Keith Olbermann On Sarah Palin: “That Woman Is An Idiot” (And Here’s Why)

Keith Olbermann is often criticized for letting the lofty lefty in him get the better of his journalistic sensibilities, but once in a while the stars align and he gets his finger right on the pulse of his viewers’ thoughts. How far can you get into Sarah Palin‘s playground allegory of nuclear disarmament without blurting out “that woman is an idiot”? Chances are you lasted less than Olbermann.

Even the biggest Palin fans had to have been thinking it after the clip, where Palin boils international nuclear disarmament down to a schoolyard fight among children, claiming it is “unacceptable” for one of the “kids” in the “playground”– namely, little Barack Obama— to refuse to punch back:

“That’s kinda like getting out there on the playground, a bunch of kids getting ready to fight and one of the kids saying ‘go ahead, punch me in the face and I’m not going to retaliate, go ahead and do what you want to with me.’ No, it’s unacceptable! This is another thing that the American public… they’re going to rise up and say ‘no more’…”

Here’s the clip:

It’s hard to expand on this kind of language more than Olbermann did, but here’s a shot:

• Nuclear disarmament and the relationship between post-Cold War Russia and the United States is significantly less arbitrary than a schoolyard brawl. The complexities inherent in a type of diplomacy that for decades relied almost exclusively on fear cannot be understated. Every piece of that relationship’s history– from WWII to the Bay of Pigs fiasco to the fall of the Berlin Wall– is essential to understanding it.
• Of course it is possible to disagree with the new direction Obama is taking the nation in. In fact, many who hold national security to be the most important responsibility of a federal government are concerned that now is not the time for Obama to be extending olive branches to hostile nations with psychotic leaders like Iran, Venezuela and, yes, Russia. I include myself in that category. But the privilege of holding an opinion comes with the responsibility of having to defend it, and Sarah Palin has proven not to be able to do that about any opinion she has professed.
• Her assertion that the child in her story saying “I won’t retaliate” is “unacceptable” is somewhat problematic considering that “I won’t retaliate” (or, more commonly, “turn the other cheek”) is a major tenet of the religion that Palin has relied so much on to gain popularity among religious Americans. Granted, this isn’t the first time a religious belief is reincarnated as a political one in Palin’s ideological framework, much to the chagrin of those of us who respect Jesus (and any other deity, for that matter) enough to leave to Caesar what is Caesar’s. And before you pick up your pitchforks against me for pointing out her egregious conflation of church and state, listen to any extended statement she gives to the press. Palin has done everything in her power to blur the line between her religious beliefs and her political ones to confuse everyone into thinking she has any political views at all. Cornered into answering a political question, Palin panicked and threw her own god under the bus.

So congratulations Keith– after being wrong so many times, about so many things, you’ve finally hit a clean ball. Sarah Palin really is an idiot.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.