Before Sarah Palin was understood to be the most catastrophically stupid politician of our age, she looked, for about 30 seconds, a good thing. John McCain chose the Alaskan governor as his running mate during the 2008 US election and she became the first woman to appear on a Republican ticket. At her first rally, she took to the stage frowning, all humble and credible. Who was this Palin? Seconds into her speech, she was applauding herself between sentences. A dig by the world’s press revealed she’d asked, only a month prior: ”What is it a vice president does every day?” Things went south in a hurry Photograph: Stephan Savoia/AP
“What newspapers do you read?” TV interviewer Katie Couric asked Palin a month into her candidature. It was a bit of getting to know you, Palin still unfamiliar to most. The question induced panic. “Um,” said Palin, “all of them?” She dodged more questions by talking about Alaska being a microcosm of society, but couldn’t evade Couric later on when pressed on foreign policy. What experience did Palin have? Panic again. She said that, well, Russia was “just there over the border” before talking, at random, about airspace and trade missions and “very powerful nations”. Couric let that answer speak for itself. Watch the video here Photograph: Public Domain
Up against Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden in a live television debate in October 2008, Palin performed better than most had expected. This was due to an apparent policy decision (after the disastrous Couric interview) not to attempt to answer questions coherently, rather, to try to establish herself as a homey, potato salad-making type by littering her speech with folksy phrases (“Doggone it!”) and winking a lot. It being a political debate she couldn’t avoid political debate entirely. On nuclear weapons: “The be all end all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet, so...”. Watch the video here Photograph: Don Emmert/AP
Credit where it’s due – Palin showed good grace to appear on Saturday Night Live in October 2008, after weeks of being lampooned on the American sketch show. Her chief tormentor had been comedian Tina Fey who, when dressed in Palin’s signature specs and alien-empress power suits, bore an uncanny resemblance to the governor. During Palin’s brief cameo, she crossed swords with an identically dressed Fey; she made a joke about being ill-equipped to answer questions from the audience and then appeared in a sketch about shooting moose. Millions watched Photograph: Public Domain
The faintly ludicrous act of pardoning a due-for-slaughter turkey once a year is no fault of Sarah Palin; this American tradition dates back to George HW Bush offering a “fowl pardon” to a doomed bird in the late 80s. Still, getting in on the act in late 2008, Palin couldn’t help but add her own sprinkle of absurdity. Having pardoned an Alaskan turkey, she gave a TV interview in which she spoke about all she’d learned from her failed election bid. While she rambled on about personal growth, a farm hand in the background proceeded to feed turkeys, head first, into an execution machine. The interview went on for three minutes. Watch the video here Photograph: Public Domain
“I love my job,” said Palin in July 2009, just as she resigned from it at a hastily arranged press conference in her garden. Palin’s explanation for giving up the governorship of Alaska was so disjointed, even by her standards, as to seem adlibbed. For weeks, nobody could quite fathom her stated reason, but the logic seemed to run thus: I won’t be seeking re-election at the end of my term; serving out the remaining months as a lame duck is the kind of thing a dull Washington politico would do; I’m not a dull Washington politico, I’m a maverick; see ya. Palin said her decision was made “in Alaska’s best interests”. Watch the video here Photograph: Al Grillo/AP
The letters F and P are positioned nowhere near each on QWERTY keyboards, but this was the basis of Palin’s excuse when, in 2010, she used the nonsense word “refudiate” in a message on Twitter. At first, Palin said she meant to type “repudiate”. Then, she said she’d meant “refute”. Then footage surfaced in which she was shown chirpily saying “refudiate” on TV and Palin, finally, threw up her hands. “Shakespeare liked to coin new words too,” she said. Incredibly, the Oxford American Dictionary added the word to its lists. Buoyed by that, perhaps, Palin recently referred to the conflict in Libya as a “squirmish” Photograph: AP
Weeks after Palin signed a deal to appear on Fox News in early 2010, a second TV project was announced: Sarah Palin’s Alaska, “a documentary series about the remarkable governor Palin and her home state”. Remarkable (we came to learn when the show was broadcast) because of the things Palin did in her spare time. Salmon fishing, bear bothering, logging, shooting, gold hunting, reindeer killing... if you removed the time spent bitching about the Obamas (occasionally) and comparing herself to forces of nature (often), Palin’s life seemed to resemble that of a Tudor landowner or a Viking. The show shed two million viewers after its first episode Photograph: Gilles Mingasson/TLC/AP
An unlikely opponent, but one of Palin’s most prominent sparring partners over the years has been Levi Johnston, a 21-year-old high school dropout who was once engaged to Palin’s daughter Bristol. Johnston and Bristol had a son, Tripp, in 2008 before the relationship ended and Johnston, rather getting into the mood of what it might mean to be a Palin, went on a national media tour. He enraged Palin with a series of outlandish claims about her (she wanted to secretly adopt the baby!) before, in 2009, appearing nude in Playgirl magazine. “I call that porn,” said Palin, rising to the bait. “He hasn’t seen the baby much while he has been on his media tours” Photograph: Playgirl/AP
And after all the crassness, callous folly. In January, 19 people, including US politician Gabrielle Giffords, were shot in Arizona, the culprit a disturbed constituent with a semi-automatic. Six died and, afterwards, Palin was attacked by parts of the media for urging gun-based rhetoric on America. (“Don’t retreat,” she once said, “reload.”) In a bullish video response, Palin offered sympathy to victims, then called any media accusations against her a “blood libel”. An odd phrase to use, given its connotations with Jewish persecution; at a time of great upset, she appeared to have raised her status to that of a harried religion, only worsening a bleak national mood Photograph: Public Domain
