I finally got around to watching the now legendary  Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin, and the hilarious parody by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. I enjoyed the parody, but is Sarah Palin more deserving of mockery than any other politicians? Compare this, from Palin:

I think, with Ahmadinejad, personally, he is not one to negotiate with. You can't just sit down with him with no preconditions being met. Barack Obama is so off-base in his proclamation that he would meet with some of these leaders around our world who would seek to destroy America and that, and without preconditions being met. That's beyond naïve. And it's beyond bad judgment.

With this, from former UK Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott:

Look I’ve got my old pledge card a bit battered and crumpled, we said we’d provide more turches churches teachers and we have.I can remember when people used to say the Japanese are better than us,the Germans are better than us,the French are better than us well it’s great to be able to say we’re better than them.I think Mr Kennedy well we all congratulate on his baby and the Tories are you remembering what I’m remembering boom and bust negative equity, remember Mr Howard,I mean are you thinking what I’m thinking I’m remembering,it’s all a bit wonky isn’t it?

Palin wouldn’t win any prizes for eloquence, but at least she makes sense. She is wrong when she says (in the Couric interview) that the people of Pakistan want democracy and freedoms. She clearly takes no account of Islam. But do any other Western leaders or would-be leaders?

All politicians deserve to be mocked, and Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin is almost as good as Janet Brown’s Margaret Thatcher. I thought Amy Poehler’s Katie Couric was very funny too. Long pauses dripped with condescension, catching her supercilious attitude perfectly. I think there is social snobbery as well as intellectual snobbery in some of the commentary about Palin. Perhaps it is her accent, which sounds fine to me, but may, for all I know, be the American equivalent of Brummie.