It was a slip of the tongue that happened twice in the same interview. What this suggests to me is that she has a vague sense of the situation in North/South Korea, but not enough of a sense to remember that North Korea is the bad Korea.
This woman should be kept far, far away from any sort of federal office.
Dejin
3283
I agree. It’s the same way Bush administration had a vague sense of there being different types of Muslims but not having a strong understanding of it, and we saw how well that went.
I think it’s unlikely that anyone with a decent understanding of that part of the world and the differences between the Koreas would make that mistake.
I can see that argument. I just think there are far more concrete reasons to despise the woman.
It’s not like we have to choose. We can despise her for a bunch of different reasons. ;)
Brilliant. That’s the exciting thing about Palin, just about when you’ve settled on one (or a few), she comes up with a few new ones.
If we could just harness her ignorance and stupidity we could power the world with free energy!
I think Palin is a huge idiot, but this kind of slip up is just that. It’s a non-issue. There’s enough to be mad at her about, but this mistake? Come on, it’s reaching.
Yeah, I just listened to the audio, and it’s obvious that she knows North Korea is the bad one. Before the slip she talks about “coming out with a strong enough policy to sanction what North Korea is gonna do.”
Dejin
3290
For someone who only knows about the area because they’ve been briefed on it a few times sure. For someone who actually knows the area, it’s like confusing the South and the North in the US Civil War. Not going to happen for anyone with any understanding of Korea.
What, studying something makes you less likely to make a slip of the tongue? I’ll hazard a guess that nobody knows “the area” better than I know my kids, and occasionally I’ll call one by the other’s name.
Anyway, her comments about Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity campaign are a better thing to be outraged at, if you have the energy to be outraged at made-up problems like Sarah Palin.
Obviously she’s not a made-up problem — she’s a contender for President, and she’s an ignoramus. But among all the genuine boners she’s pulled this one is just a slip.
I guess it depends on how you define contender.
Dejin
3295
Absolutely. For example, who is most likely to accidentally say Shiite when they mean Sunni?
a) Someone who is a Shiite Muslim?
b) Someone who is not Muslim, but who has a PhD in religious studies with an emphasis in Islam.
c) Someone who works in the state department, specializing in Middle East affairs.
d) Someone who has been briefed a half-dozen times on divisions in Iraq.
e) Someone who has seen one news segment on Shiites and Sunnis on the news.
f) All of the above are equally likely to accidentally swap Shiite and Sunni.
Sure it’s possible you could have a slip of the tongue as in your children example. But I very much doubt a Shiite would accidentally say Sunni when they mean Shiite (and in fact doing so in post-invasion Iraq could probably get you killed). And the likelihood of making that slip goes down as knowledge and understanding of the area goes up.
If you guys want to argue that there are plenty of other more substantive things to ding Palin for, sure I’ll agree with that. But to argue that there is no relationship between the likelihood of accidentally swapping North and South Korea and one’s depth of understanding of the Koreas is IMO foolish. Of course the two are related.
LMN8R
3296
Making a slip of the tongue like that on such a severe, incredibly important conflict is simply inexcusable. It demonstrates that the fundamentally does not understand the conflict, and at the most has simply memorized talking points by someone telling her minutes beforehand which is which.
Maybe if this was a rare thing for her, I could let it slide. But it’s not. When she’s already made so many incredibly ignorant statements, there’s no reason to believe that she actually understands this issue when she “slips up” like this.
Wow peoples hatred for Palin is making some of you go insane. Its was a slip of the tongue, i actually listened to the whole interview, and she did understand which side we supported ect. This alone doesnt make her stupid any more then Obama saying there was 57 states makes him stupid. Like others have said there are enough legitimate things to dislike about her without making yourselves look like idiots latching on to something as trivial as this.
This particular Palin outrage is stupid. I heard of it when it first made the rounds, and I can’t believe it still has any traction. It’s safe to assume she doesn’t understand dick about North Korea, but that has nothing to do with this insignificant error.
Kolonial
3299
Good point. And if Palin were from South Korea it might even be relevant.
Dejin
3300
So are you going with answer f. Because if you aren’t, then this is relevant, particularly when combined with previous evidence suggesting that she doesn’t know much about foreign policy.
If Obama, for example, regularly had a habit of making errors on the order of getting the number of states wrong, I would start worrying about him. Palin has a regular habit of getting things wrong or not answering questions. It all adds together to suggest that she is not very knowledgeable.
In other news Palin says:
“I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree. I study journalism. Who, what, when, where, and why of reporting. I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy … And then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.”
So I guess she’s going to stop appearing on Fox.
