Sarah Palin, Thursday afternoon:

“Would you make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?” she was asked [by conservative radio host Rusty Humphries].

“I think the public rightfully is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bothered to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers,” she replied.

“Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?” Humphries persisted.

“I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past association and past voting records — all of that is fair game,” Palin said. “The McCain-Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area.”

Sarah Palin, Thursday night:

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In what would have been a watershed moment in American political discourse, Sarah Palin was almost required to speak English at a book-tour stop:

Officials at the Minnesota mega-mall this week told reporters planning to cover the Minneapolis-area stop on Palin’s Going Rogue book tour they must address the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate who resigned as governor last summer by her old title — a common honor, actually, which normally is accorded to former governors.

But the mall also was banning foreign reporters, permtting “only English speaking press.” That’s not a common requirement.

Palin, who normally speaks in a dialect combining Dog Whistle and Chalkboard Fingernail, is a special-needs candidate whose few encounters with English-speaking press have not gone well. But now that the Mall of America has backed down, we’re stuck again with tortuous run-on sentences that would put Faulkner to shame.

Palin’s English-only book-stop: Mistake [Chicago Tribune, via Think Progress]

Is Chris Schenkel still around? No? Then somebody else will have to call the splits next June when Sarah Palin fronts for the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America in Vegas:

“Sarah Palin is a great friend to the bowling industry and we’re so proud and honored to welcome her as our keynote speaker at International Bowl Expo 2010,” said Steven Johnson, executive director of the BPAA.

“Regardless of your political affiliation, Ms. Palin is a force in American politics and culture. Her presence underscores the impact and importance of bowling, one of our country’s leading national pastimes and a growing $10 billion industry.”

We’re sticking with our suspicion that Talibunny is conducting market research for her Six Flags Over Wasilla theme park. But it could just as easily be argued that she’s taking an early swipe at Barack Obama for his lack of grace on the lanes.

Sarah Palin strikes new ground as keynote speaker at International Bowl Expo 2010 [Bowling Digital]

We offer our apology to the girl with the Sarah Palin cutout, whom we viciously accused of nursing a secret desire to watch a Partridge Family reboot on the Disney Channel. Upon further investigation, we’ve learned that she was only trying to save some serious coin over being photographed with the real Talibunny:

A spokesman for Palin’s book tour says the crowd won’t be allowed to take photos of Palin, but can pose with her and buy copies later from a Web site.

This confirms our notion that Palin isn’t really running for President, but doing market research for her new line of theme parks. The Flash-in-the-Pan Mountain ride will be especially thrilling, when automated cameras take your picture as you crash to the bottom of the polls. Raise your hands, everyone!

Sarah Palin book-signing today draws crowds in Tempe [AZcentral, via Jamie Sommers]

Such read the college newsroom sign posted by our managing editor, Marvelous Marv. Marv was known to go apoplectic over a fact error in a story — probably the only real-life example of Tex Avery Eyes we’ve seen.

And since our years as a college journalist just preceded Sarah Palin’s (and just followed John Wooden’s retirement at arch-nemesis UCLA), we particularly enjoyed the latest Going Rogue howler:

perhaps the most embarrassing gaffe so far is her mis-attributed quote to UCLA basketball legend John Wooden.

As the epigram to Chapter Three, “Drill, Baby, Drill,” Palin assigns the following remarks to the Hall of Fame hoops coach:

“Our land is everything to us… I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember our grandfathers paid for it — with their lives.”

Only the quote wasn’t by John Wooden. It was written by a Native American activist named John Wooden Legs in an essay entitled “Back on the War Ponies,” which appeared in a left-wing anthology, We Are the People: Voices from the Other Side of American History, edited by Nathaniel May, Clint Willis, and James W. Loewen.

Marv, wherever you are, pick your eyes off the floor.

Palin’s Latest Rogue Gaffe [HuffPo, via Sully]

grif‧ter [countable]

On her book tour, Sarah Barracuda pretends to be one of the people. But she’s really winging across the country on a private jet.

As much of her entourage, including HarperCollins publicist Tina Andreadis, risked a collective case of White Line Fever, covering more than 3,000 road miles during the book tour’s first week, Sarah Palin herself seems to have remained above it all, apparently cosseted in the luxury of a Gulfstream II 12-passenger jet rented from Universal Jet Aviation of Boca Raton, Florida, at a cost of more than $4,000 per hour.

Blogenfreude, June 9:

Buddy of mine here at the office says he went to an autism walk with one of his kids on Sunday.  The guest speaker was … Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was also to lead the walk.

She bailed out 100 yards in, jumped into an SUV, and headed for Yankee Stadium to meet Rudy.

This was before the Iquitarod, so it was just a passing note at the time. But Friday night, Stinquer Original Andrew was among the first to note a curious sequel from a charity “Turkey Trot” in Kennewick, Washington:

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