At a California event on Saturday, Sarah Palin had this to say:
Palin is, of course, misquoting Albright. Her actual line was not "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women," it was "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women."
Given that the quote is exact except for one word that is crucial to Palin's purpose, I think it's pretty safe to assume the mischaracterization is deliberate. But beyond that, it's remarkable that the GOP, forever scourge of identity politics, has come to this. As Conor Friedersdorf (himself a conservative) notes over at Culture11, "I wonder how commentators on the right would’ve reacted had Hillary Clinton said that."
Finally, you have to love Palin's concluding line:
I didn't know how that was going to go over. And now, California, let's see what a comment like I just made, how that is turned into whatever it'll be turned into tomorrow in the newspapers.
Is the McCain camp's strategy at this point to have Palin utter foolish, obnoxious, factually inaccurate comments every day just so they can attack the media when it reports on them?
--Christopher Orr