Do we know that SP was using index cards?

They were memorized during preparation.

Either that, or she was working on a jigsaw puzzle on top of the podium.

I love it!

Well, you have to give Sarah Palin credit for at least having a strategy. She essentially refused to answer most questions during the debate, instead she was like a computer program written with fuzzy logic. She basically had a set of practiced responses and her job was to listen to a question and pick out as many keywords and then try to correlate those keywords to a particular response. Here’s pseudo-code that can basically simulate Sarah Palin’s debate strategy sans the human task of betraying emotions:

ListOfCannedResponses;

Function AnswerThisQuestion(HumanVoice Question)

{

ForEach Word in Question

{

ForEach CannedResponse in ListOfCannedResponses

{

ForEach Word in CannedResponse

{

IF (Word In CannedResponse is same as Word In Question)

{

AddWeight To CannedResponse;

}

}

}

}

RETURN (FindHighestWeighted CannedResponse in ListOfCannedResponses);

}

that all people in the executive branch of government are able to say the world nuclear. I'm not saying that's a primary cause of concern, but the similarity with someone else we know is too disturbing for my taste.

And I will have to count myself among those who find "comin'" and "goin'" a little less than fresh and delightful. If we have people in the white house who don't take the English language seriously, I wonder what other details they just might overlook.

haha!

I bet enough digging into the visual aids of Palin's training sessions would reveal something very close to it!

-- They might even have ended the session with a nursery- rhyme summary:

Don't blink.

Link.

Wink.

Maybe she had her own version of VP Debate Bingo though

http://www2.grist.org/images/home/2008/10/02/Talking_Points_Bingo_all10.pdf

Or she was trying to help Todd "win" in Debate Drinking Game

http://slander08.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/the-vice-presidential-debate-drinking-game/

I know it's highly unlikely, but isn't it possible that she was wearing some kind of tiny earpiece or device in her glasses so McCain's handlers could tell her what to say? I imagine there's technology out there that's so small, it's unnoticeable even up close.

She seemed to do better when Biden had the question first. Obviously it's partly because she had an extra 90 seconds to think of an answer. But I noticed a few times during Biden's responses when there was a split-screen shot, she was furiously writing things down and even mouthing something like "ok, got it". Second, she had lots of statistics memorized. Maybe she just had a crib sheet.

I dunno. I just find the speed with which she delivered lots of memorized points highly suspicious, and would love for it to come out that she had plenty of "help" during the debate.

From what little I saw of the debate they both seemed to be looking down a lot at their lecterns. So I assumed that they had notes of some sort that they were referring to.

That flowchart was astonishingly accurate based on Palin's performance. Seriously, just like Tina Fey's impression, this flow chart was less comedy and more a flat description of fact.

How are you going to create jobs in Michigan, Gov. Palin?

"John McCain is a maverick!"

How are you going to improve schools in America?

"We're a team of mavericks!"

How stupid are you Gov. Palin?

"I may not answer the way the Washington insiders do so let me just tell it straight to the people....we're mavericks!"

---

This little girl had a stroke! She's freaking brain damaged.

Palin was obviously looking down frequently at something on that podium before noises emanated from her mouth (I almost typed "before she responded", but that would be a poor choice of words, as response implies relation to a stimulus, and the noises coming from her mouth were unrelated to the questions).

Was she using some form of crib sheets? Gosh by golly you betcha, wink wink, flash a toothy, cheesy smile.

Geez - take a look at this short youtube video - a funny compilation of her winks -- but look at 0:12, that stiff wiry shape over her shoulder. Wire, or not wire? It mysteriously appears there, then disappears in the next clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCunBErZZJE

Who knows if she was -- on three or so occasions she seemed not to have even a non-answer prepared, she was stunned for a moment, listened, and then trotted out the "Maverick" card. (I wonder how James Garner feels about that?)

Please check out, though, this article from the Huffington Post by Keith Thomson, which investigates what devices are out there, and how to check for them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-thomson/the-cyrano-issue-can-a-ca_b_131379.html

Here's the beginning:

The Jan. 24 Republican debate in Boca Raton got me curious.

As you may recall, moderator Tim Russert asked Mitt Romney, "Will you do for Social Security what Ronald Reagan did in 1983?" A disembodied whisper of "He raised taxes" was heard, followed immediately by Romney's response: "I'm not going to raise taxes."

Theories abounded that the disembodied voice belonged to a "Cyrano" -- an off-stage helper, using a two-way radio to communicate via an earpiece worn by Romney. Possibly the feed had been picked up and amplified by a mike.

While Romney's camp declined comment, television execs dismissed as preposterous the notion that any candidate could employ a Cyrano with the world watching.

But I wondered, in a world where unarmed drones can read a license plate and send a Hellfire missile at the truck, could a candidate get away with it...

Recently I've been immersed in researching techno-gadgetry for my soon-to-be-published-by-Doubleday spy novel. The other day, I read a new book co-authored by the former director of the CIA's Office of Technical Services, Robert Wallace. It turns out that sufficient Cyrano technology not only exists, but has existed since the early 1970s. The CIA created a system known as the SRR-100 for its case officers in Moscow. The case officers wore a wireless earpiece no larger than the head of a Q-Tip that was covered by a silicone cast of the officer's ear. The fake ear was placed over the actual ear.

I began to wonder how far the technology has come since. As it happens, variations of the SRR-100 gadgetry are available to the public for less than $100. High school students make use of these devices to help one another on tests.

---------------------------

Mitchel Cohen

Brooklyn Greens / Green Party