Oh God Sarah Palin

I know it was several news cycles ago and thus ancient history but I just cannot let Sarah Palin’s endorsement of Donald Trump go unremarked. Do yourself a favor and read a transcript because it’s full of gems. Palin’s speech was the Gettysburg Address of drunk stroke victims. They should carve it in a shaky font on the side of some blighted building and then implode the building.

Oh God, I just … I don’t even know where to begin making fun of this. Sarah Palin had to be drunk. She had to be. Either that or she was powering through some kind of neurological emergency. She sounded just that out of it on stage. For example:

Looking around at all of you, you hard-working Iowa families. You farm families, and teachers, and teamsters, and cops, and cooks. You rock 'n’ rollers. And holy rollers! All of you who work so hard. You full-time moms. You with the hands that rock the cradle. You all make the world go round, and now our cause is one.

It was nice of her to give a shout-out to Rebecca DeMornay. Here’s Palin talkin’ about Obama’s skills at governin’:

And he, who would negotiate, deals kind of with the skills of a community organizer maybe organizing a neighborhood tea, well, he deciding that, ‘No, America would apologize as part of the deal,’ as the enemy sends a message to the rest of the world that they capture and we kowtow, and we apologize, and then, we bend over and say, ‘Thank you, enemy.’

Can you imagine this woman trying to negotiate with world leaders on the phone or in person? Nixon was plowed half the time but he could still put together a coherent sentence. Here’s Palin singing Trump’s praises:

He is from the private sector — not a politician. Can I get a ‘Hallelujah!’ Where, in the private sector, you actually have to balance budgets in order to prioritize, to keep the main thing, the main thing. And he knows the main thing: a president is to keep us safe economically and militarily. He knows the main thing, and he knows how to lead the charge.

I actually thought you didn’t have to balance budgets in the private sector, which is why Trump has declared bankruptcy several times. But I guess that’s the Lamestream Media talking, trying to bring down the candidate who is able to keep “the main thing, the main thing.” She continues:

Well, and then, funny, ha ha, not funny, but now, what they’re doing is wailing, ‘well, Trump and uh, uh, his Trumpeters, they’re not conservative enough.’

… What?

How ‘bout the rest of us? Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religions, and our Constitution. Tell us that we’re not red enough? Yeah, coming from the establishment. Right.

This was Palin responding to candidate Obama’s remarks that people become bitter and cling to guns and religion. The remarks were unfortunate but for someone who is trying to puncture that caricature of conservatives, I’ve found that Palin always comes off as extremely bitter.

Well, he being the only one who’s been willing, he’s got the guts to wear the issues that need to be spoken about and debate on his sleeve, where the rest of some of these establishment candidates, they just wanted to duck and hide. They didn’t want to talk about these issue til he brought ‘em up. In fact, they’ve been wearing this political correctness kind of like a suicide vest.

That’s because many of Trump’s positions come right from an email chain forward from your family members who have nothing better to do. That’s why no serious presidential candidate talked about those hordes of turban-wearin’ Messican terrorists before: Because these are substance-free positions designed to get a rise out of people who fear the Other.

This election is more than just your basic ABCs — anybody but Clinton. It’s more than that this go-around. When we’re talking about a nation without borders, when we’re talking about bankruptcies in our federal government, debt that our children and our grandchildren, they’ll never be able to pay off. When we’re talking about no more Reaganesque power that comes from strength. Power through strength. Well, then, we’re talking about our very existence, so no, we’re not going to chill. In fact it’s time to drill, baby, drill down, and hold these folks accountable.

Those are a lot of incomplete sentences. “When we’re talking about …” should end with another clause. She’s trying to make a rhetorical flourish but it just takes too long to get there. The thing is, you actually can write these speeches down ahead of time. You can actually prepare and make sure it makes sense. Palin sounds like she just got the assignment 10 minutes ago and it doesn’t come across any better when you watch the speech. I rehearsed more for my brother’s wedding toast, and that wasn’t nationally televised, you know what I mean?

Oh, I just hope you all get to know him more and more as a person, and a family man. What he’s been able to accomplish, with his um, it’s kind of this quiet generosity. Yeah, maybe his largess, kind of, I don’t know, some would say gets in the way of that quiet generosity, and, uh, his compassion, but if you know him as a person and you’ll get to know him more and more, you’ll have even more respect.

Well, that’s a ringing endorsement: “… and, uh, his compassion.” I’d be extremely flattered if anyone tentatively stammered that about me. Also, I don’t think Palin knows what “largess” means.

It was really funny to see Trump’s pained grimace during this speech. It can’t have been easy but someone actually managed to embarrass Donald Trump.

There are two things I take away from this political endorsement. First, why do we care who Sarah Palin supports for president? She was a vice presidential candidate who lost, then quit her governor job when it got hard, then had a reality show. She is a walking footnote. Second, anybody who makes fun of Obama for needing a teleprompter (as Palin does) should take heed: this tire fire of a speech is what you get when you don’t use a teleprompter or any preparation whatsoever.