I’m not poring over all 24,000 Sarah Palin emails. That’s just lunacy. Especially since the political wonder team of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore think it’s a repulsive thing to do, because if you can’t use Kutcher and Moore as a barometer then you’re just doomed. But one thing that caught my eye is what’s been reported about her writing ability. You would think that the same person who wrote speaking notes on her palm and who has a habit of saying the equivalent of monkey-speech after being hit in the head with a log, could barely pick up a pen without becoming confused – But you would be wrong, so very wrong.
According to AOL’s Weird News, who brought samples of the recently released emails to two writing analysts, Sarah Palin composes her messages at an eighth-grade level, and that – gulp – is an excellent score for a chief executive.
“I’m a centrist Democrat, and would have loved to support my hunch that Ms. Palin is illiterate,” said 2tor Chief Executive Officer John Katzman.”However, the emails say something else. If she were a student and showing me her work, I’d say ‘It’s fine, clear writing,'” he said, admitting that emails he wrote scored lower than Palin’s on the widely used Flesch-Kincaid readability test.
This is the most shocking news I’ve heard all day. Because, seriously, have you heard her speak? Have you heard the syntax, the sentence structure, the dangling participles, the odd use of nouns and verbs mashed together in a stew of stupid? This sounds just impossible. I maintain that these two dudes were paid off by some Palin supporter. Okay. Fine. Yes, yes, I know they probably weren’t. The fact of the matter is, “Ms. Palin writes emails on her Blackberry at a grade level of 8.5.” (But on her hand at a 2.5. Hee.)
Furthermore, the duo indicate that famous speeches like Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was a 9.1 and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” oration rated a 8.8 on the scale, even though “that’s like comparing apples and oranges.” Damn right, homey!
This is the scintillating bit of correspondence they’re using to validate their findings, and they list it as Palin’s strongest writing. It’s an email from Jul. 17, 2007 to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell about the controversial Gravina Island Bridge, i.e. the “Bridge to Nowhere.”
“We cant afford it, the Feds won’t pay for it, the general populace isn’t placing it as a high priority (…) can you diplomatically express that?! Of course we want infrastructure — and this is NOT a “bridge to nowhere” (that is so offensive), but as it stands today with the highest-cost bridge design selected by the Ketchikan community, we need to find a lower-cost alternative [if] a bridge will be built.”
They didn’t mark any points off for forgetting the apostrophe in the contraction there after the first word? I would so mark that in my book. “Sarah Palin – Negative 10 points!” But Paul J.J. Payack (the name of an owner of a coonskin hat), president of the Global Language Monitor doesn’t think so. On his version of the test Palin registered an 8.2:
“She came in as a solid communicator. That’s typical for a corporate executive. She’s very concise. She gives clear orders. Her sentences and punctuations are logical. She has much more of a disciplined mind than she’s given credit for.” [And Spirit Fingers just checked to make sure she was on our side of a mirror and not in some sort of “up is down” “left is right” parallel universe.]
What could this all mean? I have no idea, but there’s no way this makes me think Sarah Palin should be CEO of America. It just makes me wonder more about those guys sitting at the top of those Fortune 500 companies, and if Blackberry messages should count.
