's probably an exaggeration. IE: yeah, maybe the prompter flickered or went off, but by all accounts she'd rehearsed the speech many times, and it didn't trip her up. The talk about it being "from the heart" is probably bogus, though vague enough to qualify as garden-variety. Nobody like this interpretation, of course, because it shows she played up something where there is nothing, but also doesn't let people fit her for little red horns.
Of course, the most important point of all is "who cares?" Unless someone is desperately trying to convince themselves that she's got some liying pathology weaved into everything she's ever said and done, it doesn't really matter. The kooks will use this to reinforce their goofy caricature, and the rest of us will just scratch our heads and shrug our shoulders.
Who has more experience? Obama or Palin?
Who asked for fewer earmarks? Obama or Palin?
Who least needs a teleprompter? Obama or Palin?
I must have missed the part about where Palin was the Republican nominee for President.
So. You a) concede Palin doesn't have enough experience to be President, because the claim is that Obama is no more experienced; b) concede Palin asked for some earmarks, something the nominal Republican Presidential candidate says he's vehemently against; c) concede that both Obama and Palin need teleprompters, because "needs least" still means "needs some." Heckuva job.
As far as being "completely crushed by McCain," let's check a) just of what McCain's extensive experience has consisted, b) just when did McCain become such an implacable, relentless foe of earmarks, and c) just how well McCain does without a teleprompter. I don't think McCain "crushes" Obama, at all. In fact, in a teleprompterless setting I suspect Obama would trounce McCain so thoroughly it would be embarrassing. McCain should be grateful Obama rejected those town-hall meetings.
CAL -
I don't dislike Palin, and I definitely appreciate someone who can give a speech well. Teleprompter, from memory, or whatever. But I do wish people would get off this nonsense and on to some actual issues.
Jumping up and down about how someone is a liar because of a thing like this is just distracting.
I saw one point in her speech were she falters while looking at the teleprompter. She the looked down some papers in front of her and continued with her speech.
My thought while watching her was damn the teleprompter must have messed up. I tend to believe her on this. Because, I don't see where the lie would get her.
This is a particularly absurd lie that originated on the Obama channel (MSNBC) last night. If you watched the Palin speech afterwards, and took the time to notice, it was actually obvious when + what happened. On at least one network there was a shot of her from behind such that you could see the teleprompter. IT STOPPED. TOTALLY STOPPED. When you looked at the words you could see they were a couple paragraphs behind what she'd just completed saying. Then Sarah Palin said, under her breath, "OK ...", whereupon she promptly regrouped and issued the now infamous Hockey Moms & lipstick quip. Then she picked up again from her written copy. All Sarah all the Time: http://www.preciseNews.us/palin.html
Would someone point out where Palin clearly made a claim of something that she knew to be demonstrably false?
"PALIN: And that infamous Bridge to Nowhere, I did tell Congress, “Thanks, but no thanks” — if we wanted a bridge up there we were going to build it ourselves."
The lie being, she told Congress thanks but no thanks. She did nothing of the sort. She cancelled the program only after Congress declined to authorize money for it; it was Congress that said thanks but no. And she has said this is how it happened, publicly. But on that big convention stage, saying she told Congress to shove that bridge sounded pretty darn good, didn't it?
liberalrob,
All of the reporting I've seen says that congress approved the money but left the direction open to Palin. She not only didn't fund it, but she removed it from the state's infrastructure planning. She used the money for other repairs.
Can you point out to me where any of that is wrong?
She lied to give the impression that she actually has the knowledge and skills she seems to have when reading the speeches. It's probably a bit of ego, she likes the crowds and attention she gets, but knows that the words she is speaking aren't hers. But she really wants to give the impression that they are. She'd like to be the person Bush's speech writers are pretending she is.
i have a british friend who worked on the team responsible for prompting at the rep. convention.
at the last second, the mccain campaign said they wanted cindy mccain's prompter to do palin's speech. he turned up 10 minutes before palin's speech with one laptop, which didn't work. so he used the normal prompters' computers, but he ran the speech too fast. he'd only been doing prompting for about six months.
the rnc was furious.
palin didn't do so bad becuse she'd rehearsed her speech seven times that day, and several times the previous day. she spoke to her text, not off the cuff.
so: nothing broke, the mccain campaign is incompetent, and sarah palin is good at reciting speeches.
Of course, the most important point of all is "who cares?" Unless someone is desperately trying to convince themselves that she's got some liying pathology weaved into everything she's ever said and done, it doesn't really matter. The kooks will use this to reinforce their goofy caricature, and the rest of us will just scratch our heads and shrug our shoulders.
And of course in the case of Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004 and Clinton in 2008, it's entirely different because everyone knows what lying liars they all are. Or was all of that also the work of "kooks" and "goofy caricature." There sure seemed to be a lot of them.
She cancelled the program only after Congress declined to authorize money for it
No, not exactly. Given that you can't get it straight, and a lot of people can't get straight exactly what happened, I'm inclined to be a bit loose on this. From Wikipedia:
Congress stripped the specific earmark allocation of federal funds for the two bridges in the bill, without changing the amount of money allocated for use by Alaska.
So Congress stripped the earmark, but did not "decline to authorize money for it". The same money was sent, the difference is that the money was no longer required to be spent on the bridge. There was no question of Congress "authorizing" or not "authorizing" Palin to spend that money on the bridge. It was a question of requiring Palin to spend that money on the bridge.
So, you got it wrong. Most people get it wrong. Not a big deal.
I took that to be hyperbole in that I couldn't recall her ever giving a formal address to either or both houses of Congress. But perhaps some believe there's no rhetoric behind stopping the rise in ocean tides, either, or having turned down lucrative Wall Street jobs (with no evidence of such).
Congress, with affirming votes of Biden and Obama, kept the Alaskan bridge project in the bill that funded post-Katrina rebuilding in New Orleans. Now, I don't call Obiden liars for voting as they did. Neither have shown any opposition to the current earmarking practices.
Jesus, Megan critiques Obama all the time, including in the very last post!
If there's one aspect of contemporary conservatism that annoys me more than any other, it's the fact that conservatives at once mock people for pursuing "the politics of aggrievement"-- when black people or gay people or women etc. complain about marginalization or oppression-- and yet constantly play the same politics themselves. Conservatives are constantly falling all over themselves to declare that they are the most beleaguered people on earth. Help, help! We're being oppressed! We've had the presidency for 8 years but we're a disenfranchised, embattled minority! Stop the oppression!
Congress did not decline to authorize money for the bridge. The report language describing the purpose of the appropriation was deleted. The appropriation was left in place (albeit reduced). Contemporaneous remarks at the time the bill was passed by Alaska's Congressional delegation and the former governor made it clear that the appropriation was still intended to be used for the bridge.
Palin declined to use the appropriation for the bridge as was expected (and supported by popular opinion in Alaska) and instead used the money for other highway projects.
Can you point out to me where any of that is wrong?
Can you point out to me where "She used the money for other repairs" equates to "I told Congress thanks but no thanks?" Also, she couldn't have "used the money for other repairs" if Congress hadn't previously released the money from the bridge project:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/675/
"In the fall of 2005, Congress removed the language specifically directing the money to the bridge, but it kept the money in place and left it up to Alaska to decide which transportation projects the state would like to spend it on."
When was Palin elected governor again? 2006? So Congress killed the earmark for the bridge project (leaving the funds in place) before Palin was governor, before she would have even been in a position to say "thanks but no thanks" (which she didn't do in any case).
It's a lie. Politifact calls it a "half-truth;" OK. To me, that's a lie.
So Congress stripped the earmark, but did not "decline to authorize money for it".
Oh gee, ya got me there, heh heh. Guess my entire argument falls apart, because I didn't say it this way:
Congress declined to authorize money for it specifically.
I did not get it wrong. And Palin still is lying.
I don't think you are missing anything.
Sarah Palin needs to go off defense. How about challenging Obama on the same issue.
Obama is refusing to face questions from the American public at Town Hall meetings. Why not accuse him of this, and invite him to some impromptu discussions with the public? Forget Joe Biden. He will recite the meaning of every word in the dictionary and filibuster the event.
Poor Joe.
Congress did not decline to authorize money for the bridge.
Yes, they did. There was a big fight over it. Before Palin was governor.
MarkG, are you sure you want to get into it on which campaign has bent the truth the most? Even Karl Rove thinks McCain is overdoing it. Perhaps you should keep pounding the idea that the contentious Bering Strait border dispute has given Palin a wealth of foreign policy experience. Or maybe that McCain is a true Beltway outsider and just needs four more years to turn around his 26 years in Congress.
Megan said:
"She claims she looked at Ohio and just spoke from her heart."
Palin said:
'"There Ohio was right out in front, right in front of me," Palin said. "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”'
Megan's words are much more of a lie than Palin's. Palin was obviously talking about a decision to relax and focus on delivering the speech to people rather than trying to hold on to the prompter security blanket or panicking. She does not say nor imply that she was speaking "from the heart."
What is utterly unacceptable here is that Megan distorted Palin's words, and then did NOT PROVIDE A LINK so that readers could evaluate for themselves.
Megan, you owe your readers an apology for trying to mislead them.
If there's one aspect of contemporary conservatism that annoys me more than any other, it's the fact that conservatives at once mock people for pursuing "the politics of aggrievement"-- when black people or gay people or women etc. complain about marginalization or oppression-- and yet constantly play the same politics themselves
That annoys me, too. Moaning about how hard your life is should be left up to hack novelists writing stories about how hard it is to make a living writing novels about novelists (also, how pretty much everyone, everywhere, is gay. It strikes me that "write what you know" is terrible advice).
This does not mean you shouldn't mock your opponents for oppressing you. Nothing wrong with pointing out what laughable boneheads they are.
Explain to me again why Obama should be going to Town Hall meetings with Palin? Who's the Republican candidate for President, again?
Ok, I call bullshit on Megan McCardle. Sources?
What is utterly unacceptable here is that Megan distorted Palin's words, and then did NOT PROVIDE A LINK so that readers could evaluate for themselves.
Megan, you owe your readers an apology for trying to mislead them.
Posted by Nessuno | September 17, 2008 1:41 PM
Indeed, and I was just praising McCardle the other ady on Althouse blog about being the only credible journalist left on "The Atlantic". Way to go McCardle.
I watched the speech a second time, and of course, saw various other snippets in the days following. It was fairly clear to me that the Governor was reading off the 'prompter throughout. So when now she claims that the "teleprompter got messed up, I couldn't follow it," that's pretty much bullshit.
"And of course in the case of Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004 and Clinton in 2008, it's entirely different because everyone knows what lying liars they all are. Or was all of that also the work of "kooks" and "goofy caricature." There sure seemed to be a lot of them."
This response couldn't be more predictable, or less relevant. Trying to get me to account for what someone else said at some other time, simply because you (presumably) lump us together, is not an actual response to what I was saying. I'm not claiming you can't find someone, somewhere, with a double standard. Of course you can. So what?
It should also go without saying, of course, that every circumstance is different. The circumstance we're talking about now has to do with Sarah Palin, and how quickly, easily, and whole-heartedly people who already hate her are willing to start diagnosing her from afar. It's flat-out stupid. It's stupid if you like McCain, and it's stupid if you don't.
Why is Sarah Palin lying about having gone off teleprompter? People I trust have spoken to people who were there...
Translation: "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Palin speak at 31 Flavors last night."
Well, now that this has been out there and responded to quite harshly, we have the answer. She lied because she could get away with sounding as if she'd been speaking from the heart, as it surely sounded to her Ohio audience this week when she made that statement, while her statement could be defended by people parsing the transcripts of her comments for a literal meaning that isn't actually supported by the point she was making.
So, it's a rational lie, as opposed to an irrational one. Score one for Palin--she's convinced some of the people all of the time.
Translation: "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Palin speak at 31 Flavors last night.
Posted by Mike | September 17, 2008 1:47 PM
I knew Ferris Bueller had to be a Republican! Flouting the rules that were for the little people, abusing his friends' trust and generosity, and laughing all the way...
liberalrob - you hate Palin not because she lied about something, but because of who she is. You hated her from the first day.
Megan,
I neglected to post a thank you for deciding to police your comments section. I was one of those who missed the heated, yet collegial, discussions. I was also one of those who dropped by your blog less frequently than I had in the past. You're now back in the regular rotation. (I'm sure you're gratified by the news.)
Having said that, I'm disappointed in your post on this topic. Either I've missed your sarcasm, the post is lacking in the generosity of spirit that generally characterizes your analysis. You are frequently a "voice of reason" in pointing out that X's claim that politician Y is a liar (or an idiot) is not supported by Y's allegedly false (or idiotic) comment. In general, you are unwilling to assert something is a lie unless there are no other reasonable interpretations for a statement. You've applied this standard to figures on both the left and the right (usually angering both).
What happened here? Palin made a statement, that her teleprompter was not working, that her opponents charge is a lie. Palin did not claim the teleprompter NEVER worked and that she gave her ENTIRE speech from memory; instead, she and the campaign said from the start (within hours of her speech) that, during parts of the speech, the teleprompter scrolled too fast and that Palin was forced to give that part of the speech from memory. Nothing she's said since is inconsistent with that explanation. Nor is anyone's "eyewitness account" that the teleprompter was displaying the text of her speech proof that her account is false.
IMO the explanation for all of this breaks down quite simply:
1. As someone already suggested, the teleprompter probably kept going during applause interruptions, wrecking her pace and requiring a catch-up from memory.
2. "From the heart" is election year schtick-pander, served fresh and piping hot to masses who wanted to hear it. No surprises there.
3. The McCain campaign has noticed that both the media and the Obama campaign will feed ravenously on such parsimonious scraps as these, and is quite willing to continue feeding the pigeons accordingly. The more time Obama (presidential nominee) spends fighting Palin (vice-presidential nominee), the latter of which appears to have the stamina for it, the easier it will be for McCain to coast through the remaining two months.
One would think Obama's team would be bright enough to realize they're being grifted, but on the other hand, Palin is functionally the same kind of photogenic rabble-rouser that Obama is, so he may not have a choice.
This response couldn't be more predictable, or less relevant. Trying to get me to account for what someone else said at some other time blah blah blah
I thought you were shrugging your shoulders and scratching your head?
If you're going to call people (accurately) accusing Palin of lying/"exaggerating" (thank you for the distinction, Mr. Spock) "kooks" promoting a "goofy caricature," I think it's important to compare kooks and caricatures to see just how kooky the kooks really are. You wouldn't perhaps be trying to disappear past kookiness down the memory hole now that the goofy caricatures are of your candidate, would you?
Perhaps Palin isn't lying. Perhaps she's merely "in error." A lot. Over and over.
Watching the speech, it was clear she had a backup text on paper or index cards on the lectern. You could see her occasionally glancing down to read them.
Guiliani seemed to have the same problems, except his more more noticeable.
There was no "lie" here - unless someone has conclusive proof that the teleprompter was working just fine. A little Occam's Razor works here -- either Gov. Palin concocted in completely unnecessary lie for no real gain, or the teleprompter did malfunction and she relied on memory and notes to guide her through the speech. The latter seems far more plausible.
liberalrob - you hate Palin not because she lied about something, but because of who she is. You hated her from the first day.
"Hated" is not the correct term. When you "hate" someone, you wish them bodily harm. You wish them expunged from existence. I do not hate Sarah Palin.
I disdain and dismiss Sarah Palin. It would be more accurate to say I despise her. I do not hate her. Hating someone is what you do in grade school.
Yikes, the last voice of sanity at Atlantic Monthly drinks the Kool Ade.
liberalrob - if truth telling is the biggest virtue, then your guy Obama is the worst offender ever. His convention speech is the worst example of lying and pandering in the history of the republic - "I'll tax the top 5% and give the bottom 95% prosperity and health care".
So, is truth telling the important thing or getting your uber-socialist elected?
Explain to me again why Obama should be going to Town Hall meetings with Palin? Who's the Republican candidate for President, again? -liberalrob
Well at least you noticed.
The reason is simple. They are both rookies.
You all should have gone with Hillary. Maybe you folks will get it right in 2012.
Anchorage Daily News - March 12th - 2007
http://www.adn.com/front/story/343508.html
"Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is aggravated about what he sees as Gov. Sarah Palin's antagonism toward the earmarks he uses to steer federal money to the state. ... A common target for earmark snipers is the so-called "bridge to nowhere" plugged by Alaska Rep. Don Young into the five-year transportation bill in 2005. Congress stripped the earmarks directing the spending but let the state keep the money to use on the bridge if it wanted.
Palin ruffled feathers when she announced - without giving the delegation advance notice - that the state was killing the Ketchikan bridge to Gravina Island, site of the airport and a few dozen residents."
Lord, Ms. McArdle, many's the time I've looked at Ohio and spoken from my heart, and God knows I hope Ohio didn't hear.
A1
"There Ohio was right out in front, right in front of me," Palin said. "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”
Of course, Megan is being disingenuous here - nowhere does Palin say she was making off the cuff remarks.
Then what the hell was she saying? The tech crew says the teleprompter was worked perfectly. She said she 'couldn't follow it'....she is not saying she had her speech perfectly memorized and didn't need the prompter...she is making a heroic claim...that the teleprompter was gone, she had to speak from the heart to the good people of Ohio!
peter
Who cares if she lied about her teleprompter? I didn't care when Clinton lied about sniper fire in Bosnia either.
As Megan said this lie is distrubing because it is, well odd. Put this together with the other numerous lies that have been well documented and a very disturbing picture is emerging of Palin.
MC
The story only makes sense in the context of the media coverage of her initial convention speech. People were saying that it only proved she could read a teleprompter. I'm not sure how much more is proved by the fact that she can also memorize a speech verbatim.
It only makes sense as a lie. As you say, if the criticism is that she can only sound good when someone else does the writing being a good memorizer doesn't make that case. Her intent was clearly to show that she could 'think on her feet' should the unexpected happen, like the teleprompter failing. Fortunately this was, in this age of Google, easily exposed.
Rob
Who on Earth monitors it closely enough to know that, aside from the person actually using it?
somehow I suspect running the teleprompter is a very BIG DEAL, especially when you're running it to support a major address going out on live network TV. I really don't think the guy(s) running it pushed 'start' and went out for a donut break.
CAL
Who has more experience? Obama or Palin?
Obama
Who asked for fewer earmarks? Obama or Palin?
Probably Obama, he had more experience hence more time to ask for them. Palin, with her vigerous support for the bridge to nowhere, probably would have caught up with him quickly and probably does better than him on generating pure waste from earmark requests.
Who least needs a teleprompter? Obama or Palin?
Probably Palin. Good qualification for press secretary.
It's funny that, as you go across the internet tripping through blogdom, you notice (in the last two days) that virtually any topic ends up with a pile of commenters talking - repeatedly - about some new "lie" that Palin or McCain has foisted on the world.
Obviously, the message has gone out - hammer through repetition this new theme!
And, just like the "Bush lied!" theme - the lie about The Lie - gained MSM acceptance through simple repetition, this might well work, too.
It all depressingly reminds me of the Two Minute Hate.
Eyewitness accounts:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/alex_spillius
Headline: Palin's Teleprompter did work
text: "Occasionally it would cut off half of a top line, forcing the Alaska governor to look at her written words"
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/
Headline: The teleprompter did not break
Text: "...there were moments where it scrolled slightly past her exact point in the speech."
somehow I suspect running the teleprompter is a very BIG DEAL, especially when you're running it to support a major address going out on live network TV. I really don't think the guy(s) running it pushed 'start' and went out for a donut break.
That wasn't the claim in the comment I responded to. It was "people who could see it" said it was working. That is not the same thing; unless you have a strong motivation to do so, you're simply not going to watch that closely.
The crew has the appropriate motivation to monitor, of course. But they also have a CYA motivation when it comes to accepting blame for any problems.
I hope Megan doesn't go down the Andrew Sullivan "lose my mind" path.
"What I don't get about this lie is the pointlessness" -- MM
Pathological is a one of those adjectives that's overused and almost always hyperbolic. I've only known two true pathological liars, but this -- the telling of almost pointless lies -- is a sure sign. Palin has many qualities that would seem to exempt her from leadership. Her propensity to lie is near the top.
liberalrob
Can you point out to me where "She used the money for other repairs" equates to "I told Congress thanks but no thanks?" Also, she couldn't have "used the money for other repairs" if Congress hadn't previously released the money from the bridge project:
It seems the goalposts move quite freely. When she is claiming the teleprompter failed we must parse her languge very, very carefully using only taking the most exact literal meaning of the words quoted. When we are talking about this the Republican postmodernism switch turns on and spending pork suddenly turns into telling Congress to take their money and shove it!
Rob
That wasn't the claim in the comment I responded to. It was "people who could see it" said it was working. That is not the same thing; unless you have a strong motivation to do so, you're simply not going to watch that closely.
Perhaps someone out there knows about teleprompters but I really suspect that the operator can see the screen and adjust the pace accordingly. Wikipedia's entry on teleprompter's hints that you might be right about there being no person controlling the prompter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeleprompterIf the prompter was voice activated, then the odds of it failing are even less. More to the point more than a few people noted that Palin looked down at her papers. While she didn't say so, it is almost certain that those papers were a hard copy version of the speech making the claim she had to improv. even less likely.
Boonton: Then what the hell was she saying? The tech crew says the teleprompter was worked perfectly.
This is false. As noted in several places above, the teleprompter went ahead of her place in the speech.
She said she 'couldn't follow it'....she is not saying she had her speech perfectly memorized and didn't need the prompter...she is making a heroic claim...that the teleprompter was gone, she had to speak from the heart to the good people of Ohio!
No, I wrote above exactly what any fair-minded, non-Obama-shill would understand: we understand that she meant that when the teleprompter went ahead of where she was in her speech, she had to find a way to continue with her speech even without the use of the teleprompter until she caught up - and she did this by using the Ohio delegation to help focus on what she was saying.
I don't think it is too difficult to understand what happened and what she is saying. Unless you are an Obama shill committed to repeating the Obama theme of the day.
So, let's face it, Megan is simply repeating what the Obama campaign has directly or indirectly told its blogs to say. The Obama campaign has its theme, and all the good shills repeat exactly the theme of the day. (No, I'm not saying that Megan has direct contact with the Obama campaign. Rather, the Obama campaign has its theme, which is repeated by some shills, which then feeds the shill echo chamber, of which Megan is a part.)
Whoops - third paragraph above was also a quote from Boonton, and should have been italicized.
bobby b
Obviously, the message has gone out - hammer through repetition this new theme!
And, just like the "Bush lied!" theme - the lie about The Lie - gained MSM acceptance through simple repetition, this might well work, too.
It all depressingly reminds me of the Two Minute Hate.
Yes obviously it can't be because Palin or Bush have lied. It must be because Obama has some type of magical hyponotic beam that controls not only the entire MSM but blogs and even down to blog commentors as well! Maybe you can ask Palin to start complaining about a 'vast left wing conspiracy'! That will really work!
There's a unfortunate tendency in the blogosphere to parse verbal utterances that are (at least somewhat) extemporaneous and treat them like the finely honed prose of a legal brief. I don't think Palin was intending to persuade people that the teleprompter "went black," but that it wasn't any use to her. If the prompter is 3 sentences away from where you need to be, the prompter is of no use. And I also think she had her written copy of the speech in front of her, which is why you notice her looking down and shuffling the papers during the speech.
I thought Giuliani had the same problem during his speech, and I said so at the time. He was ad libbing some, but I think the prompter wasn't calibrated to the level of applause they were getting.
Perhaps someone out there knows about teleprompters but I really suspect that the operator can see the screen and adjust the pace accordingly.
I have never said otherwise. Understand "people who could see it" to mean reporters or audience members. Unless they were sent there to report on the teleprompter, they probably wouldn't have sat their for the whole speech trying to figure out if it was tracking her pace properly. Something might look fine if you glance at it every could of minutes, but be all out of whack if you're staring at it and depending on it.
On the other hand, maybe the reporters are so bored that they really do document minor technical glitches all day.
Wikipedia's entry on teleprompter's hints that you might be right about there being no person controlling the prompter
I have never said nobody was controlling it. I merely pointed out that the person who was controlling it--although hopefully attentive enough to know if it was matching her pace--it is not necessarily likely to come jumping forward to declare that he is really shitty at his job.
I really don't know what happened, and I don't see any actual reason to care, but the notion that some people say it was working doesn't mean a whole lot.
A1
any fair-minded, non-Obama-shill would understand: we understand that she meant that when the teleprompter went ahead of where she was in her speech, she had to find a way to continue with her speech even without the use of the teleprompter until she caught up - and she did this by using the Ohio delegation to help focus on what she was saying.
that's not what you quoted her saying.
Her quote from you:
"The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”
Speaking of shill, notice how this whole story about Palin just looking at the good people of Ohio as she refocused was totally made up by A1? She was clearly claiming that she had to go off speech because the teleprompter failed.
Was there a stage instruction in the teleprompted speech to the effect of: "Don't look at Ohio."
Maybe that's what got messed up.
War story: Years ago I was asked to give a speech to a business group, something I used to do regularly. The text of my remarks were in a three-ring binder that I took with me to the podium. My assistant, in the back of the room, ran the PowerPoint slides. About three pages into my remarks, a page of my text was blank. I glanced at the next page of text and looked at the monitor displaying my slides and kept going. I'm not sure anyone in the audience picked up on my momentary panic. No one asked me about it.
Question: Assume someone did ask me about why I momentarily paused. If I had replied, "The text of my speech was missing and I had to wing it", would I have been lying? I don't think so.
Why is Sarah Palin lying about having gone off teleprompter?
She isn't.
Boonton,
One might infer that she meant by "I just decided I'd just talk to the people in front of me" that she was "speaking from the heart" (a phrase you and Megan have now all but cited as a direct quote, incorrectly, by everything I have seen), but that inference is just that, an inference. Any unbiased person is going to not know with any confidence at all whether she meant she was ad libbing her speech at that point, or simply going on memory and focusing instead on the people directly in front of her while reciting from memory.
This "Palin is lying about her convention speech" has no basis in fact. Those that dislike her are guessing at best, and I think a pretty good case could be made that some of the commenters here are lying themselves- they are certainly taking broad liberties with the facts, including the hostess herself.
If I had replied, "The text of my speech was missing and I had to wing it", would I have been lying?
That depends. Were you looking at Ohio?
His convention speech is the worst example of lying and pandering in the history of the republic - "I'll tax the top 5% and give the bottom 95% prosperity and health care".
So, is truth telling the important thing or getting your uber-socialist elected?
Posted by Crusader | September 17, 2008 2:12 PM
a) is that really what he said? It sounds a little...abridged.
b) is it a lie? If that's really what his plan is, I don't see how it's a lie. If that's not what his plan is, how do you know?
c) how many other examples of lying and pandering have there been in the history of the republic? What is your basis for declaring Obama's convention speech the worst? Or are you perhaps speaking hyperbolically? Exaggerating? ...Lying?
It must be because Obama has some type of magical hyponotic beam that controls not only the entire MSM but blogs and even down to blog commentors as well!
That's just the cover story. Actually our instructions come via orbital lasers that beam commands directly into our brains. George Soros built a complex at an abandoned underground military facility he bought at surplus and launched the satellites housing the lasers (using Richard Branson's secret space launch facility). There is a spherical chamber in the basement of this facility with a workstation positioned at the exact center, on a bridge that extends out from the wall; access to the bridge is controlled by a vault door that can be locked from the workstation. Kos sits at this workstation and dons a special helmet that links his mind to the orbital satellites, which allow him to locate all liberals and translates his thoughts into commands we are forced to follow without question.
It's quite an achievement. It was financed partially by letting Hollywood use the prototype mockup as a set for some kind of comic-book movie.
Well, Megan, having read this thread (and being stupider for it, thanks to some of the commenters and their sand-pounding partisanship), it seems clear that the only reason you think Palin is "lying about having gone off teleprompter" is because you're relying on other people's paraphrases of her (or her party's) comments, and perhaps a misunderstanding of how a teleprompter can be "wrong" without having obviously failed (gone black, caught fire) to an observer.
So, the answer to "why is she lying...?" is "she isn't, by any available evidence, given her actual recorded words".
(Contra Boonton, that was not "A1's quote", but Jake Tapper of ABC - who while willing to entertain the idea that Palin was misrepresenting her actions, also doesn't conclude that she definitely was ... and quotes many people arguing quite reasonably that she wasn't.
Are we to assume that nobody can ever have their prompter lose sync and go off-speech "at points" - which is all the McCain campaign has ever claimed she did, except evidently in some claims from anonymous sources made by unnamed (by Tapper) bloggers - and if they do claim that, while other people saw that the prompter was being followed at other points, they must therefore be horrible liars?
Y'all sure as hell aren't convincing me to vote against their ticket with argumentation and logic with that.)
Another time to say: I don't like this kind of stuff. Seems very unlikely that any onlookers can know whether the teleprompter worked perfectly. She says she was having problems with it. Result: People who don't like Palin say she's lying. People who like her assume she's telling the truth. If we must discuss stupid issues, can't we stick to stupid issues where at least there's some data to work with?
Bridge to Nowhere stuff: Just the opposite. By now, it seems that the facts are fairly well established. You want to call what she did Killing the bridge? Be my guest. You want to say that what she did doesn't count, and she has no right to claim that she said, Thanks, but no thanks? Also, be my guest. But why do the rest of us have to waste our time? What is your point?
Obviously, all candidates want to present their cases in the most positive way possible. Let's save the term "lie" for something else.
It's quite an achievement. It was financed partially by letting Hollywood use the prototype mockup as a set for some kind of comic-book movie. -liberalrob
Do you mean like the styrofoam Greek pillars that ensconced Obama when he thundered his powerful acceptance speech to the adoring masses?
Did George Soros and the Hollywood moguls bankroll that little comic-book setup too?
From Palin's mouth we have a logical statement; cause and effect.
The teleprompter messed up.
I decided to speak to the people in front of me.
The cause was the teleprompter and the effect was 'just deciding to speak'. A normal understanding of English is that because the teleprompter failed, she decided to speak directly to Ohio. If she had the speech memorized, the failure of the prompter wouldn't cause her to 'just speak'. If she was 'refocusing' by looking at Ohio rather than fumbling papers or muttering 'uhhhhhh' the effect would have been 'looked' as in "the teleprompter messed up, I looked at Ohio" Or if you must sound poetic "I looked to Ohio"
Yancey
One might infer that she meant by "I just decided I'd just talk to the people in front of me" that she was "speaking from the heart" (a phrase you and Megan have now all but cited as a direct quote, incorrectly, by everything I have seen), but that inference is just that, an inference.
The problem here is the more basic inference that sentences are usually about cause and effect. The defense that is being built here seems rather slimy to me. It sounds like you're saying Palin took advantage of a reasonable inference the uninformed person might make from hearing her statement (she had to ad lib her speech after a telepromter failure) but crafted her words so that she had a technical loophole if anyone tried to call her on it (kind of like "depends on what the meaning of 'is' is..."...except everyone knows when you hear a statement like that you're hearing something whose intent is to cover up rather than enlighten).
Sigivald
(Contra Boonton, that was not "A1's quote", but Jake Tapper of ABC - who while willing to entertain the idea that Palin was misrepresenting her actions, also doesn't conclude that she definitely was ... and quotes many people arguing quite reasonably that she wasn't.
The direct quote was from Palin's lips, reported by Tapper then by A1. Tapper's article confirmed that many people who were at the convention covering Palin were stumped when they heard her make the quote in question. The meaning they took, upon first hearing it unfiltered and impulsively, was that she was claiming she ad libbed....not that she had looked to Ohio to refocus herself.
I think the Palin defenders here may have a 'reasonable linguistic doubt' but the statement was nontheless untrue. It's meaning was to assert she had to go off speech and speak from the heart hence countering the belief that she is just a mouthpiece
Boonton,
I have never used a teleprompter, but I imagine the art of using one is to read from it without seeming to read from it- in other words, you are focused on the teleprompter without seeming to be. I have seen good examples of this skill, and I have seen poor ones, but if you are using a teleprompter, I don't see how you could really be focusing on any particular person in the audience unless you were actually doing most of the speech from memory and using the teleprompter as an occasional guide.
However, I have given quite a few speeches and talks without prompters, but that I had memorized pretty much line for line, and a skill you do use in such recitations is to focus at different people and groups in your audience and give your talk as if you are talking to that person. I think the most reasonable interpretation of what Palin said is exactly that- she lost the thread on the prompter, and focusing on the people directly in front of her, rather than on the useless prompter (or even worse from a speechgiving perspective- the notes on the lectern or in her hands), helped her reengage her speech which she had memorized through repetition. The point is this- by focusing on the audience, she was disciplined from actually reading from her notes.
What is slimy are the paraphrases of her actual quotes being used to support the inference her detractors are only too happy to make.
Did George Soros and the Hollywood moguls bankroll that little comic-book setup too?
Posted by mcmill1599 | September 17, 2008 3:42 PM
I'll assume that's a rhetorical question...
having read this thread (and being stupider for it, thanks to some of the commenters and their sand-pounding partisanship)
Posted by Sigivald | September 17, 2008 3:30 PM
Sorry to have harshed your post-partisan mellow. What verse of "Kum-ba-ya" were we on again?
Right, a teleprompter is a heads-up display, allowing the speaker to look at the audience while retaining the ability to check the text by refocusing. A long time ago, some British journalist marveled at Reagan's ability to give a long speech from memory... You can see in over-the-shoulder shots that the device only shows about one sentence, so it's easy to see how an operator could get far enough out of synch to cause a problem.
It may also be worth pointing out that the most famous line in the speech was an ad lib.
liberalrob,
Since you still seem active on the thread let me go back to my post earlier in the day which you responded to by saying:
I must have missed the part about where Palin was the Republican nominee for President.
So. You a) concede Palin doesn't have enough experience to be President, because the claim is that Obama is no more experienced; b) concede Palin asked for some earmarks, something the nominal Republican Presidential candidate says he's vehemently against; c) concede that both Obama and Palin need teleprompters, because "needs least" still means "needs some." Heckuva job.
First, I never even implied Palin was running for President. That is why comparing Obama to the VP pick is so dumb.
Also I didn't concede anything by asking questions. But if you think experience is an important factor in your choice, the fact that Obama has far less than McCain is highlighted quite nicely by debating whether Obama has more than Palin.
Similarly, if you think earmarks are important, McCains lack of earmark requests is a lot better than Obamas asking for a billion dollars in just three years.
Who can better work without a teleprompter is of itself pretty pointless although Putin might object if you brought one to a summit. Still it fits the pattern of comparing Presidential candidate to Vice Presidential candidate. People may eventually conclude Obama is slightly better than the bottom of the Republican ticket. They may also wonder how he compares to the top of the ticket. Then the chickens come home to roost.
As to the bridge to nowhere that somehow got in this thread, before Palin was the VP pick, the Anchorage paper, Alaskan Democratic party, and NY Times all credited her with killing the bridge.
I think that there is something going on here and it's the creation of a "legend." Palin's major weakness is inexperience--that she, perhaps, lacks the horsepower to be 'leader of the free world.' On the other hand, her "brand" is that she's a can-do frontiers woman who's tough and able.
So the story of the broken teleprompter speaks to both of these (as someone noted above: it fired up her base to hear it).
I believe the tactic of creating a "legend"--a resonant story, regardless of truth, is what the McCain campaign is doing right now. I think this is behind the Blackberry story as well (although that is much more clumsy--actually being laughable).
Obama, notably, already has his larger-than-life "legend" persona. So it may be playing in that space. In short, the strategy is to say whatever it takes to reinforce a winning brand regardless of whether it is literally true or not.
-Marco
"But of course, if you are going to be a shill for Obama - as Megan is"
No, you're thinking of Sullivan. Megan McArdle is one of the most balanced bloggers I've seen to endorse Obama. She had the courage to say his acceptance speech was disappointing and to roll her eyes on his claims of ending oil dependence in ten years. She's also distanced herself from some of the more wacky hysteria about Palin.
The "shills for Obama" said "we must", not that we merely should, vote for Obama. Or that Palin is a secessionist theocrat who thinks the Earth is only 6,000 years old. (She supported Forbes in 2000 and although she opposes distributing contraception in school she is on record as favoring contraception be discreetly discussed in High Schools. I could be wrong, but I don't think that's where the theocrat world is at) She's just saying that she's kind of dishonest and proned to telling stories, which I think seems to be somewhat true. In Alaska this might be charming, and being from Arkansas I could appreciate a good BSer, but on a national stage it can be more annoying.
But if you think experience is an important factor in your choice, the fact that Obama has far less than McCain is highlighted quite nicely by debating whether Obama has more than Palin.
I do think experience is important, which is one reason why I voted for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the primaries. But in relation to McCain, I have to also ask about the quality of that experience: yes, McCain's been in public service much longer than Obama, but what has he done in that time? And when I look at McCain's long record of serving the interests of the powerful vs. Obama's short record of serving people who need help, suddenly McCain's vast experience doesn't seem so helpful to his case.
And Palin's record is even worse. Her record seems to be one of serving the interests of herself as much as of serving the powerful in Alaska. Plus she's a starry-eyed religious nut.
Similarly, if you think earmarks are important, McCains lack of earmark requests is a lot better than Obamas asking for a billion dollars in just three years.
I personally think earmarks are a red herring; many worthwhile programs and projects are financed with earmarks. McCain's boast that he would end all earmarks is just a throwaway applause line; in reality he would be forced to accept earmarks, because they will be in all the appropriations bills sent to his desk. He's not going to be able to veto them all, and he's not going to get a line-item veto, so it's just pleasing rhetoric that doesn't mean anything. What is important is highlighting that Palin and McCain have a philosophical difference on earmarks. She has asked for and benefited from them, he opposes them. What does that portend for how closely they are aligned on other issues? Cam Palin support McCain's line, or will this turn out just like GHWBush talking about "voodoo economics" in 1980 and then having to change his tune once in office?
Who can better work without a teleprompter is of itself pretty pointless
Agreed but it's not about that. It's about whether Palin lied/exaggerated/whatever so she could tell a pleasing tale about "speaking from the heart" and thus appearing all mavericky and unscripted. There have been many attempts to paint Obama as just another cynical politician willing to say or do anything to be elected; is doing the same with cute, wholesome, ballsy barracuda Palin somehow off-limits?
As to the bridge to nowhere that somehow got in this thread
We were challenged to name one thing Palin had conclusively lied about. That is how it got in here.
the Anchorage paper, Alaskan Democratic party, and NY Times all credited her with killing the bridge.
Yes, but she didn't tell Congress to stuff it. That's the important point. She's not lying about killing the bridge project (though she's flip-flopped on whether she ever supported it), she's lying about telling Congress to stuff their earmark. And that's what got her all that applause at the convention, and keeps getting applause even now.
I suppose it's no surprise. To this day there are people who believe that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, and for many years a majority of Americans believed it. People will believe anything if they want to believe it badly enough. And that's dangerous.
I swear, Palin Derrangement Syndrome has reared its ugly head on this blog. For those of us news junkies who follow everything, the news that Palin had troubles with her teleprompter broke immediately the day after the speech.
Specifically, the problem wasn't that the teleprompter broke -- it was that the teleprompter operator didn't account for Palin's pausing as she worked the crowd during her speech, so the teleprompter rolled merrily along. I noticed during her speech that rather than bobbing her head from left to right (there are two teleprompters), she often talked directly into the camera. Occasionally, she'd glance down - I don't know if she had some notes on her podium or not. She obviously had memorized large chunks of her speech, which is why she was so comfortable with taking time to connect with the crowd.
If you want to compare how someone has to run along with the teleprompter, go find Romney's speech. It seemed he could never stop to wait for the crowd's applause, had to keep rushing ahead. And the speech fell flat.
Finally, I love PDS suffers who make snide remarks about how "someone wrote her speech" and "she memorized it". Whereas these same people get dreamy-eyed and pop their corks talking about how wonderful Obama's speech was. Do you really, really think that any of these candidates write their own speeches? Maybe that's why Obama has started using a teleprompter for his "off the cuff" townhall meetings. Heh.
What Palin did was take a speech written by Matthew Scully (gasp! we know his name too - just google "scully palin speech") - and make it her own. And give Bush Derrangement Syndrome sufferers a new infection.
People will believe anything if they want to believe it badly enough. And that's dangerous.
Yes, like Obama's going to filibuster the FISA reform bill. Or Obama's going to accept public financing. Or Obama wants troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. Or Obama's going to renegotiate NAFTA. Or...
You're free to like and dislike whoever you want, but don't think honesty provides a good basis to support Obama.
In the last post you said
And I find it irritating when people who are harping on flaws in the opposition candidate that they would easily overlook in their own side demand that I join them in their fantasy world.
And now you do the exact same thing by accusing Palin of "lying!" (oh, the horror!), when she clearly isn't.
I dislike McCain, too, but I'm getting to the point where I hope he wins, just so the Palin-haters heads explode, like in "Scanners"...
And liberalrob, someone isn't lying when they contradict some claim that you've just made up.
For example, she she didn't say she told "Congress to stuff their earmark", she said that she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." This seems to be true.
(The article is from before she became the VP nominee and it's actually fairly balanced. It's worth a read if you're actually interested.)
Nor did she say she was "speaking from the heart", she said "The teleprompter got messed up, I couldn’t follow it, and I just decided I’d just talk to the people in front of me. It was Ohio.”
Now, I agree that (both) campaigns engage in spin. Palin hasn't been 100% opposed to earmarks, and if you aren't listening closely you could get that impression. It's perfectly reasonable to push back against the spin, but the only one actually lying here is you.
Megan is usually quite good, but she apparently has some animosity toward Palin. First, she said that Palin was a "moron" in her interviewe by Gibson before Megan even saw the interview. Now, she calls the teleprompter mess up a lie without any real factual support.
So, now that we have read the actual statement and beaten it silly, we can clearly see that there is absolutely no basis on which to conclude that Sarah Palin lied. So is it reasonable to think that suggesting that she is a compulsive liar based entirely on this little story is a bit over the line? More than a bit?
I distinctly remember the 2004 Conservative Party of Canada leadership convention. The Friday night speeches, the last that the three candidates would make, and Belinda Stronach is up. She starts her speech with a big production about how she didn't want to give a prepared speech, and so she threw away her speech notes, with cue cards flying all over the stage, and spoke from the heart. Now, unlike many in the audience, I'd gone to see her a couple times before(as I did with the others), and so I knew immediately that "her heart" had written the speech she must have used 200 times previously.
But the sheer absurdity of the spectacle didn't really kick in until she was in the middle of her speech, and in the middle of a line that I remembered from having heard it twice, she quite visibly forgot the second half of her joke, and looked down at her palmed cue cards. She'd been checking them during applause breaks.
Now, Stronach was a worthless twit from day one, and I'm not surprised that she flubbed it that badly for a speech that big. But her campaign was run by the best backroom talent money could buy, and they thought it was a good plan. I make fun of her campaign manager sometimes(long story), but he's not enough of a fool to realize that people wouldn't see through it immediately, and he still went for it. Apparently he thought the media slamming its transparent phoniness was worth it for the appearance of sincerity on the part of the candidate in the minds of those who don't know better. And apparently Palin's handlers felt the same way. I won't say that it was a good decision, but I will say that if two campaigns that far apart can both use the same strategy, there has to be some merit there.
Now if you want to ask a real question, why didn't they bother to write her a new speech for this? Have some movable blocks, change the rhetoric a little, include a couple minor (and ever-changing) mistakes to give it a more genuine feel. And for the love of god, follow through on the pretense and don't distribute copies. I've never written a speech for anything bigger than a Student Council position, and I could have done a better job of the mechanics of this than the people running the fourth-biggest campaign in the world. That is the depressing part.
George says:
"One of the sillier anti-Obama themes
Have you SEEN him without the teleprompter? Man can't string a complete sentence together without one, which is why he started taking it to rallies.
Hope he remembers to bring it to his tea with Achmadinejad..."
George, yes, I've seen him without a teleprompter. I've seen him speak well without one, and I've seen him also have trouble. My interpretation has generally been that there's a big difference between the days where he is tired and days when he is "on". I don't hold that against him. On his "on" days he sounds great.
My point wasn't that he doesn't sometimes have trouble without a teleprompter. He obviously does. My point was that I think it is silly to infer that he's a lightweight because of it.
For some examples, go watch his various TV interviews. Charlie Rose, Chris Wallace, Bill O'Reily, etc. Most of them are on youtube. He's obviously speaking extemporaneously, without teleprompters, in those interviews, and he comes off well, IMHO. (despite O'Riely's constant interuptions).
Alsadius,
But that simply assumes that the whole thing was a political ploy to begin with, a supposition with no real factual basis. Indeed, if it were a ploy, they certainly would have arranged it far better than this.
I don't doubt for a single second that they highlight this because it makes Palin look cool under fire, but she had been criticized for just delivering a speech by reading a teleprompter, so I don't really blame them for it.
I'm impressed with the ability of the Obama propaganda machine (surrogates, supporters and media shills) to indocrinate so many with their "McCain/Palin are liars" meme.
Almost every statement by McCain and Palin is scrutinized, dissected and subjected to personal interpretation for signs of a big bad lie. (Notice how it's always characterized as a "lie." McCain and Palin never misspeak. McCain and Palin never have bad information. McCain and Palin are never misquoted. McCain and Palin are never simply, behaving like typical politicians. Noo!!! They are clearly duplicitious, pathological liars running the "sleaziest campaign in history!")
Interesting how no one in the media applies these same standards to Senator Obama. (I'll ignore Senator Biden because he has a well documented history of plagarism and elaboration. Odd how the media has white washed THAT past, eh?)
How about Senator Obama's attempts to minimize his relationship with Ayers ("some guy in my neighborhood") and Rezko ("I billed him 5 hours")? How about his recent assertion that he wrote the stimilus package? How about the way he parses and distorts Senator McCain's statements for political benefit (e.g. "economic fundamentals are strong". "we'll just muddle through in Afghanistan", "$5 million equals middle class", "100 years in Iraq")? How about the questionable ads Senator Obama has run against HIS opponents (e.g., Senator from Punjab, McCain is tied to Abramoff, McCain is responsible for job losses associated with DHL, the recent Spanish language ad that accuses McCain of being a racist double talker, etc.)?
It's truly remarkable that the Obama Campaign has been able to convince so many people that McCain and Palin are pathological liars based on behavior that Obama (not to mention Biden) has engaged in himself.
Good job Axelrod and Plouffe! The end justifies the means, right? I know that's what many on Daily Kos think (not to mention the inimitable Andrew Sullivan).
On the other hand, Lily, they just may be right, i.e. McCain and Palin do tell lies, lots of them.
The evidence certainly supports that view.
Cheers,
Megan is usually quite good, but she apparently has some animosity toward Palin.
It's clearly personal. A while back, during the immigration debate, Megan accused me of calling her a "heartless bitch with an empty womb" (paraphrasing). I did nothing of the kind, of course, but clearly it's a big sticking point with her. Palin gets to have a loving husband, five kids, and maybe the Vice Presidency; Megan gets to have...a weblog. It's so not fair!
Apropos of nothing: Just Googling for it, I think the quote might actually be from Egyptian President Gamal Nasser. A Google Books hit has it as, "the genius of you Americans ... is that you never make clearcut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves that make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something we are missing."
(Which is slightly less witty, sadly.)
Lily
Almost every statement by McCain and Palin is scrutinized, dissected and subjected to personal interpretation for signs of a big bad lie. (Notice how it's always characterized as a "lie." McCain and Palin never misspeak. McCain and Palin never have bad information. McCain and Palin are never misquoted. McCain and Palin are never simply, behaving like typical politicians. Noo!!! They are clearly duplicitious, pathological liars running the "sleaziest campaign in history!")
McCain and Palin have been caught in a lot of lies and when they do make false statements that might simply be mistakes (like claiming Alaska produces 20% of the US's energy) they continue to repeat them long after they have been corrected indicating that they don't really care about even making a show of trying to tell the truth.
Then again it might simply be the magical Obama mind control beam that is able to dictate what newspapers, bloggers, and commentators think (so powerful it even has ensared Karl Rove over at Fox News!)....as Stewie would say "Victory is Mine!"
The scary thing about the story is that it shows how entirely removed the entire McCain enterprise is now from actual facts. They're making up things wholesale and they don't care a bit. They're perfectly happy to repeat lies about their own candidates (lying about Palin's actual support for the Bridge to Nowhere earmark, calling a bipartisan investigation by the Alaska legislature a partisan witchhunt, etc etc). And they repeat lies about their opponent (nonsense about sex ed; lying about Obama's tax plan, etc.)
In short, this election shows that McCain and his cronies have decided that the facts just don't matter. We've already seen where that leads us. (Where are those weapons of mass destruction...?) Willful ignorance of actual facts is what allowed Bush to lead us into an unnecessary war, increase our budget deficit, and ruin our economy. (Not to mention the smaller failures along the way, like putting an incompetent political hack in charge of FEMA.) Lord knows the democrats will have their own follies -- but if nothing else, we need Obama as a course correction to the last eight years of fact-free rule and garbage-in-garbage-out decisionmaking.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/12/palin_admits_backing_earmarks.html:
Palin decried the abuse of the earmark process at first, pledging to join McCain in his campaign against earmarks. But Gibson pressed her hard to get her to concede that she backed the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," linking tiny Ketchikan to tiny Gravina Island.
She finally gave in.
"What I supported was a link between a community and its airport," she said.
So here's the question, why did she supposedly oppose the 'bridge to nowhere'? It either made sense to build the bridge or it didn't.
The critics were jumping on the bridge because to them it symbolized a wasteful use of taxpayer funds; millions of dollars to build a bridge for a few thousand people who already had ferry service. Palin now seems to be saying that assessment was correct. But if its a waste to spend so much on a bridge then it is a waste. It doesn't become less wasteful if Alaskan taxpayers build it instead of US taxpayers.
The now infamous photo of Palin with the 'nowhere' shirt indicates she took the opposite position before the bridge became a national mockery. She was telling the people of the town they weren't living in 'nowhere', they deserved the bridge & those out of touch politicians in DC were being mean to them by making a fuss out of it.
So here's the question, why did she supposedly oppose the 'bridge to nowhere'? It either made sense to build the bridge or it didn't.
The facts that I've found is that her initial support was fairly mild. The quote I heard from some gubernatorial debate about the bridge was "I'm not going to stand in their way". Upon taking office, she called for a review of all proposed infrastructure projects, and the review found the Bridge to Nowhere was going cost roughly double the initial projection. Given the new projection, the earmark was insufficient to cover its costs.
Somewhere in this time period, the Bridge became a national symbol and at the federal level the language directing the spending was stripped, although the actual appropriation wasn't. Since the spending was no longer mandated, she canceled the Bridge project and retargeted the appropriation towards the higher priority items on the revised list of projects.
And even after canceling the Bridge, she didn't say no to any bridge, just not one that expensive and that it would have to wait until higher priority projects were finished and funds became available.
I actually find the truth to be more compelling than the spin the McCain campaign is putting on it. She really does seem to have governed pragmatically. Government needs to provide infrastructure, there's a limited amount of dollars, lets spend them in the most important places. Some projects that made sense at $X don't make sense at $2X, so lets kill it. This is the kind of thing that too often doesn't happen with government projects (see The Big Dig.)
And liberalrob, someone isn't lying when they contradict some claim that you've just made up.
For example, she she didn't say she told "Congress to stuff their earmark"
I didn't make up anything. It's all on the public record. Palin lies about telling Congress "thanks but no thanks" for the earmark for the bridge. (That's what I mean by "telling Congress to stuff their earmark;" apparently you are not familiar with the concept of paraphrasing.) It's a pleasing, self-aggrandizing tale that is completely false. It would be like if Al Gore really had said that he actually created the Internet. Patently false.
Somewhere in this time period, the Bridge became a national symbol and at the federal level the language directing the spending was stripped, although the actual appropriation wasn't.
This happened in 2005, before Palin became governor.
Since the spending was no longer mandated, she canceled the Bridge project and retargeted the appropriation towards the higher priority items on the revised list of projects.
This was in 2007. And at no time did she ever tell the Congress, "thanks but no thanks." Which is what she is lying about.
This was in 2007. And at no time did she ever tell the Congress, "thanks but no thanks."
Alaska received an appropriation from Congress for the Bridge To Nowhere, but without a mandate that that money be spent on the Bridge. She did not use it for the Bridge. As a colloquialism, "I told the Congress "thanks, but no thanks," for that Bridge to Nowhere." seems largely accurate
Contrast that with what she could have done: Start construction of the bridge and then go back to Congress for more money for completion. Surely we can agree that that would have been worse. I think we can also agree that's not uncommon (see again, The Big Dig).
Look, if you're complaining about the spin, fine. It is being spun. Like I said, I think it's being spun unnecessarily, because (IMO) the truth is better politics. But her statement is simply not a lie. At the time it happened, everyone (Alaskan Democrats, the NY Times, Ted Stevens) agreed that she was responsible for killing the Bridge. It's only now that anyone has even thought to question it.
But as long as were being upset by distortions and spin, can you spare a little outrage for Obama's latest TV ad - the race-bating one that even ABC News describes as having "crossed a line into misleading the viewers". Or are you only concerned with honesty when someone has an (R) after their name?
From this thread, I have learned that, if a page of my music drops off the lectern and I keep on singing by focusing on someone and continuing by memory, there is no way to speak truthfully about it. Also, I am boasting as well as lying if I mention such an occurrence.
You know, it's amazing how well Karl Rove can control people. He twitches his hand, the silly people bitch and moan about some perfectly common experience or expression being evil and a lie, and everybody else feels sympathetic for poor targeted Sarah. Pretty soon, there will be an insult or complaint to draw in every single person in the world. And Obama will plead that his supporters and defenders move to McCain-Palin, in a last ditch move to get them insulting him and thus giving him a chance to be elected. :)
One of the sillier anti-Obama themes out there on the internet (and talk radio) is that Obama can't speak well without a teleprompter, and is thus an empty suit.
Well, Obama is just an empty suit, and he does screw up pretty regularly when he goes off teleprompter. I'm not voting for him, and it's still painful for me to watch him do it.
And, as a previous commenter noted, Obama's started bringing the Teleprompter along on campaign stops. SO clearly his campaign thinks he needs it.
Pathological embellishment and lying is one of the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). They exaggerate or lie to attract attention.
I have only known 1 person who was certified NPD. Based on what I have seen so far, I don't think Sarah Palin has it. But she is a pathological liar. That is now certain.
The evangelical right is blood thirsty. They never see a war that they don’t like. They will vote for McCain who is an admitted serial adulterer. I haven’t heard them condemn the pregnancy of unmarried, 17 year old Bristol Palin.
How they distort the Christian message! Jesus was a peace maker and cautioned repeatedly about the sins of fornication and adultery.
And the “faith”based initiative--giving our taxes to preachers--isn’t that unconstitutional?
In this day and age, the pressure from activist Evangelical organizations has become so strong that it can rightfully be compared to the pressure of imams in Iran prior to the Islamic Revolution in that country. The worrisome parallels abound. Both groups share the same level of conviction in the righteousness and un-doubtful rightfulness of their causes. Both groups claim non-intermittent divine guidance in matters large and small, as well as their own special role in discovering the special purpose of their countries and, subsequently, leading their countries down that "yellow brick road" of divine providence. They are also united in their disregard of incompetence when the theological standards are met - witness the second election of George W. Bush and the rapid rise to fame of the dark horse Palin based on a single verifiable commitment to so-called Evangelical values.
Finally, this brings me to another distinguishing trait of these people, which is perfectly aligned with their world view, with their understanding of the human interactions, with their own vision of the history of humankind, and with their concept of decision making as an instantaneous flash of some miraculous idea in their divinely inspired minds - the urge for immediate judgment. If the whole world somehow appears in black and white, a rational individual will not have a problem distinguishing between the two shades. The truth is that the world has all kinds shades of black and white, not to mention the colors of the rainbow and the infinite combinations of them. The same sky will look different on any given day depending on the season, weather, time, and , nowadays, the amount of pollutant particles in the air.
This brings me to the hot topic of the day - the mother of all bailouts. The U.S. Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, supported by the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and the U.S. President George W. Bush, requests that he has an immunity from prosecution for the shortcomings of the bailout solution that he is going to implement. All the while the solution itself has so many gaping holes that even the classically inept Congress seems to have come up with a better plan. Meanwhile, the presidential hopeful John McCain, who have claimed not so long ago not to know much about economics, is accusing his competitor, Senator Obama, of the lack of leadership skills based solely on the fact that Obama needs to reflect and to consult the team of top-notch economic advisors before rendering judgment.
We are facing the second most dangerous moment in the history of the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. The idiotic rush to come up with a solution in one day is not going to work! This is not another movie about an asteroid falling on Earth. A cowboy with a nuclear explosive is not going to save the day. A bunch of bookish looking economists with bow-ties and the contemplative politicians used to looking at nuances of their decisions, devoid of confidence in their own divine inspiration and infused with a bit more of (traditionally Christian) humility would be a better A-team.