Just the occasion I needed for this quote that I noticed earlier today. Obama on "60 Minutes":

We've gotta come up with solutions that are true to our times and true to this moment. And that's gonna be our job. I think the basic principle that government has a role to play in kick starting an economy that has ground to a halt is sound.

I think our basic principle that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've gotta hold to as well. But what I don't wanna do is get bottled up in a lot of ideology and is this conservative or liberal. My interest is finding something that works.

And whether it's coming from FDR or it's coming from Ronald Reagan, if the idea is right for the times then we're gonna apply it. And things that don't work we're gonna get rid of.

Obviously, "60 Minutes" is a hotbed of anti-liberalism, if not racism, since they're clearly conveying a negative judgment about Obama.

[EV notes: The commenter is quoting what seems to be a Time correspondent's own transcription of the 60 Minutes interview. Here's what the transcript on Nexis looks like:

We've got to come up with solutions that are true to our times and true to this moment. And that's going to be our job. I think the basic principle that government has a role to play in kickstarting an economy that has ground to a halt is sound. I think our basic principle, that this is a free market system and that that has worked for us, that it creates an innovation and risk taking, I think that's a principle that we've got to hold to as well.

But what I don't want to do is get bottled up in a lot of ideology and, you know, is this conservative or liberal? My interest is finding something that works. And whether it's coming from FDR or it's coming from Ronald Reagan, if the idea is right for the times then we're going to apply it. And things that don't work we're going to get rid of them.

End of EV note.]

It has amazed me how unwilling Palin's critics are to recognize the difference between spoken and written English. The pauses and accented phrasing that serve for punctuation in spoken words don't show up in transcripts. Those transcripts in turn lend themselves to mocking by the usual array of former high school literary magazine types making fun of football players.

I don't care a whit that Palin said "gonna" or "gotta," nor that someone transcribed her as using those terms. Also, as someone who actually watched Palin's various interviews and colloquies, I submit that rather than losing something in the transcription, Palin's nonsensical, extemporaneous responses actually gain comprehensibility after having been written down. It was incredibly hard to parse and diagram those convoluted tirades "live," without having the written word to rely upon and scrutinize. And that's to say nothing of the abject senselessness of the "substance" of what she said in those instances.

Calvin Coolidge was fluent in classical Greek and Latin, and could read Dante's Inferno in Medieval Italian. It was said "He can remain silent in five languages." Obviously, today that's what we need in a national leader to inspire us.

Having grown up on the south shore of Boston, I am not at all bothered by Palin's regional peculiarities of syntax. The only thing about her speech I find remarkable is that her response often has nothing to do with the question that was asked, and I can't attribute the yawning disparity to normal political waffling.

I wonder why 'preview' is provided for this blog. Critics of Palin's syntax obviously don't need it.

Anyone who has ever had their deposition taken knows what its like to read what we actually said, rather than what we thought we said. Sentences which, to the speaker, seem coherent, often are not when reduced to writing.

If Gov. Palin were as clueless as her attackers portray her, they would disregard her completely, because she wouldn't be any kind of a political threat to them.

Instead, we can smell their fear and loathing -- proof positive that liberals are frightened to death of Sarah Palin [that's OK, they're frightened of the military, too, and guns, and free speech]. They just can't shut up about her, and continually engage in ambush politics over anything and everything she says.

Just so everyone understands how lame the baseless attacks on Sarah Palin are, listen to this.

If you can listen to the whole thing, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din. [While you're at it, feel free to insert punctuation.]

wfjag:
Calvin Coolidge was fluent in classical Greek and Latin, and could read Dante's Inferno in Medieval Italian. It was said "He can remain silent in five languages." Obviously, today that's what we need in a national leader to inspire us.

No. It's 'global world' now, wfjag. Global. World.

Global world.

We need a president who can be silent in many more languages than that.

Does any of this really matter? I just want to see the change the liberal illuminati promised us in Obama. I don't care about his syntax and on car even less about Palin's I think all these issues with Pallin are going to be a fleeting issues soon enough. She isn't going to have a political future anyway. I think the media had kinda squashed that. We'll see.

If Gov. Palin were as clueless as her attackers portray her, they would disregard her completely, because she wouldn't be any kind of a political threat to them.

Instead, we can smell their fear and loathing -- proof positive that liberals are frightened to death of Sarah Palin

Sorry, Smokey, but I think most liberals can't stop paying attention to Palin in the same way it's hard to look away from a car wreck on the highway. No liberal I've talked to is "frightened to death of Sarah Palin" in the sense of being worried about her as a political opponent. ("Frightened to death" at the prospect that she might, riding on McCain's coattails, have become VP was another matter.) My guess is that if liberals got to vote on the Republicans' 2012 presidential candidate it would be Palin in a landslide.

Ok, Anderson, but what about Smokey the Bear?

Ok, Anderson, but what about Smokey the Bear?

I've never seen him and Smokey the Commenter in the same room, let's just leave it at that.

Also, if she can modify her accent a bit, as Bill Clinton did, she'll be good to go.

And if not, the Coen brothers are always looking for new talent.

Allan:

"Verbiage."

Instead, we can smell their fear and loathing -- proof positive that liberals are frightened to death of Sarah Palin [that's OK, they're frightened of the military, too, and guns, and free speech]. They just can't shut up about her, and continually engage in ambush politics over anything and everything she says.


Two weeks after the election, every time I go to places where lots of lefties hang out-- both mainstreamish places like the New York Times or Salon or Boston.com, or the wacko netroots sites-- I can count on seeing a Palin article in the top ten for "most e-mailed" or "most commented".

And reading through the comments, there is invariably a "Two Minutes' Hate" extravaganza, page after page after page, in which said liberals vie to see who can denounce Gov. Palin in the most insulting terms.

The more genteel sites that claim to moderate their comments are nonetheless full of rank sexism that would never be allowed if applied to a Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama. The less-policed boards use the most grossly offensive, dehumanizing language I have ever seen addressed to a politician in my entire life. Not Nixon, nor Reagan, nor either of the Clintons, nor even George Bush got such vicious denunciation.

I think what is happening is that these are people who live their lives in a smog of paranoid political correctness. Nothing else in their daily interactions with others is as important as avoiding giving offense to someone who might be able to claim protected minority status. Slagging George Bush meets with their peers' approval, of course, but it's getting old. And it still doesn't scratch that old caveman itch to give vent to the most coarse and primitive kind of tribalist hatred for the Other. For all his Texan folksiness, everyone knows Bush is a Northeastern moderate at heart, and not really so different from those who condemn him.

But now along comes Sarah Palin, a real daughter of the pioneer West. She is totally unlike the people in the big cities of the coasts. For the first time in their lives, the urban rabbit-people can freely scream CUNT, BITCH, WHORE, with pats on the back from every other bien-pensant lefty they know. In what other context would they ever feel comfortable enough to sneeringly order an accomplished career woman to return to her kitchen and children and menial submission to a white-trash husband? What a catharsis it must be for that kind of person.

At its root, I agree it is a manifestation of fear. If she was really the useless moron they portray, she would have been forgotten three days after the election. Can you imagine anyone mentioning Biden today if his ticket had lost? But they are obsessed with her.

They well remember that week or so after her speech when Obama fell precipitously behind in the polls. They fear her, and they hate what they fear. They are like savages around a campfire, endlessly repeating legends of the mighty warrior they once fought but did not vanquish, as they strut and prance and beat their chests while cursing him and all his tribe.

Sarah is an unpolished autodidact, a politician-savant plucked from unprepared obscurity, who came close to beating the chosen candidate of the entire Establishment. Fighting the headwinds of an unpopular war, an unpopular President of her own party, an economic catastrophe that raised the specter of another Depression, and an underfunded stumblebum at the top of her ticket, she nonetheless drew vast crowds at every stop and almost pulled off the victory. If she had only convinced 6% of the women who voted against her to change their minds, they would have won.

You lefties are correct to fear her. She will be hitting the books and traveling and talking to the press for the next four years. She'll be raising mountains of cash for her PAC. She'll be working with public-speaking coaches for the first time in her life. She'll be schmoozing the housewives of America on daytime TV. And she'll be governing Alaska well, getting stuff done instead of just talking about it. When she runs again, everyone will notice the difference. She'll be a formidable candidate. You betcha!

John Skookum,

Brilliant satire! Bravo!

"Aks" is a perfectly acceptable pronunciation of the word."

OK. Is it perfectly acceptable to transcribe it as such if the frequency of usage is highly skewed towards blacks?

Imagine the crazed, red-faced screaming, arm-waving and hyperventilating that would emanate from liberal hypocrites if Palin, rather than Biden, had publicly stated that "FDR" explained the start of the Depression to Americans on television.

But Joe the Dumber gets an absolutely free pass for ignorantly confusing FDR with Hoover, and for telling us that TV was in commercial use in 1932. And he gets a pass for more than twenty years of theft and lying. Because plagiarism is stealing someone else's intellectual property, and the lying is when Biden passed it off as his own. Some hero you've got there.

See, Angus, it's not satire. You only wish. Far from satire, John S tells it exactly like it is -- and you can't take the truth. Today's liberals are the most hypocritical, projectionist bunch of cowardly clowns in U.S. history. Venomous hatred for a woman is A-OK, as long as she's not a liberal.

Your comment is a perfect example showing why liberals are hypocrites: you don't walk the walk -- you only talk the talk.

Would it be OK to transcribe blacks saying "aks" rather than "ask?"

The term for that practice is "eye dialect." Generally, eye dialect is discouraged because it can become very tough to read. Also, if you are using it solely to disparage the speaker, readers can view it as a form of ad hominem attack.

So, is it OK? Depends on why you're doing it and what your readers expect of you.

Jiffy,

"David Warner: Maybe I'm not grown up enough to understand your point. If it is that it "sucks for the country" that someone like Sarah Palin can plausibly be a major party's presidential nominee, I'll agree with you."

Then WTF are you advocating voting for just that for? Limbaugh envy? Can you do no better than that? Can not our country? We've got bigger fish to fry these days than your petty political opponents.

It's like the UAW obsessing on their own management when it's Hyundai and Toyota cleaning their clock.