It smelled like a hoax from the beginning, unless you were drinking media Kool-Aid about Palin being stupid. My first impression of Sara Palin was watching an interview she did with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo a week before being picked as McCain’s running mate. I know she isn't stupid or lacking education. What we saw in her botched interviews was someone who tried to be a team player when the coaches were sending in bad plays. 

I expect this kind of blind assumption from MSNBC.  I was shocked that even O’Reilly and Carl Cameron had sipped enough media Kool-Aid to think that the Governor of Alaska was uneducated. The hoax plays into the sexism and urban elite disdain for all things rural. So deep is this prejudice, that Bill O’Reilly nodded like a bobble head doll as Carl Cameron reported on clearly ludicrous rumors about Palin’s lack of 2nd grade knowledge.

Any person using just a bit of deductive reasoning could have seen this coming. Like other hoaxes the pranksters put the clues before the faces of the gullible audience.

Let’s look at the reports:

Palin went on nationwide Neiman Marcus shopping sprees:   Greta Van Susteren who voiced her embarrassment at the FOX reports openly, spotted HOAX clue #1: Every public moment of Palin’s life for nine weeks was reported and photographed. Not one second of that was in Neiman Marcus or any other high-end department store.  Greta’s on-air observation must have sent Fox News into CYA mode as they realized they might have been played. Strangely, Cameron stopped doing live follow-ups on "his exclusive", the replays from the O’Reilly Factor the next morning transitioned into Bill O’Reilly questioning the report as his show opening just 24 hours after he clearly believed it all. Fox soon acted like it was a “media” story not their own “exclusive.” O’Reilly has even gone so far to say he defended Palin during the original report. But, the extent of that defense was saying that she could be “taught that stuff” referring to the report’s geographical fairytales. YouTube doesn’t lie; Bill believed the reports and got punked!!

Palin didn’t know what countries were in North America or NAFTA. How obvious does the prankster have to be? This is HOAX clue #2.  I am sure Palin needed some education on foreign affairs. It is common knowledge that Bill Clinton did too. Clinton even used the “National Guard Line” when people questioned his credentials as a Governor. But anyone that has seen Palin discuss issues like trade and energy, both which affect Alaska directly knows she is an expert. At best to avoid a “gotchya” she might ask if Central America had any participation, just to be sure “what you know, is what is in the fine print” But odds are she knows NAFTA better than any campaign aide, after all she did negotiate a gas pipeline with a Canadian company that will cross through Canada on its way to the lower 48.

Hoax Folds Back on Itself – Don’t Be Fooled Again