Monday, February 20, 2012

Jaw-dropping ignorance

McCain would “continue to have an open dialogue” with the queen of England on the subject [of Britain’s waning support for the war in Iraq].

That’s how Sarah Palin reportedly responded to a Steve Schmidt question during an issues coaching session during the 2008 campaign, according to a Saturday L.A. Times story on HBO’s Game Change movie. It is sure to spread like wildfire across the internet today. The Politico segment on Morning Joe mentioned it this morning (though I don’t see a post about it yet at 7:30 a.m. Central time). John Heilemann, a co-author of the book on which the adaptation is based, was on the Joe Show panel and defended the book’s reporting, calling the work a historical account.

The astonishing addition to the Encyclopedia Palinignorata already is being tweeted at a fair clip. When another MSNBC show mentions it, the tale will get tweeted more often, then another MSNBC show will notice the net buzz and mention it again, because ... that’s how this works.

The incident is one of a few new tidbits about Palin that will be revealed in the movie that were not reported in the Halperin-Heilemann book, according to the Times story. Schmidt confirmed the veracity in an interview. He had to explain to Palin that Great Britain’s prime minister heads the government.

Why will this be a big deal today? 1) It fits a pattern (which is different from a spun-up narrative). 2) We’re dumbfounded to conceive of the idea that the governor of a state would not know something we knew in junior high, if not grade school. Why won’t it matter to many of Palin’s staunchest fans? They may share the same knowledge gaps—and some of them are proud of it.

(You’ll have to forgive my obsession with Palin; I’m writing some fiction that includes a character something like her, and the preoccupation sometimes seeps up to the public surface as I puzzle through how to draw the character.)