Sarah Palin Boston Commons April 14, 2010

Whether like it or not, Sarah Palin gets to say whatever she wants, and the mainstream media will simply regurgitate it.

The Associated Press ran a story on Sunday about how Sarah Palin was taken aback by President Obama’s comment regarding the US as a superpower. What she said was a total misrepresentation of the facts and the AP story just went with it.

Here’s what’s got Palin all riled up.

Obama said earlier this week that the United States must do its best to help resolve conflicts peacefully around the world, because if we don’t, it will fall on our shoulders – militarily and economically – to fix the problem.

Obama said:

But what we can make sure of is, is that we are constantly present, constantly engaged, and setting out very clearly to both sides our belief that not only is it in the interests of each party to resolve these conflicts but it’s also in the interest of the United States. It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.

Here’s what Palin said on her Facebook page:

Mr. President, is a strong America a problem?

Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”

Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it.

Maybe Palin really is just as dumb as a box of hammers and she just doesn’t understand what the president said, but what Obama meant was that whether we like it or not, the US will get pulled into international conflicts because of our superpower status if we don’t work to resolve conflicts peacefully.

And if we do get drug into a conflict, it will cost American lives and treasure.

Maybe that’s the part Palin really likes – seeing people killed and taxpayer money spent on international conflicts – and any attempt to prevent that is just un-American gosh darnit.

Thanks John McCain. Thanks for introducing Sarah Palin to us, because now we get to spend an inordinate amount of time debunking her outrageously ignorant lies. It’s not like we don’t have anything else to do.