Thursday, September 11, 2008 - Posts
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The quest to prove that Sarah Palin is underqualified to be vice president has met with an equal and opposite campaign to prove that she’s the smartest, kindest, shrewdest, ballsiest, most caring, experienced, saintly woman in the history of the Western world. (And anyone who says otherwise hates women.)
So we’ve decided to inaugurate the “Sarah Palin Hyperbole Watch,” a running log of the most exaggerated praise for John McCain’s running mate. Don’t get us wrong: Sarah Palin is an impressive woman. But is she really the world’s leading expert in carbon sequestration?
Our first installment comes from John McCain himself, in an interview with a local TV station in Portland, Maine (video here):
“She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”
T. Boone Pickens, Al Gore, ExxonMobil Chairman Rex Tillerson, and the entire leadership of the Department of Energy could not be reached for comment.
That was the day after Fred Thompson, speaking at a McCain-Palin rally in Fairfax, Va., said she was “the most remarkable success story in American politics.” If success is defined as “getting picked against all odds to run on John McCain’s ticket,” then, yes, Fred Thompson is correct.
But neither of those exaggerations beats columnist Larry Kudlow’s claim today that Palin is responsible for moving the commodities markets:
Even the financial pages are looking better. Oil is about to drop under $100 a barrel. Gold is plunging. And the greenback continues to rally in true King Dollar fashion. Is there a Sarah Palin effect here, too?
There is, but it’s not what Kudlow thinks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted the day after Palin’s speech in St. Paul, Minn. The Dow is still down about 300 points since McCain announced his pick.
Readers, feel free to submit other examples of Sarah Palin’s stratospheric qualifications. No claim too exaggerated!
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