Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin photo credit: edalisse

John McWhorter explains Palinspeak is and why it isn’t a disqualifying trait to Palin’s loyal supporters.

Yet Palinspeak still differs from statements like Brownback’s in degree. It’s a rather extreme case — an almost instructive distillation of the difference in public conceptions of language in Charles Eaton and Robert Byrd’s time versus our own. “Folksy” is only the beginning of it — “You betcha,” -in for -ing, and “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” during her debate with Joseph Biden indeed make her sound accessible, ordinary, unpretentious. This, however, is America as a whole, and no one should be shocked that a public figure would strike this note. “You betcha” hits the same chord in Palin’s fans as the equally folksy — and close to meaningless — “Yes, We Can” intoned in a preacherly “black” way did when a certain someone else was saying it. Folksy is America; it always has been, but is especially so now.

What truly distinguishes Palin’s speech is its utter subjectivity: that is, she speaks very much from the inside of her head, as someone watching the issues from a considerable distance. The there fetish, for instance — Palin frequently displaces statements with an appended “there,” as in “We realize that more and more Americans are starting to see the light there…” But where? Why the distancing gesture? At another time, she referred to Condoleezza Rice trying to “forge that peace.” That peace? You mean that peace way over there — as opposed to the peace that you as Vice-President would have been responsible for forging? She’s far, far away from that peace.

All of us use there and that in this way in casual speech — it’s a way of placing topics as separate from us on a kind of abstract “desktop” that the conversation encompasses. “The people in accounting down there think they can just ….” But Palin, doing this even when speaking to the whole nation, is no further outside of her head than we are when talking about what’s going on at work over a beer. The issues, American people, you name it, are “there” — in other words, not in her head 24/7. She hasn’t given them much thought before; they are not her. They’re that, over there.

[...]

Palinspeak is a flashlight panning over thoughts, rather than thoughts given light via considered expression. It bears mentioning that short sentences and a casual tone can still convey information and planned thought.

via What Does Palinspeak Mean? | The New Republic.

DaveNoon at Lawyers, Guns and Money is blogging Palin’s new memoir “Going Rogue” and it doesn’t disappoint.

The funniest sentence thus far in Going Rogue occurs about a third of the way through the second chapter when our heroine — speaking through the Palinese translator Lynn Vincent — declares that “life is too short to hold a grudge.” This is a warm piece of advice that Sarah Palin predictably spends much of her time ignoring as she recounts her contentious early years in local and state politics. Few pages are allowed to turn without our deposed governor reminding us of the bêtes noires who interfered with her efforts to bring “common-sense conservatism” — a phrase she’s been loading into the wingnut beer bong for the past few days — to the people of Wasilla and, soon enough, their fellow Alaskans. As Palin revealed in her first chapter, the first “big word” she learned how to spell was “different.” And because different people are sometimes scary — perhaps not President Black Man Terrorist scary, but scary in that ordinary, non-Negro way — Palin knows that she’ll have to deal with resistance along the road to glory.

via Lawyers, Guns and Money: Going Rogue, Chapter 2.

Palin appears to feel that anyone who even seeks to verify her previous statements is a menace, driven by the desire to trap her into some snobbery powered iron maiden. Palin not only must but is entitled to say anything to escape. There is no mess to clean up once she uses nonsense, lies or babble to evade a seemingly benign debate moderator, interviewer or pool reporter.  The courtesy to atone for gaffes or lies would be wasted upon nefarious, unprincipled people who want to see her fail.

One must agree with Palin’s correctness or risk  being included in her list of menaces who function to destroy her. A person is not safe from reproach even after Palin decides they are agreeable enough. News stories are littered with former friends, aides and subordinates attempting to defend themselves from Palin’s negative characterizations. To the general voter, there is no useful policy she can hold because there is no public principle that is fluid and abstract enough to coincide with unchallengeable definitions of logic or fairness. To agree with Palin is an approval of politics for the sake of the politician.

Now you tell us:

Former Gov. Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” blames her first legislative director for moves early in her term that helped poison her relationship with state lawmakers. But the ex-aide, John Bitney, calls Palin’s account a fabrication and said he wishes his former boss would leave him alone.

via Portrayal in Palin book irritates former aide: Former Gov. Sarah Palin | adn.com.

We are still lucky Democrats didn’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, because none of these folks, save Shannyn Moore and Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, were saying anything about how empty and dishonest Palin was in October 2008.