More like this
When satire is calling Palin ‘a fucking retard’
Stephen Colbert finds an excuse to hit back at Sarah Palin – and gets away with it, so far
Right-wing pin-up Sarah Palin is at the centre of controversy today after Republican-baiting satirist Stephen Colbert found a way to call her a "fucking retard" on US television without it seeming particularly unfair. Still smarting from the hilarity caused when she was filmed reading notes she had written on her hand for an interview, Palin now looks like a hypocrite.
The whole thing started in January when the Wall Street Journal reported that President Barack Obama's rottweiler-like chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel had used the word "retard" in a derogatory manner. The Journal revealed that, in August last year, Emanuel told a weekly meeting of liberal groups and White House aides that their plans for ads attacking fellow Democrats who didn't support healthcare reform were "fucking retarded".
Emanuel was quick to save face after the Journal story came out in January - phoning Tim Shriver, CEO of the Special Olympics, to apologise. Bizarrely, it was the second such call Shriver has received from this administration: in March 2009 the president himself phoned to apologise after saying on Jay Leno's chat show that his own bowling skills were "like the Special Olympics or something".
But as quickly as Emanuel apologised to Shriver, Sarah Palin joined the fray. She used her Facebook page to tell the world how disgusted she was with Emanuel, speaking as the mother of a Downs Syndrome son.
Palin, recently hired as a pundit by Fox News, wrote: "Just as we'd be appalled if any public figure of Rahm's stature ever used the 'N-word' or other such inappropriate language, Rahm's slur on all God's children with cognitive and developmental disabilities - and the people who love them - is unacceptable, and it's heartbreaking."
Then, on February 4, the ultra-reactionary talk show host Rush Limbaugh referred to the growing brouhaha on his syndicated radio show. He said: "…our political correct society is acting like some giant insult has taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards 'retards'. I mean, these people, these liberal activists are kooks."
So how did Palin feel about Limbaugh, her fellow Republican and sometime colleague at Fox News, and his comments? At first, she seemed concerned. Her spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, told the Washington Post: "Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name-calling at the expense of others is disrespectful." However, a few days later on Fox, she defended him, saying: "Rush Limbaugh was using satire... I agree with Rush Limbaugh."
And it was this that led Stephen Colbert to call Palin a "fucking retard". Colbert has a show on Comedy Central which sends up exactly the sort of ranting, conservative political pundits for which Fox News is famous. He's less well-known in the UK than Jon Stewart, on whose Daily Show he first appeared as a spoof commentator, but has a massive following in the US.
On Monday night's Colbert Report, Colbert showed the Limbaugh clip, and then explained that Palin had defended it as satire. Jokingly, he said he agreed with her, and that the best way to show his support was to perpetrate his own act of satire. "We should all come to her defence and say that Sarah Palin is a fucking retard," he said. "It's satire."
The clip from the show spread across the internet, though it has since disappeared from many sites after Viacom complained about its copyright being infringed. One contributor to YouTube described it as "the best 10 seconds of my life". So far, Fox News has not picked up the story. ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
You've got to admire a desireable women,no bones about,shes a real doll,is she a demograph?
And so we hope and pray that one day a PRESIDENT PALIN will sit in the White House. And what a wonderful day that would be...... NOT because we love her, but because we love a greater cause : The DEMISE & FALL of that nuisance and troublesome country called the United States. Surely, a Palin Presidency would greatly help this good cause.
â??When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decencyâ??
And this is being passed as the political discourse in today's America: some cretin, opportunist like Palin, have some editor interject spiel of piffle on "Facebook" then drive the discussion for the entire country. Unfriggingbelievable! I wonder how many times Palin has referred to something stupid or lame as "that's gay?" She should be fired from her current punditry job on Fox Not News immediately.
Palin is so stupid that she's beyond all bounds of conventional satire.
Obviously I am reminded of my childhood, some 75 years ago. If my mother heard me using the language of these spoiled brats, she would have washed my mouth out with Ivory soap. Good manners are never out of place, something those who can only degrade another, have never learned. There mother would be ashamed of them.
Sticks and stones...
Simply put, Sarah Palin is out of touch with reality.
Jose, she may be doing her best, but being a retard that's not much is it? Every time she opens her mouth something stupid seems to fall out as if by accident. No wonder she has to write what she believes on her hand, that instant draining of the brain must be difficult to live with when you want to be a politician, surrounded by very bright people. By the way, Obama inherited two bancrupting wars and a bank collapse from your favourite retard Bushmonkey, so lay off the bancruptor bit, typical Republican blame anyone else attack. You sound pretty thick too, but then I guess Palin the Plank only appeals to those like her.
RETARD = To delay or hold back in terms of progress, development or accomplishment. If Palin would retard her comments long enough to think about what she says, the world would be a better place. She is an example of the WORST the United States has to offer. And yet, no one will ignore her! GAK!
I feel sorry for poor Sarah. She is doing her best to put the sanity back into US politics and they criticize her and fling ordure - it is not as if she is already in Congress and trying to ruin America like Obama the Bankruptor. I think it is really just because is good looking but plain sensible, not full of tricksy speeches, and not at all corrupt or sleazy. They have to latch onto something to discredit her - but all they really do by being so base is prove how low they can go.
American partisan politics going too far, so when a Democrat uses the R word it's highly offensive and he should be made to resign...
...but when a Republican uses the R word in exactly the same context, it's satire?
By the way the reason why Colbert is less well-known in the UK is because Jon Stewart's Daily Show is carried daily on the free-to-air channel More 4, a channel that has a slightly leftist slant, a channel that is available on Freeview and cable as well as Sky. Colbert Report airs on FX, a channel that basically is Fox in the UK, a channel lost way down the Sky EPG that requires a subscription to view and is only available on Sky.
Perhaps Stephen Colbert should have words with the BBC for Five...
A "Paling" is a kind of plank. So "Palin" is a short plank.