It’s pretty sad when a talk show host has to explain reality to someone in the political world, but when the person being schooled is Sarah Palin, it doesn’t exactly surprise anyone.
Such was the case last night when Palin appeared on “Late Night” with Seth Meyers and Palin wrongly proclaimed there was no screening process for Syrian refugees. Palin began by defending the 31 governors who said they would not accept refugees from the civil war in Syria in their states:
“Their message is not, we don’t want Syrian refugees. Their message is, what is the vetting process? How do we know that these are the innocents who are coming over and actually needing aid, and they’re not the bad guys infiltrating under the guise of refugee? And they want a vetting process, because we don’t have that from the top, we don’t have that at the federal level.”
Meyers told the former half-term Alaska governor that there is indeed a process, and he even tried to explain it to her:
“In order for any refugees to come in, it is, like, an 18- to 24-month process for them to get through. It starts at the UN, and then it comes through multiple government agencies here in the states. Is it maybe just that, at the core, I think there’s just a lack of trust across the board of the federal government? Do you think that’s what these governors are really saying, that ultimately anything the federal government tells them, they don’t trust?”
Palin, always a fan of any conspiracy theory she can fashion out of some rumor she has heard, replied that she never trusts the federal government:
“Well, I don’t trust what the federal government is telling us. But even you should not trust that the federal government is telling you about the 18- to 24-month vetting process is as legit as perhaps they’re trying to make the public believe, because truly, there is no way to filter out those that would want to do this country harm with the process that we see in place today. And that’s why it’s not just Republican governors, but Democrats, too, who are saying, wait a minute — somebody’s got to be the last line of defense here, so the states are taking on that authority.”
Meyers then asked the obvious question: Is there really any possible way to guarantee absolute safety in any country? And Palin tried to duck and weave around the question:
Then Meyers used the best line of the night:
“I think this idea that they’re coming here to infiltrate, I think that is fear-based. I do think they want to come here and enjoy the same things you and I are lucky enough to enjoy.”
The studio audience erupted into loud applause for what Meyers had just said, leaving Palin to timidly state:
“I do think most people want to come to America to enjoy what it is that we’ve been blessed with, I do, I do. It’s just unfortunate that we know, as we saw in Paris, there are some people who want to get to a country to do harm. But no, I agree with you — for the most part, people want to be here to enjoy that exceptionalism that we’re all blessed to enjoy.”
Sarah, you’re a freaking idiot. And the world would be a lot better off if you’d stay in Alaska, hunt moose, and stay off television.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.