Is Palin Smarter Than a Fourth Grader?

I missed the Couric-Palin interview televised this week. Fortunately we live in the age of the internet, so things like conflicting time slots do not mean that you can't see 2 things scheduled at the same time - you just may not be able to see one of them until later.

Anyway, Saturday morning, while perusing all the news sites I like to keep up with, I found clips of the interview. I put one on to listen to while in the kitchen, and I admit it was the morning, and I had only had about half of a pot of coffee, so when I heard Palin's answer to Couric explaining why she believed the $700 billion bailout was better funneled to Wall Street firms than the middle class, I just assumed I didn't hear her correctly. Or, being under-caffeinated, I just hadn't understood her.

But no.

It wasn't my lack of brain-stimulating chemical, it was Palin's lack of brain cell utilization. Because earlier today I read the response, and I still couldn't understand what she was saying. And I guess that's not surprising, since half of it consists of either incomplete or run-on sentences. And I'm not going to address the content - I wouldn't even know where to start.

" . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

My 9 year old son is working on sentence structure and composition in 4th grade right now. He wrote better constructed sentences for his homework last weekend.

Dan Quayle may not have been a good speller, and his blunders were great for a laugh, but at least he could put a subject, verb, and direct object together. And sometimes he'd even throw in a prepositional phrase or two.