Palin Hand Crib Notes Attract Scrutiny

[sabra]

Source: CBS News

Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's appearance before the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville Saturday night gave plenty of red meat to the attendees, such as calling President Obama "a charismatic guy with a Teleprompter."

The thousand-plus Tea Party attendees who paid $300 to hear her speak (Palin was paid $100,000 for her appearance) probably did not glimpse Palin's own handy Teleprompter — crib notes written on her left hand.

She could be seen glancing at them during her Q&A with Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips when asked what were the top three things a Conservative majority in Congress should do.

A AP photographer's picture revealed the words "Energy," "Budget cuts" (crossed out), "Tax," and "Lift Americans Spirits" scribbled in ink on the inside of her left hand.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/02/08/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6185820.shtml?tag=stack

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[truthisfreedom]

1. Amazing image. Staring at her palm like a goof.

Can't remember 3 talking points.

[skypilot]

80. That's the first thing I thought.

It would be one thing if it were a long quotation or something but it's just three stupid points that Republicans talk about all the time. She had to write this down?

[Mz Pip]

2. The idea that she needed

crib notes on her hand to remember these three talking points is truly pathetic. I thought those would be imprinted on her DNA by now, no cheating required.

Of course it also means she's pretty lazy and didn't bother to review before her big performance. how come she didn't have Karl backstage running lines with her before she made her entrance?

[MUAD_DIB]

11. How hard is it to actually memorize her lines?

How long has she known that she was going to be speaking?

[happygoluckytoyou]

14. written on her right hand----- RIGHT HAND... so she knows which one goes over her heart

[kestrel91316]

17. Looks to me like it's on her LEFT hand.

[BrklynLiberal]

36. I think you are right...It is her left. LOLOL

[Richard D]

15. The frightening conclusion to this . . .

. . . is that she is incapable of remembering her talking points and needs to refresh her "memory" by looking at them.
I don't think it's laziness or not doing the preparation. I think she's simply incapable of remembering them.

[mwb970]

35. She knew she'd be speaking, and she had all the questions in advance.

It was a completely phony act, presented for the roaring approval of the most uneducated, uncritical audience in the world. These conservatives really have it made: the people they talk to will believe absolutely anything and can be fooled so easily that they don't even have to hide their lies or foolish acts, like writing one-syllable words on your hand, for God's sake.

What an embarrassment these people are for our once-great nation. It's hard to imagine how this grotesque spectacle looks from overseas.

[BrklynLiberal]

37. It would sure seem that way.....right?

[24601]

71. Yeah - all she needed was a TelePrompter rather than a few

words to hit key subjects.

With a TelePrompter, she would never even have to think about it at all - just read the words.

What was she thinking.

Not only that, the next day, her inappropriate palm note read "HI MOM" Disgusting - all the TelePrompter operators out of work and she does this.

edited for typo

[L0oniX]

3. Hand job anyone?

[RedRoses323]

63. LOL...

:rofl: :rofl: Palin is an idiot!

[Blue Owl]

4. is that Tawd's phone #?

n/t

[soupkitchen]

18. Hand job, hand jive, or just underhanded

[NoodleyAppendage]

5. Is that demon fire on her left side in the last photo?

I know sitting at a Teabagging convention would be Hell, but never suspect it would be literal!

J

[hedgehog]

6. I think the best part is that she crossed out one item to add

another. Real deep thinking there!

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. It won't mean anything to the teapartyers. Their brains have difficulty....

filtering and distributing anything that doesn't fit a preconceived notion. Their response will be the same as the response to Limbaugh's many marriages or drug addiction. I am convinced that 20% of the world population is lacking some sort of information processing gene.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

8. A hillbilly palm pilot

Redneck teleprompter

[SomeGuyInEagan]

47. +1 my first thought, too. n/t

[safeinOhio]

9. This was a pre-approved question.

Wouldn't want one of those book learning professors running the country when you can have small town sports announcer in charge.

Everything about her looked bad. Hair, cloths, make-up and penmanship on her hand.

Hey Missy, I'd be all for a no holds barred question and answer session with you and Mr. President on live tv. In fact, I'd pay $100 to make it happen and get to see it.

[livetohike]

21. She looks ill to me

Just the few clips I saw, they dare not get too close to her face. She looks older, tired, worn out. She appears to be losing her looks and looks older than her years, imo.

Someone posted that her hair was a wig. Maybe she is losing her real hair due to whatever is ailing her.

[mwb970]

38. Funny you'd say that.

I noticed the same thing, a sort of haggard, past-it look that would be downright scary in an HD closeup. Once she ages a bit more, watch them drop her like a hot potato.

Did you like it when she chided Obama for being a "charismatic guy with a Teleprompter"? This from a semi-charismatic gal with her speech on a stack of papers and crib notes scrawled on her hand. The beauty part: her gushing worshippers don't "do" irony and can't see right-wing hypocrisy, so they won't even know it happened.

[livetohike]

54. Hypocrisy is too big of a word for the wing nuts

:-). Palin is a fraud who has leaned on her looks for her whole life. If she is stressed out, and I believe that was why she left the Governor's job, how will she ever handle higher office. Not that I think she has a chance.

I never thought she was good looking anyway. I think she only wears glasses to make her look intelligent.

[No Elephants]

40. Which makes you wonder: Were all the questions pre-approved? If so, why did C-Span not disclose

that?

Yes, Sarah has been exposed yet again for the dimwit she is.


But C-Span has some 'splaining to do to the American viewing public.


And is the rest of the media pointing out this pre-arranged aspect of this hand joke? If not, why not?

[ronnie624]

82. What I'd like to know is,

why the corporate owned media establishment has an interest in promoting this vacuous person as a viable, qualified candidate for President of the United States of America. It's just down right bizarre. Watching the cable 'news' media 'journalists', as they pretend Palin has something coherent to say about U.S. policy issues, is a strange and curious spectacle.

And the fact that millions of U.S. Americans can be fooled in this manner, is rather humiliating for our country.

[dugaresa]

10. next, she uses hand as hanky and napkin and charms the Nation!

[unblock]

12. holy crap! you mean this ISN'T a photoshopped joke?

:rofl:

[0rganism]

34. I know! I thought the same thing when I first saw the pix

"You're kidding, right? That ruse wouldn't fool a gradeschool teacher, and why would she need to crib the things she wrote down anyway? Photoshop hoax for sure."

Amazing. She really is that stupid.

[unblock]

42. come to think of it, it's rather suggests that she cheated in school that way.

i mean, who else would think to do that but someone who used to do that for big tests in school?

[0rganism]

56. if she did try to cheat in school, I bet she wasn't good at it

Seems like half the point of having something like that is to maintain the appearance of NOT having it. Epic Fail on that front.

[existentialist]

59. Yes, but what test could she pass with three notes?

What does a journalism degree incorporating credits from five colleges mean anyway?

[Nihil]

69. Well for the school tests, one of them was probably her name ...

> What does a journalism degree incorporating credits from five colleges
> mean anyway?

"I failed four times but the fifth place took pity on me!"

[TlalocW]

13. The things this woman thinks she can get away with

Just because the insane minority part of the conservative spectrum love her. Geeze, at least don't do it so obviously. Bring your hand up to your head and brush some hair off your forehead or something. It's like watching a magician who hasn't rehearsed a trick.

TlalocW

[Plucketeer]

16. She's probably come to realize

that it doesn't matter what dippy thing she does, there'll be some folks mesmerized by her religious zeal and her beauty queen torso. Substance? Whot's dat? :dunce:

[superconnected]

19. dingbat.

[Hulk]

20. There are bigger issues with this idiot than "crib notes"....

It doesn't surprise me. But then again...I don't quite see the concern.

I think she, or any other pundit, should be able to use actual notes. After all...keeping facts and figures in your head is near impossible with all the facts and figures these baboons discuss on their tear down of our year-old administration.

Why can't they come on with a book of facts...or even better...just some notes?

I despise this worthless fool...but this doesn't seem to be a subject I can wrap my disgust around.

[WoodyD]

28. I saw Joe Biden speak

during the campaign. He talked for over an hour with no notes, no teleprompter, and had an amazing command of facts and figures.

And of course Obama pwned the Republicans just last week, again with an amazing command of those pesky things called facts and figures.

Then again, the Reps don't need "facts," which have a well-known liberal bias. They just need three talking points. "Tax cuts," "socialism," and "no." How hard is it to remember the same three talking points you've been hammering away at for years?

[4lbs]

31. It's called being hypocritical. She and the rest of the Repukes have long criticized President

Obama for using a teleprompter, when they themselves have required the use of such and crib notes such as these.

If you are going to criticize someone for doing something, you better not do it yourself. Ever.

It's that "Let he without sin cast the first stone" mantra from that Bible they are always thumping to their base.

They also now criticize President Obama and the Democrats on the budget deficit, when it was they, the Repukes, who turned a ~$200 billion budget surplus into a nearly trillion dollar deficit, in just 8 years.

It's the same M.O. with them every freaking time. They hammer the President and the Democrats on something that they too have been guilty of doing, even more so.

[mwb970]

45. The Teleprompter criticisms are really stupid.

Palin, of course, cannot use a Teleprompter because she has said that people who do use them, such as every other public figure in America, are idiots. So what does she do? She reads her speech from a stack of papers on the podium. Unfortunately, this requires her to keep her head down for most of the speech so she can read it, leaving the audience looking at the top of her head.

Sarah: This is why the Teleprompter was invented! This is why everyone but you uses one. With the Teleprompter, you can read your speech you worked on so hard (ha) and maintain eye contact with your audience, making your presentation much more effective.

In the horrific event that she becomes president, does Palin imagine herself giving all those speeches without a Teleprompter, using just stacks of paper and notes written on her body? It looks like she has put herself into a corner here by depriving herself of this useful communications tool. (An aside: didn't she major in Communications at those five colleges, or six, or however many she went to?)

[4lbs]

50. It's also hilarious when you look at the last two Republican responses to President Obama's major

nationwide speeches. They look into the camera and you can notice their eyes scanning back and forth, as if they were reading a.... teleprompter.

Oops.

[mwb970]

52. Of course they were using a Teleprompter.

And rightly so. These absurd complaints are like ridiculing a symphony orchestra for having the music written out and sitting on little stands right in front of them. Such fools!

Conservatives always think they are so brilliant - but they're not! Remember John Roberts botching the Oath Of Office because he was so sure he could get it right without reading it, like every other Chief Justice before him had? They had to give him a do-over the next day so he could finally get it right.

Again, I find conservatives to be an embarrassment to America. They are the egg on our face, the spinach between our teeth, the anvil upon our feet.

[4lbs]

55. The "classic" conservatives actually stood for things, even if we disagreed with them.

It was respectful and their platforms made some sense.

However, these post-Reagan conservatives are just loony and hypocritical beyond belief.

[tanyev]

68. She's a charismatic gal with a Sharpie.

[0rganism]

41. what's written in the 'notes' is somewhat startling, no?

Does she really notes to remember basic talking points like "
Energy
Budget Tax Cuts
Lift Americans Spirits
"?

From the pic of her looking closely at her palm during the q&a, yes she does! :wtf:

[skypilot]

81. I'd agree with you if...

...facts and figures were what she had written on her hand but that's not the case. What she had written there were just three topics that she should have been able to remember right off the top of her head unless there is something wrong with her.

[mariawr]

22. Just as vapid as her policies...

"

[xxqqqzme]

23. $300 in addition to the $500plus just

to attend this teabagger event....That is one hell of a lot of koolaid.

[tomm2thumbs]

24. I hope someone is going back over prior press events looking for similar 'hand jobs' in the past

where there's smoke....

[Crowman1979]

25. She learned how to cheat in college.

[JDPriestly]

26. Who wants to bet that she practiced writing crib notes for tests

throughout her schooling? That is a childish, desperate, cheating thing to do.

A teleprompter is used to read a speech. People used to write their speeches and read them. With practice a person can learn to give a speech based on just notes or an outline, but it takes a lot of practice. Many people memorize speeches. I once heard an outstanding lawyer describe how he practices his arguments over and over. I suspect that he practices it partly out loud but partly in his mind over and over.

Politicians have to give a lot of speeches. They don't necessarily have the time to practice them over and over. That is why it is perfectly acceptable to use a teleprompter. In fact it is a courtesy to your audience because it insures that you won't stammer or hem or haw and that you will be less likely to mis-speak.

It is also great to use notes when answering questions. No one expects a politician to remember every statistic and figure and name although some become very good at this. So, Sarah Palin should stop trying to be something she is not. She should just take along a few notes like everyone else.

[lilymidnite]

27. palmprompter

[JBoy]

29. The notes are not the issue. It's the hypocrisy

of repeating the tired bullshit meme about Obama and his teleprompter, all while having pen writing on your own hand.

She deserves to be ridiculed.

[Strelnikov_]

53. I don't know, man

Can't even keep three simple talking points in one's head.

That is pretty bad.

[Auggie]

30. So what? We all know she's a fraud. What pisses me is the $100,000 fee.

[daleanime]

33. But republicans only respect the rich...

so they have to make her rich so that they can respect her:eyes:

[Auggie]

44. Yeah. She's amassing money. Enough to run for office...

probably Congress.

[No Elephants]

46. Mission accomplished. She's been rich for a while now.

[No Elephants]

43. During the show, she said she was donating the fee to the Tea Party.

[Auggie]

49. She's doing better than I thought if she can waste 100K like that.

[wordpix]

61. and what pisses me is her tax-free cheating on her "cabins"

What else can this dumbass get away with?

[No Elephants]

32. Who can possibly remember 3 things? A Fish Called Wanda proved that.

"What was the middle one, again?"

[victorybagels]

39. Most Popular Story on Huffpost

Hey Stefan Sirucek here.

I originally broke this Telepalmter story and now it's the most popular story on Huffpost with 6,800 comments:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stefan-sirucek/did-palin-use-crib-notes_b_452458.html

I'll be gathering together all the media coverage of this on my blog:

http://stefansirucek.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading!


Stefan

[suffragette]

48. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[victorybagels]

57. Thanks!

Good to be here.

[Politicub]

51. Just O M G - Palin is a bottomless pit of ignorance

Just when I think she can't embarass herself any more than she already has, she pulls something else out of her "I'm with stoopid" bag of tricks.

Not that it matters to conservatives. Their bar is set so low that they're just happy she didn't write her notes on her elbow.

[Name removed]

58. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fredfon]

60. "Beauty fades-dumb is forever" -Judge Judy

I have this fantasy that she gets the republican nomination for Pres.
Before the first debate Obama tells her-
"I'll spot you a teleprompter-a laptop with wickipedia open, any notes you want to write anywhere on your body, and you can even bring Todd."

[Born_A_Truman]

62. Sarah would never use a teleprompter

Plus the GOP convention:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/259416

[Cha]

78. That needs to be blasted all over huffpost and

the internet!

It's the hypocrisy, stupid.

[Javaman]

64. What I find truly amazing is something really basic...

those items she scribbled on her hand are basic themes of all her half-witted speeches.

She fucking couldn't remember them?

This woman, to use a phrase she apparently no longer has a problem with now that rush uses it, is retarded.

[catbyte]

65. My favorite part was her crossing out the word "budget"

:wtf: :rofl:

Diane

Anishnabe in MI

[LeftyMom]

67. That's the part that kills me. Not that she had notes on her hand, but she had to correct them.

I knew she was dumb, but c'mon, that sounds like a gag from The Simpsons, not political news.

[NoFace]

75. "Hmmm, maybe budget cuts? Nah f*** that nonsense!"...LOL

And 'lift American's Spirits'?
What the hell...do you need reminding to do this? It's not like the phrasing is all that inspired so, what?

[Xenotime]

66. Muahaahah!!! What a dumb b!@Sh. If that's all the GOP has got..then the Dems are golden.

[Blandocyte]

70. The dumbasses love a dumbass

"she's one of us" they say. Like that's a good thing.

[sonofabush]

72. And the day after, at a Rick Perry rally, she DID IT AGAIN!

Haha, isn't that cute!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

74. That, if not PS'ed, was to cover her ass after the fallout.

"Look. She's having fun with it. She's just like us!"

:banghead:

[Frank Cannon]

77. She wrote "Hi, Mom" on her palm to cover for her initial f-up

This woman is like the worst used car salesman you could ever meet.

[Roland99]

73. This was one of the Top Stories on NBC Nightly News last night!

I was LMAO!!

[Patiod]

76. And yet her supporters don't care

It doesn't matter how stupid or corrupt she is PROVEN to be, The Stupids just love her.

[truthisfreedom]

79. A glimpse of our "future president":

This is her, meeting with a foreign leader:

[Blandocyte]

83. White House is mockin' it

Story

[classysassy]

84. Sarah

is a very shallow person,her boosters try to present her as a smart person when in their heart they know she is a dummy with a pretty face.