Nov 2, 2008
Sarah Palin’s Revealing Prank Phone Call
(via TPM Election Central)
This weekend, Sarah Palin was prank called by the Masked Avengers, a group of Quebecois shock jocks pretending to be French president Nicolas Sarkozy. To give you some sense of the level of viciousness on the call, “Sarkozy” spends most of the time telling harmless in-jokes; apart from a few mocking references to the Hustler-produced Palin porno parody, “Sarkozy” primarily makes reference to people like his advisor Johnny Hallyday, Canadian PM Steph Carse, and PM of Quebec (a fake position) Richard Z. Sirois. Yet Palin doesn’t figure out that it’s a big joke until the radio hosts tell her.
The call is obviously a friendly back-and-forth more than a diplomatic session, but it’s amazing just how substance-free it all is. Much of that can be explained by the fact that “Sarkozy” steers the conversation in that direction. As Ezra Klein notes, though, Palin is “incurious about anything he could possibly tell her,” asking no questions and basically treating Sarkozy like she’s treated every person she’s talked to during the entire campaign.
But the far more frightening thing about this call is something a little more obvious. The easy response to Palin’s inability to tell that this is a prank is to say that she’s just not knowledgeable. Given her performance so far in this campaign, it’s certainly possible that this is the case. However, I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she knows who Stephen Harper is, especially because Canada is Alaska’s next-door neighbor.
Of course, if she is familiar with the existence of Stephen Harper, then we can only conclude that she’s not paying any attention to what “Sarkozy” is saying. This reaction is much, much worse, because it suggests that, even when speaking with a tremendously important foreign leader for the first time, she’s more interested in appearing agreeable than in listening intently and building the foundation for future diplomatic success. Palin doesn’t just have a lack of knowledge about international relations – she doesn’t even know how to differentiate campaign politics from the substantive necessities of a politician’s real job.