Sarah Palin’s hand-job keeps satirists in work

Sarah Palin has attracted a fair amount of ridicule since she rose to prominence with the 2008 presidential campaign, but her critics are having a field day after her latest gaffe - giving herself a helping hand by writing prompts on her palm.
 
As the world now knows, Palin was headlining at the first-ever Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee at the weekend when her faux pas came to light.

Pictures showed that she had the words "energy", "budget cuts", "tax" and "lift American spirits" scrawled on the palm of her left hand - with the word budget crossed out. And during a Q&A session she could be seen consulting the list before answering a question about the 'Palin plan' for America.
 
To make matters worse for the former Republican governor of Alaska, she had taken the opportunity during her speech to dismiss Barack Obama as just a "charismatic guy with a teleprompter".

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:First out of the blocks was Huffington Post blogger Stefan Sirucek, whose blog quickly attracted more than 7,000 comments . "There were no specifics on there," he wrote of the scribbles he spotted, "just general concepts and things she supports. The takeaway is that this presidential contender apparently can't remember her supposed core principles and needs a cheat-sheet when simply asked about her beliefs."
 
Mary Kate Cary, a former White House speechwriter for President George Bush Snr, wrote on her US News blog: "At a certain age and at a certain professional level, it's really not cool to write the big stuff down on your hand... I'm not sure how many more times she can get away with it. But in the mean time it's embarrassing."
 
Comedy Central's attack dogs Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert wasted no time in lampooning Palin. Both appeared on their TV shows with prompts of their own written on their hands. Stewart's read "make face" and "curse" while Colbert had the word "thumb" written on his palm with an arrow pointing in the appropriate direction.
 
But it was not just the satirists who picked up the baton. Andrea Mitchell mocked Sarah Palin on MSNBC's Daily Rundown show by appearing on-air with notes written on her hand. She said Palin's use of 'cheat sheets' was particularly bad form because of her attack on Obama. "If Mitt Romney had notes on his hand, wouldn't we take it pretty seriously?" she asked her co-hosts Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.

Even the White House has got in on the joke: at a press briefing on Tuesday, spokesman Robert Gibbs showed off his inscribed palm. His list read "eggs, milk, bread" - with "bread" crossed out. "And then I wrote down 'hope and change', just in case I forgot," he explained to groans from the press pack.
 
CNN political editor Mark Preston suggested that double standards as well as a bad memory were in play. "We all work off of notes, particularly in television," he said, "but the fact she was critical of President Obama... it's very hard to be critical of one person when you yourself are using the same kind of aids when speaking."
 
That begs the question, what sort of name to give Palin's technique?

Tim Dowling in the Guardian christened it Palin's Hillbilly-Palm­Pilot, while Urbandictionary.com now carries the word "telepalmter" - meaning a memory tool "most commonly used by middle school children and former half term governors".

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