Palin's Delight

Camille Paglia, knee-jerk contrarian, comes to the defense of Sarah Palin's syntax – surely a joke reaching "... not!" levels of obsolescence – against, um, Dick Cavett, whom I guess had some pithy things to say about the former VP candidate. Paglia thinks all this amusement with Palin's speech patterns is not just snobbery, it's downright unhip, baby:

In sonorous real life, Cavett's slow, measured, self-interrupting and clause-ridden syntax is 50 years out of date. Guess what: There has been a revolution in English – registered in the 1950s in the street slang, colloquial locutions and assertive rhythms of both Beat poetry and rock 'n' roll and now spread far and wide on the Web in the standard jazziness of blogspeak. Does Cavett really mean to offer himself as a linguistic gatekeeper for political achievers in this country?

Which suggests that, had the McCain/Palin ticket won, a reformed Sugarhill Gang would have been a sure bet for the inaugural:

I said a hip hop the hippie to the hippie
the hip hip hop, a you dont stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
skiddlee beebop a we rock a scoobie doo
and guess what America we love you
cause ya rock and ya roll with so much soul
you could rock till you're a hundred and one years old

And yes – that's Camille Paglia defending Sarah Palin against Dick Cavett. Which is either the premise for the worst-ever Reality TV show or just a predictably strained riff by right-wing convert (and former "comedian") Dennis Miller.