Palin's "Straight Talk"

Blogger Anil Dash has an interesting post about Sarah Palin and the linguistic choices she makes. I think it is fair to say the choices are hers, because her run-on sentences and semi-coherent ramblings can't possibly be the work of any speechwriter who is on the Republican payroll.

…I don't usually write about politics here; I leave the ugliness to those who seem to revel in it. But I think a lot about language, usually in a more lighthearted context like talking about yo mama jokes or lolcats. What's striking to me this election season, though, is that Sarah Palin has chosen to abuse her command of language so obviously without suffering any serious criticism for it thus far.

The crux of the issue is simple:

1. Sarah Palin has unequivocally associated Barack Obama with the idea of terrorism and specifically with "terrorists".
2. Republican President George Bush has defined in our National Security Strategy, and the Republican Party's platform affirms, that we may identify and strike at terrorists before they have committed any defined acts of aggression against American citizens.
3. George Bush has made clear, by stating before a joint session of Congress that "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
4. Palin has used deliberate choice of language to avoid these connections being highlighted by the media, while increasing the likelihood that the target audience for her message will be incited by her statements.

Through these arguments, it becomes clear that Sarah Palin's assertions are designed not to prove that Obama is unqualified for the office of the Presidency of the United States. Rather, she appears to be attempting to convince a substantial portion of her supporters that Obama supports terrorism against the United States and thus should be, at the very least, incarcerated as an enemy combatant (which we are doing to American citizens already) or at worst, assassinated for supporting terror…

Dash makes some interesting points and he gives Palin credit for being intelligent enough to know exactly what she is doing, which is something too many Democrats have failed to do.

What I find fascinating about this election cycle is this: take anything Sarah Palin has said about Obama, and change her name to Joe Biden and Obama's to McCain, then try to imagine that the so-called liberal press wouldn't be taken to task by the biggest fascist mouths around. You'll spot them easily — they are the ones who call themselves conservatives, aka real Americans. You know, the multi-millionaire elitists who claim they are not elitists.