THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 29, 2009
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In P.G. Wodehouse's finest novel, The Code of the Woosters, there appears the following insight:
She was trying to give the boyfriend a build-up, and, like all girls, was overdoing it. I've noticed the same thing in young wives, when they are trying to kid you that young Herbert or George or whatever the name may be has hidden depths which the vapid and irreflective observer might overlook...
I remember Mrs. Bingo Little once telling me, shortly after their marriage, that Bingo said poetic things to her about sunsets--his best friends being perfectly well aware, of course, that the old egg never noticed a sunset in his life, and that, if he did by a fluke ever happen to do so, the only thing he would say about it would be that it reminded him of a slice of roast beef, cooked just right.
In other words, when someone wants to fool you, he or she will often try too hard. Here, then, is Rick Santorum (talking to National Review) on Sarah Palin:
“Sarah has jumped onto the scene and has been hammered by the mainstream media. This is an opportunity for her to show a more thoughtful side. She has a gift for prose. Hopefully that comes across.”
11 comments
If she has such a gift, then why the hell did she hire someone to write "Going Rogue"? Or is the decision to hire a writer yet another example of her outside-the-box, "goin' rogue" way of doing things.
- csmiller
September 29, 2009 at 3:34pm
Technically, gag gifts do count as gifts.
- adaglas
September 29, 2009 at 3:35pm
How exactly does her "gift of prose" "come across"? Either her writing will be good (and I, for one, think she's a shoo-in for a Pulitzer), in which case we will admire it, or it will be terrible. But nothing will "come across," except for the lurking presence of a ghost writer.
- drdannyu
September 29, 2009 at 3:49pm
Don't ask what I had to do to get them but here are excerpts from Sarah Palin's diary on the campaign trail: "Bristol asked me to explain the difference between "then" and "than". 'Their both the same', I told her. Now I'm not so sure they is." "All the editors at The Weakly Standard are giving me really creepy looks. Did I wink wrong again?" "Does Katie Couric no that Alaska has more illiterates per capitol than all the other states nearly put together?" "How can I...how may I?....use David Letterman to score political points with all the hockey ceiling fans??" "Jesus Christ and I have more in common then being sex objects. But what is they?" "Why do the McCain people keep sending me dictionaries? There really starting to piss me off." "When did Africa stop becoming incontinent? Ain't that something only the U.N. can do?" "Everytime I bear my sole now, nothing comes out." "I wonder if Eliza Doolittle had it this bad in The Sound Of Music?" "It's not fare that I got blamed for the close. I'll I ever wanted to bee was Elly May Clampett." gw
- iambiguous
September 29, 2009 at 4:01pm
DrDan, good to see you around again! I've missed the distinct aura of lobster tail and quackery around this place.
- adaglas
September 29, 2009 at 4:30pm
Santorum is considered a discredited brain donor, even in his own party. Maybe he meant the "gift of clothes."
- WandreyCer
September 29, 2009 at 4:31pm
people, people, she was a journalism major. I am sure it will be right up there with "the education of Henry Adams." I can almost guarantee there won't be a single original, insightful, or interesting thing in the whole book (ok, ok maybe if she admits to having gone through a lesbian phase in college, in which case the book should have been called "gone fishing.")
- blackton
September 29, 2009 at 5:08pm
On what is the assertion that she has a gift for prose based? Coming up with the red-button phrase like "palling around with terrorists" (if indeed that was hers) doesn't quite count as composing an extended text, and normally we don't list governors' budget addresses very high up in American literary history. The only presidential or v-p candidate in 2008 who had a genuine gift for prose is Barack Obama. In fact, contrary to Santorum's puffery, Palin's general jumping on to the scene and her getting "hammered" by the media had a lot more to do with her interest in reading (apparently zero) than her "gift" for writing.
- ironyroad
September 29, 2009 at 5:14pm
Bingo may have been a bit on the dull and shallow side but compared to Palin or Santorum (two Roderick Spodes for sure), he was a whiz kid. I shudder to even imagine what kinds of brutal assaults upon the English language La Palin has in store for us with her "book". Palin's continued celebrity - and the right's slavering need to see her - has everything to do with the right wing's desperate attempt to find something even remotely approaching a "leader" to hang their hopes on. I continue to get on bended knee and pray everyday that the GOP nominates this pendeja in 2012. It has been a long time since the last Democratic blowout, 1964 to be precise and before that, 1936. Palin would get us pretty close to those years, I am sure.
- MrCookie1
September 29, 2009 at 6:00pm
Actually, op-eds and books might be just the ticket for Sarah to sell her i..., er, id..., unmnh, wares. Some of the poorest-writing music and theater critics, for example, can prepare a satisfactory, even entertaining, feature article. It's the deadline thing. That's why her extemp sounds so loopy. Perhaps she simply suffers from mal-thinking-on-feet syndrome. That shouldn't bar her from high office, though.
- Tgossard
September 29, 2009 at 8:21pm
I would think that "thinking on your feet" is a quality you would want in a candidate for high office.
- zardoz67
September 30, 2009 at 12:38pm