Cognitive Dissonance - Mid Week Short: Sarah Palin

Episode Date: October 6, 2011

This is a very acerbic look at the failed political career of Sarah Palin. In celebration of her refusal to run for office in 2012 we have pasted together some of our favorite past news items that focus on her. These recordings are from our other show - Everyone's a Critic.

You decided it's a no. Why? Decided it's a no, Greta, because after prayerful consideration and a lot of discussion with the family, I concluded that I believe I can be an effective voice and a real decisive role in helping get true public servants elected to office, not just in the presidency, but we have 33 Senate seats coming up. We have a House of Representatives that we need to strengthen in numbers, conservatives who understand that our country has got to get back on the right track economically here, and governors' seats around the nation. I believe I can be an effective voice for some positive change in these positions. And I apologize to those whom are disappointed in this decision.

I've been hearing from them in the last couple of hours, but I believe that they, when they take a step back, will understand why the decision was made and understand that really you don't need a title to make a difference in this country. I think that I'm proof of that, and we together united can surely help as a team get this country back on the right track by making sure that Barack Obama is not reelected and making sure that Senate seats go to constitutionalists and the House of

Representatives is strengthened with more conservatives. be advised that this show is not for children the faint of heart or the easily offended the explicit tag is there for a reason Hi, everybody. This is Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance. This is a midweek, small, short episode of Cognitive Dissonance using some material that we've already recorded. On all the news wires now, the big news is that Sarah Palin is not running for the 2012 elections. She came out and made an announcement. And so in a way, this is an episode of mourning. Tom and I really feel like she is one of the better people to talk about, especially when it comes to politics and thinking thoughts and that sort of thing.

So I went through our old shows on Everyone's a Critic and pulled out three of the best pieces of tape we have on Sarah Palin, and I'm going to play these for you now. We're not going to have this chance to use this material really, I guess, for a long time. So we thought we'd use it today. So I hope you enjoy this. And if you like what you're hearing, you know, you can always go back and listen to the old Everyone's a Critic episodes, everyone'sacritic.org. The first clip comes from our episode where we reviewed the movie Seven.

It was published on October 7th, 2008. You know, we talked last time about Palin, about her entry into the race, and, you know, we were both, Tom, I think, on the same page, where we said, you know, it was a pretty good choice by him. She's making all these moves, and she's doing doing these speeches and she's getting a lot of crowds. And, you know, she was doing pretty well there for a little while. Yeah, I mean, her time in the sun was like a week.

Until somebody nailed her down and asked her to say a few things that weren't pre-prepared. Well, that's because it turns out that when she ad-libs, she's fucking crazy. Crazy, crazy, cuckoo crazy, nutty, goofy, stupid crazy. Yeah. When I first heard about her, I think I mentioned on the show that I thought it was like a gift from McCain to Obama, sort of like, hey, buddy, I want you to win too.

Here's what I'll do. I'm going to go for Palin as the VP. And then I thought, no, no, no. You know, I mean, she's a nutty cuckoo fundamentalist nut job. So clearly that was a good political move. And now I'm back to, like, this is gift wrapping shit for Obama. No kidding. Now, you've got to have that attitude now, especially after the Couric interview. Oh my

God. It would be literally impossible to do a crazier sounding interview and not end up institutionalized upon its completion than the interview that she did with Katie Couric. Like,

it's a fucking miracle nobody showed up with tranquilizers halfway through it and escorted her away. I mean, like, oh, we'll get out the real Palin. Like, this woman was clearly a crazy imposter who, like, escaped. No, I mean, like, nothing

she says makes any sense. I heard Bill Maher say something like if Biden said this, they would think he's retarded. heard Bill Maher say something like, if Biden said this, they would think he's retarded. There is some great, great moments in that interview, right? The best part, of course, is when Couric asks her about the bailout. So I want to play you a piece of tape where Couric asks her about the bailout, the $700 billion bailout. Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families

who are struggling with health care, housing, gas, and groceries? Allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess. That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in, where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.

It's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation, this bailout is a part of that.

Okay, so now we've heard how fucking crazy that shit was. It was just like a string of words sort of in the right place. Like almost like she learned to speak English by watching television, you know? It's like a random word generator. Like just like put in like – it's like Mad Libs the VP, you know? It's like – and I will need the – no, no. Health reform. And I – you know, like what the's like, and I will need the, uh, noun, noun, health reform. And, you know, like, what the fuck? Are you serious?

You're waiting for her to say something like, yes, what we need is sandwich. So, uh, so let's contrast. Let's do a little contrast here with Miss Teen South Carolina. with Miss Teen South Carolina. Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is? I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps. And I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and Iraq,

everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S. or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future for our children. Thank you very much, South Carolina. See, now that's, this I think conclusively shows what happens when you give a beauty pageant contestant a mic yeah no kidding right beauty queen beauty oh my god seriously like that shit is the fucking dumbest string of shit ever put together and cafferty that uh there's a guy by the name of Cafferty, he does this Cafferty file on Blitzer's show.

And I put up a video on our site, so go take a look at it. And it's Cafferty basically blowing her out of the water, saying it was the most pathetic piece of tape he'd seen in a long time. And that this is a terrifying concept that somebody this dim is going to be possibly the highest ranked official in our country. Right, I love the way he phrases it. She's just a 72 year old's heartbeat away. Isn't that awesome? From being the president of the United States. And like, you know, to give you another wonderful example is when Couric asked her about how she gets her worldview, like what newspapers she reads. Yeah. Let me play that clip.

And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world? I've read most of them, again, with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. What ones specifically? I'm curious. with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. What ones specifically? I'm curious. All of them, any of them that have been in front of me over all these years. Any name of them? I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.

Alaska isn't a foreign country where it's kind of suggested. It seems like, wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C. may be thinking and doing when you live up there in Alaska? Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America. Right. Okay. So, well, that helped all of them. So she's reading the fucking Herald Tribune and fucking Joliet, right? She's like, what does the Joliet paper have to say about me? What does the Morris Herald have to say about me? Come on.

She's open. She's so exhausted by the end of the day. She's like, oh my God, I gotta read more papers. Why do we have 50 states? Oh my God, all these little communities. Like, hey, hot tub for sale. Oh God, I'm so tired. You don't read any newspapers. You can't even name one, you dipshit. And is she reading, like, the gay papers that are, like, on the, you know, the north side of Chicago? Like, man for man or something, you know? Advertisements for the manhole. Like, come on.

Like, she's not reading all that. Man-seeking group. What's going on down there? Yeah, like, streetwise. street wise oh god i'm so tired by the time she gets to the onion it's all over oh man i would love to see sarah palin holding up a p like an issue of streetwise that would be friggin hilarious the shit that she says when she is not when she doesn't have something in front of her is absolutely ridiculous. It's like something you would expect out of a high school student.

It's worse. And the thing is, like, she keeps going back to this, like this idea, this favored notion that she has, that she's sort of being persecuted for being like a lay person, you know, like in that in that piece with the newspaper, she she alludes to it and then she says it a little later on in a different interview after she's sort of taken a task a little bit for the Couric debacle. You know, and she says, you know, like, I'm up in Alaska. It's not a foreign country, you know, like, well, no one's suggesting that it's a foreign country, Palin. What we're suggesting is that you're a fucking moron. Yeah. That's what we're suggesting.

The reason people are upset isn't because you seem real folksy. Like, that's not why everybody's worked up. They're not worked up because you seem folksy. They're worked up because you seem retarded like your baby. That's the meanest thing you've ever said. I can't believe I said that. Oh, man. No, she...

The funny thing is that her baby is returned. No, but she also talks about in one of the interviews she calls herself like Jane Sixpack, right? Like I saw something mentioned about that. She makes $250,000 a year.

In Alaska where the cost of living is like a caribou. $250,000 a year and she's just an everyday working folk. She's got like a yacht and a plane and a... Come on. Right. Well, she sold her plane on eBay, but then it didn't sell. So then they had to sell it to the normal channels. But she's very proud of putting her plane up on eBay. See, the thing is

what they did was they created a mythology of a character. They didn't give us Sarah Palin, right? They gave us a mythology of a character rather than giving her, you know, giving us her, showing us who she was. They made this character up, this character who is, you know, this no frills, hump it in Alaska, shoot a fucking moose and, you know, drag it to, you know, five miles and skin it with your fucking teeth. You know what I mean? Like that sort of pull yourself up by your bootstraps woman who, you know,

said no to the, to the bridge to nowhere, even though she said yes to the bridge to nowhere. And then she, you know, they make up this mythology about her selling her plan on eBay and she never really actually sold her plane on eBay. Like they made up this mythology to show us this, this character of a person. Why don't you show us the real person? Were you

that embarrassed of the real person? Well, they clearly they must have been. And if they weren't, they are now fucking a they are. Holy shit. Like, but, you know, honestly, like that's something the Republicans are. I mean, they they play chess better than we do. Like, let's just put that out there. They play chess a lot better than the good guys. The Republicans are amazing, genuinely amazing at creating a reality that does not have any relationship whatsoever with the world that the rest of us live in, right? I mean, this is, and they'll just repeat the same shit over and over again. And even if it's wrong, they just continue to repeat it until their constituency starts to believe it. And this is just another great example. Like she's going to make $250,000 a year and try to come off as an everyman, right?

And then McCain in the debate says something to the effect of, you know, I think a lot of Americans would like to take issue with Obama's definition of wealthy. Well, Obama's defining wealthy as people who make more than $200,000 a year. And Obama said as much. Fucking define wealthy the same way. Like, I think the problem is that they have such a genuine disconnect from regular folks that they see somebody like scraping by on a mere quarter million dollars a year and like that's their everyman like that's your everyman well george bush was their other everyman right right exactly the guy who used to own a professional sports team was their other everyman? I don't know about you, Tom,

but I don't happen to have a sports team ownership on my fucking resume. I can't even buy a sports-related shirt. Are you kidding me? I'm in the housing industry, for God's sake. I'm lucky if I get a baseball cap,

much less a baseball team. That's just ridiculous. But, you know, their Palin's going to be arguing with Biden tomorrow night. So we get a chance to see what that's going to look like. Well, now, let's be really fair because Biden is hardly gaffe-free. No, kidding. I mean, the thing where he said about FDR coming on television, and then they try to cover that shit up like, oh, well, FDR did come on. Like, shut the fuck up.

Just say it was stupid. No, why don't they just say, like, you know, why doesn't somebody just come up and say, like when criticized, say, look, I talk for a living. I say a lot of stupid things because I'm always saying something. Yeah. So it was a goofy thing to say, but my point still stands. Yeah. And everybody would just sort of let it go because you'd have no more talking point after that.

But everybody has to defend everything that they say or said or meant to say, like to the point of nausea. I know, like that Pallant thing. Why not just come out to Couric and be like, look, what I'm saying is I made a mistake and said that it was going to help my my me being president. I just use that as a way to show that I am an executor and that somebody else isn't, you know, just say something like that. Right. Instead, you've got to try to back it up and be like, oh, well, you know, really, I really can't see Russia from my house. Like, what the fuck? I reach out my dining room window and punch Putin right in the eye. Did you see?

I mean, the fucking Saturday Night Live people are having a field day with this because Tina Faye looks just like her and talks just like her and is hilarious. And one of the things where she talks about the Russians coming into Alaska and she says, well, it's every Alaskan's job to get up in the morning and look out their window and if they see any Russians, they're supposed to go outside and be like, hey, what are you doing here? And then if they don't have a good answer, we just say, hey, shoo. That's fucking awesome.

I am just selling magazines. I am here to sell you a bride. Oh, I like that one of Tina Fey's comments was that she hopes she only has to do this character for another two months. Oh, that is an awesome comment. That is awesome. The second clip here comes from our Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince episode published Sunday, the 14th of February, 2010. Well, this story has been bouncing around the intertubes for a few days. came out recently and had written on her hand some key notes during a Q&A session about sort of what the current policies are and what she wants to talk about. Sort of the

talking point she wanted to touch on, I think, when she was at this Q&A session after it was at a teabagger convention. So like they paid her like a million dollars to talk or whatever. All these idiots donated a bunch of money. They're not willing to pay in taxes. And then she sat there and, I don't know, just fucking talked, did some fancy pageant walking. I don't know. She sat down, and then she had some shit on her hand,

and it was like, you know, the three things on there were like budget cuts, and they like crossed out budget or something, put tax. And then one of the things on there was like, like lift American spirits or something. And I have two comments for this real quick before, before I let you go here, Tom. I don't know why I, it's like, it's like a caged animal. I can tell you're ready to go, but I just have two quick points. I want to point out. The first is it's a Q caged animal. I can tell. I love this story so much. You're ready to go. But I just have two quick points I want to point out. The first is, it's a Q&A session. You know what I use to answer questions?

My brain. If somebody asks me something, I go, huh, let me think about your question. I seem to have found an answer in my brain. Okay, that's how i answer a question and then secondly you have to write lift american spirits on your hand what did you forget that you need to do that like what you're just like you know what i want you what am i supposed to do again i need milk eggs and oh i gotta lift american spirits too this woman gets better and better every i love how she doesn't go away like i love that she won't go away because she just keeps presenting herself as just like a target it's like she's like she's

like the robin to my batman around in bright colored clothes so people can shoot at her it's this woman is fucking phenomenal i love her. I would have this woman over for dinner anytime. Anytime. She is welcome in my home. What a fucking moron this person is. I love that she's at a teabag convention, right? And the whole thing is about taxes. And she had to write tax cuts on it.

What are you? I read this great, there was this great comment on one of these articles. It says, like, the pastor coming up to give a sermon in church and writing Jesus on his hand. Yeah. Did you forget why you were here? Right. That is the purpose of your showing up? Lift American spirits?

Like, couldn't you have just written lift spirits? Yeah. Like, what, is she going to get confused about whose spirits? Lift spirits. So I have to steal whiskey? What does this mean? I don't know what to do. This is just phenomenal, this woman.

And who writes on their hand? Who really does that? I have been a better cheater since seventh grade. I have been more adept at hiding things. You know, like, oh, man, I've got to buy a graphing calculator and put my notes in as a programmer. Like, what are you? Yeah. Are you three years old?

You're on TV. Nobody's going to notice. Oh, my. And then when she checks her hand, it's like the most obvious thing ever. Oh, I know. She just looks down at her hand. I think she thinks that people wouldn't even mind. Right.

I think she thinks like, oh, don't all the presidents write like scribble on their hands? Like I can see her like, who's going to be her vice president? She's going to be like, hey, turn around. I got to write a note. And like starts writing a note on his back. Like this woman is crazy. It's, look, you're not in high school anymore. Could you imagine, Tom, if she was our vice president and she's like brokering peace in the Mideast and she's sitting with like all these people and she's got written on her hand like Gaza, Jews and Muslims.

She's just sitting there and they're like, what do you have on your hand? Oh, I don't have nothing on my hand, don't you know? No, you have something on your hand. There's something sitting there and they're like what do you have on your hand oh I don't have nothing on my hand don't you know no you have something on your hand there's something written there what did you write she gets all nervous she gets nervous the ink starts to smear she says the wrong thing it's like fucking Armageddon

I see you all like yo gabba gabba you know your little I see you all like, yo, gaba gaba. You know, your little just folks fucking schmaltzy attitude is not going to play in international politics. This is a woman who admits she admits this is a quote that she sure as heck better be more astute. Oh, yeah. Don't you think so? Don't I know?

God, you better be a little more astute if you want to lead the country. And there's a lot of people too that are sort of like, there's people defending her basically saying like, like, look, man, she just, you know, she just did this thing. What's the big deal? And you're like, well, this is a woman who's passing herself off as a thinker,

as somebody who's saying, I have thought about these issues. I have these issues that I've been, I've been, you know, sort of processing in my brain. And here is my spin on these issues. But it turns out, you know, you don't have enough processing power up there. Like, you do not have Intel inside, lady. But you can't remember three things.

Right. My phone number has seven digits. Right, right. Like, are you kidding me? Three? You're supposed to be able to remember seven things. Right. My phone number has seven digits. Right, right. Like, are you kidding me? Three? You're supposed to be able to remember seven things pretty easily. Seven plus or minus two. It's like the magic number for memory, right?

She's down to three, guys. And is concerned she's not going to remember the one of them. Tax cuts. Yeah. That is the reason you're there. Yeah, at a teabagging convention. Are you kidding me? Does this woman cash her own checks?

Like, can she feed herself? Oh, my God. Does she change her own diaper? It's unbelievable. The last clip we have for you is from our mannequin episode, which was published on Thursday, March 4th, 2010. Thursday, March 4th, 2010. Sarah Palin recently,

she's a fucking winner this one. Let me play a clip from the Glenn Beck show or whatever, that douchebag. There's a clip from his show where he, Katie Couric's her. That's why we gotta stop looking and stop taking from the

barrel and start picking from the tree. Who's your favorite founder? You know, well, all of them because they came collectively together with so much diverse opinion and so much diversity in terms of belief, but collectively they came together to form this union. No, and they were led by of course george washington so he's got to rise to the top washington was the consummate statesman he served he returned power to the people he didn't want to be a king he returned power to the people then he went back to mount vernon he went back to his farm like it's almost

like she looked in her wallet to like okay who's i need somebody on a bill fuck that's a five that's lincoln that can't be right who else what do i do hamilton was he the president i can't remember oh my god i don't know what to do washington here's a dollar bill george washington is george washington oh man look if you can't hit it out of the park as a conservative when you're on the glenn beck show right are you yahoo fucking serious yeah no kidding it's like if obama shows up and is getting interviewed on msnbc you know like rachel manow and obama interview you know like are you kidding me and tom what kind of fucking hard-hitting question is what is your favorite what is your favorite color what is your favorite? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?

What is your favorite movie? Like, if you don't have a fucking stock answer for what your favorite is, it's not a fucking hard question, okay? It's not a hard question. I could ask my fucking three-year-old fucking nephew what his favorite fucking truck is, and he could be like, that's my favorite truck.

It's not a fucking hard question. It's a fucking, it's an opinion like, you know what I mean? Come on. It's opinion light is what it is. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, this is diet opinion light. That's what this is.

This is ridiculous. Glenn Beck's not even answering. And then even he, like he throws her a softball. She fucking weakly taps it back to him, and it's bullcrap. Yeah. When Glenn Beck is telling you as a conservative that your answer is bullcrap, it is because you are so full of shit. All of them. That was the same answer you gave Katie Couric when she asked how many newspapers or which newspapers you read.

Oh, I just read them all. That is not an answer. Right. Okay, it's not all of just read them all that is not an answer right okay it's not all of them all of them is not an answer all of them is not a favorite you can't have like what's your favorite ice cream all the ice creams all the ice creams but there's actually an infinite variety of flavor combinations all of the ice you that's not even an answer, you fool. Right. And then she just like babbles on like, and here's some other facts I remember about George Washington.

Something about a Potomac. Well, what did you tell me earlier? Here's some other facts. He didn't sign two of the major documents that made us a nation. He was the leader. Yeah, the leader. I love the idea of the leader of the Founding Fathers. He was like the Papa Smurf of the...

God, what the fuck? Was he a band leader? Did he have a baton? He's like marching them down the fucking road in their fucking knee socks. Like Thomas Jefferson like looks over at him at one point. He's like, well, George, what do you think? I don't think so.

Oh, God. You got to love this woman, seriously, though. Here she is on the Katie Couric show or Good Morning, whatever the fuck, and she gets baffled by a question of like, what newspaper do you read? And then here, Glenn Beck won't take all of them as an answer. Like, sorry, there is no fucking D all of them as an answer. Like, sorry, there is no fucking D all of the above. So give me something else. And she fumble fucks around. Here's a note, conservatives. I'm going to give you guys a fucking note you should put in your playbook. Just script her fucking interviews from now on. She's on your show. You are promoting her.

You're not fucking hard hitting journalism. You're not trying to stump this woman. You're not even doing any. You're not even. It's not that you're trying to stump her or not trying to stump her. You just want to promote her. If you want to promote her, just script her interviews, for Christ's sakes. Just tell her what you're going to ask and make her write it down, whether on her hand or on a piece of paper, wherever. whether on her hand or on a piece of paper, wherever, but just make the woman write it down. So as always, thanks for listening to Cognitive Dissonance. We're going to have another episode out for you early next week,

and we look forward to getting any kind of feedback from the audience. So please send us your emails. Give us a call. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to Cognitive Dissonance. If you want to reach us by phone, you can call us at 740-743-6828. That's 740-74-DOUBT.

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