Salon.com gives Palin a free pass on OK-ing the Wasilla Turkey Background Massacre

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Palin was ASKED before the chicken-choking began:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7905622

Salon seems to have missed that fact. Author Heather Michon needs to blow this worthless post out of her ass.

http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=47485

They Decapitate Turkeys, Don't They?

The latest entry in the Sarah-Palin-Is-One-Dumb-Bunny file is what MSNBC calls WORST POSSIBLE BACKDROP FOR TV NEWS INTERVIEW.

Governor Palin arrived at the Triple-D Farm and Hatchery outside Wasilla the other day to "pardon" a turkey in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday. It's a ritual many governors have performed in recent years as the kind of fluff-piece they know the media is sure to cover.

She did it with her usual aplomb, dressed in a skirt and heels standing, one imagines, in turkey poop. The local media dutifully covered the story as their lead-out on the evening news, but what has made international news is the interview that happened after the pardon.

Palin took a few questions from the press pool on her family's holiday plans, and then met with a another camera crew for a short interview. For most of the three-minute tape, a farm worker is bleeding and decapitating a turkey just a few feet behind her.

We did get a good chuckle out of the video here at Maison Michon, but the more I thought about it, the more it began to stink.

This was one of those pieces of tape that floats around TV newsrooms and occasionally makes it up the ladder to New York. Without the backdrop, the interview was pointless -- mostly a rehashing of issues that would otherwise not have made it into a story on a busy news day. It was just going to sit on a shelf somewhere in case it was needed later. But the cognitive dissonance of Palin's words against the casual slaughtering of a gigantic turkey was tailor-made for "Countdown." And from there, it was going to go viral.

The thing is, the camera crew and reporter knew full well how that was going to look on film before they started filming. All they had to do is say, "Excuse me, Governor, could you just move two feet to the left? Thanks!"

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Yes, they asked her if she minded the backdrop, and she responded "No worries." I don't think that's a deal-breaker.

:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf: :wtf:

Alaska, despite it's immense geographical size, is a small state in terms of population. Like a lot of small-state politicians, Palin doesn't have a particularly good grasp of staging. She's a meat-eater from a family of hunters: she knows how meat gets to her plate, and it doesn't shock her. That she lives in a nation of people who just like their meat to get to their plate by some mysterious, sanitary process that doesn't involve blood or ickiness might well have escaped her.

In this, Palin is typical of those pols who blow out of the hinterlands and on to the national stage every couple of election cycles and charm the pants of the media with their naturalness, their complete lack of guile. The charm quickly wears off, and they go back to being rednecks and rubes, while the more slickly-produced candidates regain the spotlight.

While it isn't the media's job to make a politician look better than they are, they should not go out of their way to make them seem foolish -- or if they do, at least keep the blooper reel confined to the station Christmas party.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I think it's GREAT that Sarah was displayed in all her foolishness,

and I hope somebody at KTUU deliberately leaked the unedited version. This is the first time in Alaska history that a governor has pardoned a turkey, and for Palin to show up there all made up in her little short black skirt and high heels (when she used to show up for outdoor events here in jeans and a down coat, like most normal people in Alaska) shows that this was a pure publicity-seeking, "look at ME" stunt. I'm very, very happy for the blowback.

[SoCalDem]

25. and does anyone think that the GOVERNOR of the state..any state

needs to go to the turkey slaughterhouse to get a decent Thanksgiving turkey?

She either does not listen to her staff, does not HAVE one, or they give pretty awful advice..

a turkey-pardon, is usually done on the lawn of the governor's mansion, with kids in attendance..with a pristinely clean & fluffy turkey, that gets petted & fussed over..

not some poor creature with dirt (?) all over the front of it, its mouth wide open in fear, flailing as some bird-executioner with a bloody apron holds it up , for her to "pardon"....(at least as long as it took the press junket & governor to drive away...

disgusting...

[glowing]

2. I don't think its that big of a deal.. Actually , that turkey farm is probably

much more sanitary than most of the turkeys Americans will be eating this Thanksgiving.. Most Turkeys are just fattened and are injected with all kinds of shit.. so, this turkey farm is probably much better than most of the turkey farms.. looks like its a family run business affair. Maybe she shouldn't have stood right in front of the turkey dying, but oh well.. wake up America and realize how the food gets to your plate.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Turkeys have their heads chopped off so we can eat them

I don't understand why people are so freaked out about this. It was probably stupid for Sarah to be interviewed at this particular location but it certainly doesn't make her look any worse.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. It's the "ceremonial pardoning of the turkey while they are being beheaded" thing.

Make no mistake, I am a carnivore. I know where turkey comes from, and it ain't the turkey fairy.

People are freaked out about this because Palin is 100% oblivious to anything that isn't happening outside of the inner Palin orbit. That includes her useless goatee fuck husband and her pregnant spawn.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. She's an idiot

Tell me something I don't know.

[Dora]

9. Exactly.

[frylock]

10. word up!

That includes her useless goatee fuck husband and her pregnant spawn. :rofl:

[Mojorabbit]

14. Me either

it did not bother me a bit.

[Mojorabbit]

16. It did not bother me either

I know my turkey doesn't just magically appear inside a shrink wrapped container.

[proud2BlibKansan]

20. I am sick of Sarah Palin getting so much attention

even if it is negative attention.

[TheCowsCameHome]

22. The biggest turkey came wrapped in a Neiman-Marcus outfit.

But let's just call her "Sarah".

[Profprileasn]

27. Nor me

That's what happens around Thanksgiving. I don't think it's a nice thing but that's why I am vegetarian.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Palin has made herself into a cartoon character.

She stages a pure photo-op situation to "pardon" a turkey, and winds up standing in front of the cameras while one gets butchered right behind her.

She has truly become a backwater joke.

Way to go, Barbie.

[ErinBerin84]

5. her speech patterns are more

offensive than the slaughter thing...the turkey got off easy. And I don't think the media needs to help Palin look any more foolish than she already does. But honestly, she did seem sort of oblivious to the way the language matched up, which was funny..."chopping block"..."brutal"...


And, didn't Joan Walsh of Salon once say "I give Sarah Palin snaps for being a feminist"?

[Raschel]

28. That poor turkey didn't get off easy. He had to listen to Palin in his last moments.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

8. I wonder if that was the same turkey she pardoned not 5 minutes before.

I mean, we are going to eat it anyway, right?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. That was a total hatchet job.

Pun intended.

Palin agreed to it- because she's completely stupid.

But whoever filmed that knew exactly what they were doing.

And God bless them for it.

[BronxBoy]

13. LOL

God Bless them....every one

[amdezurik]

15. it is not the film crews job

to look out for morans

[TheCowsCameHome]

21. In her circle, finding them is a piece of cake.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. They took advantage of her stupidity for humorous purposes.

And I applaud them for it.

[Blue_In_AK]

26. I agree,

and that's why I think the uncut version made it to the internet.

[Caliman73]

12. Agreed

The thing is that Palin wants us to believe that she is sophisticated AND a down to earth "good ol girl". She isn't. Palin wants the spotlight without any of the scrutiny that comes with the spotlight. She would get eaten alive in Washington. Thankfully, I believe that we are retreating from the anti-intellectual bent we have been on the past 8 years. Now, you have to be at least a little smart to lead the country. Sorry Sarah, your time has come and gone.

[NashVegas]

17. It's Silly To Put It ALL On Palin

Did the film crew not have a choice to keep rolling, or move elsewhere?

Did the fellow killing the birds not have a choice whether or not to wait?

All three elements: Palin, TV crew, and bird boy, all knew exactly what the score was. They are all guilty of horrifically bad taste.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. Three little words: "They asked her." I'm putting it ALL on Palin, with all due respect. n/t

[NashVegas]

23. THEY Had a Choice, Too

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Really, the "I am a friend to all animals" joke she made in the pardon is the worst bit

I don't really mind her making it plain that your Thanksgiving turkey had to be decapitated before it gets to your table; but when the 'pardon' she either wrote herself, or OKed, starts "I, Governor Sarah Palin, friend to all creatures great and small" you know that the woman who wants wolves shot from helicopters, and does her damnedest to stop polar bears and beluga whales being protected, is just laughing at anyone who does actually cares about animals.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

29. Ms. Mooseburger proved she has no future in national politics.

The problem isn't so much that *she* wasn't bothered by giving an interview a few feet in front of a guy who was decapitating turkeys; it's that she apparently has no clue that a lot of people (maybe most people) would find such an interview disturbing and weird. So there's Sarah, yammering away like a magpie on crack, right in the middle of a turkey abattoir, thinking she's all charming and clever and delightful, having no idea that people seeing this on television are mostly grossed out, maybe horrified. She's so self-absorbed and provincial that she can't imagine that other people (that's voters, Sarah) don't necessarily see things the way she does. She doesn't see that to be successful in national politics (like she and McCain weren't), she has to appeal to more than her little inbred circle of rubes and religious fanatics. She didn't see that turning campaign events into something like Klan rallies didn't appeal to mainstream voters (even McCain seemed to figure that out eventually), and she obviously doesn't see that giving interviews in the midst of decapitating farm animals won't get her anywhere, either.

[emilyg]

30. Never understood all the posts about this.

Not important.

[Berry Cool]

31. I'm supposed to take the word of a Salon writer

who can't tell the difference between "it's" and "its"?