Can someone diagram this Palin word-salad, er, I mean, sentence?

[Big Orange Jeff]

In response to Glenn Beck's question, "Where do you stand on the Fed?" Palin responded:

"That -- it's so ironic there too, especially that you bring up this private-sector company, Exxon, because in Alaska we saw what was going on with Exxon, and we did have our own hearings on what was going on with this private-sector company and how could the state of Alaska adjust some things to make sure that there was a share of the resource -- yet you're right. Nobody has even lifted a finger to go that route with the Fed. And it's a scary thing -- it's one of those things that we're thankful for, Glenn, that you're bringing this to light. And I don't know anybody else who is, certainly nobody else who has a platform or the megaphone like you do."

Can any of the intellectual elitists - you know, non-idiots - diagram this, um, sentence?

[Cleita]

1. Well, you can send it to Sister Mary Sadistica, if she's still alive. She loved

keeping bad children after school for punishment with this kind of "grammatical exercise".

[blondeatlast]

55. LOL'ing! And I love diagramming sentences--but my ten foot pole is in the shop,

so I won't be touching that one!

[leftstreet]

2. In order to decode it we'd have to play it backward n/t

[Contrary1]

18. Paul is dead?

:shrug:

[roguevalley]

20. lord, she is so dumb

[sudopod]

61. Only if the walrus is dead to you.

Why'd you throw him under the bus? :)

[DaveinJapan]

3. That's what she does when she doesn't understand the question.

She obviously has no bloody idea what "the Fed" is, or does.

[old mark]

33. OK, but she doesn't understand the question about 98% of the time! nt

[Warpy]

4. If anyone I could, I'd probably worry about him.

Seriously, this is just babbling.

Do you guys remember many years ago, there was a famous cartoon,"what you say" and "what your dog hears?"

Well, what Gidget said was the word salad above. What her fans here is, "bzzbzzbzz private sector bzzbzzbzz share of the resource bzzbzzbzz scary bzzbzzbzz thankful bzz Glenn bzzbzzbzz platform.

They only have to pick out words here and there and they think she's saying exactly what they think and that she's the only one out there who can possibly say what they're thinking.

They don't know it's word salad because they're listening for only one or two words at a time, best said as part of catch phrases they've heard on their AM radios.

[suffragette]

26. Far Side cartoon

Love Gary Larson


And your comparison is spot on.

[Lasher]

27. I was a Farside junkie.

I still have a bunch of Farside Gallery books.

[Warpy]

71. Thanks, I thought it was

but I was in the middle of baking my weekly bread and didn't look it up.

Another one I refer to all the time is the one looking over the psychiatrist's shoulder and onto his notepad, "Just plain nuts." Comes in handy when confronted by right wingers.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

5. !

:wtf: :crazy:

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Frank Schaeffer has commented on Sarah's Fox gig

here: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7643 It's kind of hair-raising.

The unconnected dots of Alaska's superstar and rightwing evangelical/fundamentalist victimhood for politics and profit...
Guest blogged by Frank Schaeffer

Do you want to understand Sarah Palin's attraction to the born-again Republican/Fox crowd? Then you have to "get" the apocalyptic fantasy world they live in. I know. It's where I once lived.

Palin comes from that world of hysterical paranoid delusion. It's her attraction to the people who like her. God has "raised her up for such a time as this" they believe. It is why Fox "News" just hired her as another one of their fair and balanced commentators.

Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series of sixteen novels (so far!) represents everything that is most deranged about Palin's religion, and understanding why those books are popular is the key to "getting" the Palin Fox "News" deal...


The Left Behind novels represent the fundamentalist end times view that Palin buys into. They have sold tens of millions of copies while spawning an "End Times" cult, or rather egging it on. Such products as Left Behind wall paper, screen savers, children's books, and video games have become part of the ubiquitous American background noise.

<snip>

Palin buys into the Christian Zionist agenda hook, line, and sinker. She's all for unbridled US military action. She's for this because theologically speaking the more war the better, at least in the Middle East. Jesus needs war to fulfill "prophecy" so he can "come back"!

Palin's unreconstructed theology is the real story here. And I don't know of one media outlet that has connected these dots in the mainstream.

Sarah Palin's devotees understand her language, and they think that holy wisdom springs from her lips. She is a very dangerous person.

[SpiralHawk]

41. Hallelujah

[sudopod]

62. If it's any help

I heard the Left Behind game was terrible. Even then, the bad guys had cooler troops and vehicles...and rock and roll. :p

[Bucky]

7. Not without her using a verb I can't. But I can sorta analyze what she's saying.

First off, I assume Beck is asking her about the Federal Reserve Bank system.

She responds by talking about state regulation of Exxon and seems to think that "the Fed" means the federal government. Then she seems to be setting up an argument for the government get "a share of the resource" that Exxon is going after. Far as I know that means oil (or possibly natural gas) and she seems to want the state or federal government to try and get a piece of the product or the profit after a private sector company starts extracting it.

Basically she's calling for at least a partial socialism to take over the oil industry at the state level and lamenting the fact that no one thought to do this at the federal office. Really.


Brrr. What a scary lady.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. Your analysis is horribly off-base.

First of all, you make the terrible mistake of assuming that she is actually trying to communicate a coherent thought about... something. Even though that something might not have anything to do with the question. Here is the actual Palin thought process and how it relates to the words coming out of her mouth hole:

Palin thought process, step 1: Horrible realization that she neither understands the question nor is aware of any actual information relating to any of the entities, events, problems, or cogent thoughts expressed in the question.

Palin words: Some kind of horrible nonsense to cover up the fact that she knows nothing, preparing to segue into some irrelevant anecdote about something that happened when she was governor of Alaska.

Palin thought process, step 2: Horrible realization that she actually knows nothing about the events in Alaska that she was going to use in her anecdote.

Palin words: Vague allusion to something having to do with something at some unspecified time in the past, where actions took place and those actions resulted in results, and those results were results because of - wait... what?

Palin thought process, step 3: Horrible realization that she has completely bungled step 2, making no sense at all and in no way relating the horribly mangled anecdote to the original question.

Palin words: Kiss interviewer's ass.

End of interview.

[Lasher]

28. She has been flushed from her sanctuary of Facebook press releases.

The horror.

[xultar]

42. 98 % correct. The las bit about kiss interviewers ass is perfect but u need to

Become victim and blame media if interviewer isnot friendly.

[Berry Cool]

68. Yes, and don't forget this important addition:

When she kisses ass, she needs to do it by using as many words as possible to do it, so she finds as many synonyms for any verb or noun she wants to use as she possibly can (even awkward, ill-cobbled ones), so that she can be as verbose as possible, because that means she will sound more intelligent.

For example, when kissing up to Glenn Beck: "I am so glad you are bringing me on this show to air these topics and bring them to light and really shed some notice on them, so that they can be discussed and considered and reviewed in a public forum such as this, where you have so to speak a megaphone or microphone and a stage on which we can have these things out in the open, and the American people living in this great country of ours can see and hear and know and be cognizant of these very important and crucial issues and matters in which they have a very deep stake and investment."

It's what I call "blue-booking": it's the same thing a student does when faced with writing an essay-style answer to an exam question that he or she has not studied enough for and has no clue how to answer. The student writes, in a very large hand, a series of statements consisting of ostensibly true sentences (as lengthy as possible) that say, essentially, nothing to address or answer the question, but that fill up a lot of space.

[ProfessorGAC]

43. Priceless!!!!

That was outstanding, C.I.P. A really funny post.
GAC

[blondeatlast]

56. Spot on. Just perfect. nt

[treestar]

70. LOL

Falin has gotten so used to these horrible realizations they don't even faze her. She just pops out a few more words.

[Lasher]

30. You're right, she had no clue what the Fed is.

She thought he was talking about the Federal government. What a total idiot.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

8. She knows how stupid she is...

What kind of arrogance must someone have to know full and well they are not
qualified for the hardest job on earth and try to bullshit their way into it.

The more I see of her the easier it becomes to read her. She's a pathological liar
and will expose herself without anyones help.

[SergeStorms]

39. And this is what the red meat conservatives........

LOVE about her! She hasn't got the brains that god gave gravel, but they think she's a straight shootin', common woman, no nonsense, America first, woman of letters. The only letters I see in regard to her are I-D-I-O-T. But the right wingers love her. Dontcha' know? :banghead:

This is what you get when a country's average citizen has the intelligence below that of a fifth grader. Stupid is as stupid does, and a great many Americans think this stupid, STUPID woman is Presidential material. :nuke:

[EmeraldCityGrl]

64. Watch your blood pressure there SurgeStorms

:-) Give her enough rope...

It's going to be fun watching her go down in flames...:evilgrin:

[muffin1]

72. Dennis MIller (what the hell happened to him?)

said he thought she's make a good President. Said it's about time a "regular" person became President. He would just love a President "John or Jane Doe".

Oh, the humanity...

[lpbk2713]

9. "I'll find some and bring em to ya."

:shrug:

[alp227]

10. Sentence diagramming? WTF?

I honestly can't recall doing that during my years in grade school. When will I ever need to use it in an everyday situation?

Anyway, Palin stumbles in interviews and still talks like she's in high school.

[sudopod]

63. THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!

"Sentence diagramming? WTF?"

"I honestly can't recall doing that during my years in grade school. When will I ever need to use it in an everyday situation?"

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Well...

That -- it's so ironic there too,

No it isn't. That isn't what irony means. Ask Alanis Morisette. She got dinged on that one too, so we'll cut you some slack even though you don't write songs about blowjobs in movie theaters.

especially that you bring up this private-sector company, Exxon, because in Alaska we saw what was going on with Exxon

What was going on with Exxon? WHAT? Say something that makes sense, dammit.

and we did have our own hearings on what was going on with this private-sector company

The Fed. What about the Fed? Where the fuck did Exxon come from? Why are you talking about this? Why aren't you answering the goddamn question?

and how could the state of Alaska adjust some things to make sure that there was a share of the resource

What resource? Oil? You already get money from oil. Wait, was this about Exxon? Did somebody ask about the Fed? Are you paying attention AT ALL to either the question or the things you just said?

yet you're right. Nobody has even lifted a finger to go that route with the Fed.

What route? Seeing what's going on? Holding hearings? Making sure that there is a share of the resources? What resources? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ANSWER THE QUESTION.

And it's a scary thing

WHAT is a scary thing?

it's one of those things that we're thankful for, Glenn, that you're bringing this to light.

WHAT SCARY THING? What are you thankful that he is bringing to light? HE ASKED YOU A QUESTION.

And I don't know anybody else who is,

SOMEBODY ELSE WHO IS WHAT? ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION.

certainly nobody else who has a platform or the megaphone like you do.

Wait - he has a platform AND a megaphone? Or a platform OR a megaphone? Does he have them at the same time? Can he use them together or separately? HE ASKED ABOUT THE FED. ANSWER THE QUESTION.

[Kindigger]

13. Speechless

:rofl:

[fizzgig]

21. ...

:rofl:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

24. Bookmarking.

I think you're on to something here... :P

[Lasher]

29. !!!

That is exactly what I thought when I read her 'reply'

:D

[Cass]

34. Oh this is just too funny!!

:rofl:

[blondeatlast]

57. OMG, my stomach hurts thatnks to you.

:rofl:

[Brother Buzz]

12. We accept her! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble!

"We accept her! We accept her! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBXyB7niEc0

[krispos42]

14. I'd need something a lot more potent than Diet Pepsi for that to make sense to me

And if it did make sense to me, there's no way in Hell I'd could explain it to anybody else who's not strung out on something.

[Monk06]

15. The thing that commentators have to remember about Sarah; when you're fillin in the blanks ....

you're fillin in real blanks.

[inna]

16. omg. fuck Palin and i'm going to unrec every thread about her from now on.

enough of this crap.

-1.

[Jennicut]

19. I am beginning to understand Steve Schmidt's pain. Imagine having to work with her to make her

crap sound better? Impossible job.

[Terra Alta]

22. someone needs to create a Palinese-to-English dictionary.

If anyone can figure out what the hell she's saying, that is. Seriously, this woman makes Dubya look like a friggin' rocket scientist.

[Maru Kitteh]

23. Translation: We (R's) take money from the co.'s in AK, but THANKS GLEN

for making sure that the Republicans in the REST OF THE COUNTRY don't demand the same kind of parity, and thank you for teaching them that asking for what we get in Alaska would be SOCIALISM. But it's not SOCIALISM when I did it, cause I'm awful durn cute in hip-waders and I'm a REAL AMERICAN now dontcha know.

[Igel]

25. You don't want it diagrammed.

It's a series of clauses joined together. I've done a lot of transcriptions and most companies would ask that this simply be broken up. There's also the problem of it being speech and not written text. Norms are different for most people, except those who give primacy to the written form of language. "And" is a perfectly natural way for most English speakers to start sentences (and let's not get into the "most native speakers have no competence in their own language" kinds of comments).

First, there's the question itself. It's a bit stark and exposed. Undoubtedly not the first thing in the discourse. It sounds like she's answered something and this is a kind of a follow up--change the subject but keep some thread going. Possibly after a bit of introduction or discussion of what went before. Context would help us to understand Beck's question.

Without context I can't know what's ironic. That "too" ties things back to discourse that happened earlier. We have an adjacent and you've removed the referent. I also assume that Beck brought up Exxon because, well, she says he brought it up (not always a useful indication of reality, of course). It also seems to me that Palin has a common for a prior topic and is simply ignoring the question.

That. . .
(False start--bad in writing, common in speech, esp. unprepared speech.)

It's so ironic there too, especially that you bring up this private-sector company, Exxon, because in Alaska we saw what was going on with Exxon.
(We're missing context for 'ironic' and 'too', and apparently Beck brought up Enron first and Palin wasn't done, or perhaps hadn't started. The free relative doesn't help matters in the least, and seems to presuppose that we know what she's talking about--after all, she's making an implicit contrast of Alaska with someplace else.)

And we did have our own hearings on
what was going on with this private-sector company and
how could the state of Alaska adjust some things to make sure that there was a share of the resource --
(Two free relatives joined by 'and', the first of which seems to have the same referent as the preceeding free relative. There's an increasingly common tendency to use subject aux inversion even in clauses that aren't interrogative--relative clauses and free relative clauses. I find it annoying, but it's becoming more common. I also don't know if she's bragging that they had their own hearings just to brag or if she's referring back to something earlier in the discourse and saying that they also had hearings.)

Yet you're right.
(New sentence. And changing the topic, at least slightly. One wonders what she's agreeing with because *that* is the new topic. It's not the question. It's not anything she said. Was there something said before that she's now foregrounding, sort of returning to the "current file" for the conversation?)

Nobody has even lifted a finger to go that route with the Fed.
(No clue. But it's not because the sentence is complex. "That route" presumably is connected to what Beck's right about. We're not told what that was, although I'd like to think it has to do with somehow scalping "the Fed", whatever she understands that to mean.)

And it's a scary thing -- it's one of those things that we're thankful for, Glenn, that you're bringing this to light. And I don't know anybody else who is, certainly nobody else who has a platform or the megaphone like you do.
(One has to wonder what's scary. It's scary that we're being asked to parse something that constantly refers back to what was apparently said before the snippet occurs. Moreover, it's scary writing--a truly horrible writing style. Then again, the transcriptionist probably wasn't told to transform the spoken word into neat, clear prose. I'd probably call this "verbatim light", verbatim without all the ums and ahs. I really hate verbatim transcripts; the spoken word relies so crucially on intonation and pauses, and has such a different set of stylistic norms that they sound goofy. The only verbatim transcripts that sound right are those that are carefully thought out and spoken, with the speaker using parsing his words too carefully or having rehearsed them, or those that are made from speech read from the page or at least notes.)

[safeinOhio]

32. or, the faster I dance, the less likely people will be able

to see that I can not dance at all.

[NJCher]

37. are you new at this?

Because Palin doesn't operate with "referents." She just free associates with words. She thinks a question phrased in English is a Rorschach test.

Anyway, the example provided by the OP does not qualify as an official Palin sentence because it doesn't end with "job creation."


Cher

[LostInAnomie]

31. I can do a quick translation.

"I don't know what the Fed is."

[Prometheus Bound]

36. My summary was: "Glad you asked". End.

[lapislzi]

52. OK, you win.

Your three words tops my five. Well done.

:toast:

[Cass]

35. As far as I can tell, she is making the case for socialism.

And she apprently thinks it is scary that sharing the resources is not more widespread.

This commentary gig of hers is going to be comedy gold for John Stewart.

[malaise]

38. In what respect Charlie?

Look this mad woman is both ignorant and incoherent.

[Iggo]

60. For the win. (n/t)

[eilen]

40. I assume Beck was asking her opinion on the Federal Reserve

And I wonder what exactly the Federal Reserve has to do with or even has in common with Exxon. She intimates in many different words that there should be hearings scheduled in regard to the Federal Reserve. However, I am confused as to reason for such hearings as the Federal Reserve does not mine anything.

If they are talking about the Federal government, I am totally confused.

So far as I can tell, she is telling everyone that she knows that the Federal Reserve Bank is a private corporation and that is basically the extent of her knowledge. She is encouraging Beck to continue to discuss that topic and give her more information because she knows jack shit. She feels she will be capable of understanding it as she has grasped that Exxon is a corporation that mines resources of Alaska in the past. She was able to form an opinion of Exxon-- that they should share the profits of Alaska's resources with Alaskans so she is confident she will be able to form one about the Fed, so long as Glenn Beck continues to megaphone his opinion (which will be strikingly similar to hers once he tells her).

[ProfessorGAC]

44. I Think You're Overanalyzing It

It is, after all, Palin we're discussing.
GAC

[mwb970]

45. Is this how *all* of her Fox "News" appearances will go?

We'll have to start a separate forum at DU just for clips & comments about the Princess on Fox.

[CTyankee]

49. There's a website "How Stuff Works" that may help her out.

Here is an introduction to the Federal Reserve that I found with one google to ask.com:

http://money.howstuffworks.com/fed.htm

It is complicated but there are the basics in one paragraph. That's really what she needed before going off into outer space...but she's already out there so it's probably too late...

[many a good man]

46. It's verbal impressionism

She and Beck are faux populists so I assume they both think the Federal Reserve is an evil cabal and Exxon is guilty of price gouging at the pump.

In that context Sarah validates Beck's fear about the Fed and joins in his call for investigations. She underscores her bona fides by alluding to her Exxon investigation while governor of Alaska. She then bemoans the sad state of American politics by pointing out that we can investigate private corporations (who are intrinsically good by nature) but we are not allowed to look into secret elite conspiracies like the Fed. She then congratulates herself and Beck for having the rare courage to speak out against the conspiratorial elites.

She is painting a word picture that is like a late-period Van Gogh rather than a Monet. I'm surprised more DU'ers can't appreciate her artistry! :sarcasm:

[SidDithers]

47. "In what respect, Glenn?"...

I hope she's an (R) Presidential hopeful in 2012. Two years of primary debates and media interviews will be comedy gold.

Sid

[lapislzi]

48. I DID learn something in college. I did, I did!

(Reaching into the mental filing cabinet for the folder marked "Semiotics")

The metamessage of that sentence can be summed up in five words: "Thanks for asking the question."

Somewhere in France, Roland Barthes is doing a rotisserie number in his grave.

[PRETZEL]

50. After reading this a couple of times and trying desperately to wrap my head around it,

I really have come to the conclusion that she had no idea that Beck was talking about the Federal Reserve.

And my guess is that Beck even told her before the show what the question would be and how much time she had to answer it, in her own words.

[ipfilter]

51. She didn't even know what the Bush Doctrine was.

How in the world would she understand the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve banking.

[mikeytherat]

53. Chevy Chase channels Sarah Palin...30 years ago!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLsDvGlIDh0

mikey_the_rat

[and-justice-for-all]

67. HA HA!!! INDEED!!! nt

[lunatica]

54. "I know to kiss your ass on every pronouncement Glen."

Here, bend over so I smack ya a big wet one

[northernlights]

58. well, I found 4 periods in there, so technically

it qualifies as a paragraph. :crazy:

[Iggo]

59. Um-ba-la, mum-ba-la, mum-ba-la...

:crazy:

[and-justice-for-all]

65. What does Exxon have to do with ones position on the FED??

Again, Falin demonstrates that she does not know jack shit.

I would say that the question was in regards to her perspective and position on the Federal Reserve, the private banking institution that controls our currency. I would have to say that I do not like the idea of a private banking institution controlling our funds, a country that does not control its currency does not control its government in my opinion.

[ecstatic]

66. Did Beck look disgusted or smitten after her answer?

[TrogL]

69. I wonder if she thinks she's talking about Federal Express overbilling

...or somehow completely misunderstood the question.

I do, however, agree with above posters. Her "thinking" is to string together sound bites that sound nice to her base, but actually make no sense whatsoever. Her base lack the critical thinking to parse through a sentence.