Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

No one could have predicted…

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

People are weird.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Let’s finish the job.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Poet and Doesn’t Know It

Reader Interactions

129Comments

  7. 7.

    Kathy

    Such riches! I though Gawker won the internets yesterday with the Peggy Noonan/Jack London/William Faulkner line, now this. My head spins.

  11. 11.

    Sputnik_Sweetheart

    When you put Palin’s speech in this context, it almost makes sense. Almost.

  12. 12.

    joe from Lowell

    It makes so much more sense this way.

    aimai,

    Did you ever see my found haiku from the Elliot Spitzer affair?

    Ahem.

    I’d be like, look, dude:
    Do you really want the sex?
    Ya know what I mean?

  17. 17.

    Fulcanelli

    TriCorder readings Bones…

    Tweet…boop…tweep…bzzzt.

    She’s dead, Jim.

    Palin is finished as any sort of electable political entity. Happy, happy, joy, joy. That was brilliant.

  18. 18.

    Comrade Mary

    Not as great as I had hoped it would be. I still prefer Shatner’s cover of Common People. But hey, this thread still brought Steve M.’s link to Shore Leave, so I’m happy.

  21. 21.

    ** Atanarjuat **

    Admiral James T. Kirk and the Federation have arrayed forces against Our Lady of the Great Tundra.

    I’m appalled.

    Viewed another way, Shatner’s an actor, which means he’s one of those evil emissaries from Hollywood that Palin mentioned. Indeed, Hollywood is such a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

    Forget it. I can’t pull off the Palin Word Salad. Too much wharrgarbl, even for me.

    -A

  23. 23.

    J.W. Hamner

    I hadn’t watched any of her speech, so I was shocked that Shatner was actually going verbatim from the transcript. It’s hard to believe someone not under the influence of a strong hallucinogen actually composed that paragraph.

  24. 24.

    The Moar You Know

    Another Hollywood starlet trying to destroy the traditions of the Great State Of Alaska.

  26. 26.

    adolphus

    I can’t wait to see this at home (don’t tell me how it ends). I still don’t care for his original Kirk and can’t watch 5 minutes of Boston Legal, but watching him clap like a girl in Dodge Ball, his rendition of Rocket Man, his appearances in early SNL, and now this. A national treasure indeed. (but which nation? Isn’t he Canadian?)

    As a counter to this, I wonder how the speech would sound being read by James Earl Jones?

  27. 27.

    gizmo

    I wonder if psychologists have a term for people like Palin? Maybe there is some sort of neurological syndrome that intervenes between brain and mouth and scrambles the signal?

  29. 29.

    Mr. Poppinfresh

    When I saw this post, I didn’t immediately start the video- I instead emailed it to a co-worker who hates Palin even more than I do, then sprinted down to his office to watch it, dancing like an excited schoolgirl.

    Palin mockery + Shatner = so win.

  30. 30.

    A Mom Anon

    @gizmo:

    Moose hoof in mouth syndrome?

    I got nothin’ sorry.

    Shatner is normally rather obnoxious,but that shit was teh funny.

  31. 31.

    slippytoad

    My fiancee brought some Shatner stuff to listen to on our vacation this summer. We drove 3600 miles, and we spent a lot of time listening to his stuff. It was hilariously bad.

    I cannot wait to get home and watch this.

  32. 32.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    A new high point for Shatner!

    With the previous IMO being “Even your leopard-skin capris. …well, maybe not the capris.”

  34. 34.

    ellaesther

    @J.W. Hamner: (I’m sorry that I have to say this, but I am compelled, because I am apparently a glutton for punishment and also a buzz kill, and I say this fully admitting that I loooooved what Shatner did here [see earlier comment!] and really have nothing but contempt for Sarah Palin — but. But, I suspect that this particular paragraph made a lot more sense to her audience, people who live in Alaska, and experience 150 degree temperature extremes and complain [I’m guessing?] about “Sourdoughs,” who I can only assume are non-tough people…? Just, you know, sayin’. Don’t mind me, I’ll let myself out.)

  36. 36.

    Ash Can

    LOLZ! And you just know that even that I-love-Alaska word salad was complete BS. If that passage were translated into both English and Honestspeak, it would be condensed into, “I can’t wait to GTFO of this godforsaken wasteland of an icebox and down to L.A. where I can start my ‘Everybody Loves Sarah’ media tour. And you poor slobs are all stuck here. HA HA! Also.”

  37. 37.

    zmulls

    So, he might be a bit of a dick, I’m sure a lot of popular folk are. What saves him here is a real sense of humor about himself.

    I had to go look up the real speech — it was five paragraphs and Shatner is going two from the middle. Verbatim other than a line flub in the middle (follow along, you’ll hear where he couldn’t quite make out the cue card and kept going).

    This is even better than the Rumsfeld poetry from a few years ago.

  38. 38.

    T Paine

    “When Shatner over there in Canada rears his head and enters our airspace, where do you think he does that thing with the rearing head? It’s Alaska, the state within the executive that I used to be.”

  40. 40.

    Et Tu Brutus?

    I’m givin’ her all she’ll take Captain, but she still won’t make any sense!

  41. 41.

    Shinobi

    Now all that remains in life is to get a video of Shatner saying “FOR THE HORDE! Lok’tar ogar!”

  42. 42.

    Bill H

    The man gets better with age. Better and better. My wife and I agreed that he might have been paying the network to allow him to perform in Boston Legal. He clearly had fun doing that role.

  43. 43.

    ChrisB

    Ah, yes, the bongos. Loping along like a moose before dramatically introducing Denali in all its grandeur.

    OK, I’ve made up my mind. I’m going to the next Palin rally, wherever it may be . . . with my bongos.

    Fulcanelli said it best @17: “She’s dead, Jim.”

  44. 44.

    DBrown

    What really scares me is this speech by Palin makes far more sense than most of what bushwhack said about Iraq (and most subjects) and that asshole bloody murdering lunatic was voted into office twice!

  45. 45.

    J.W. Hamner

    @ellaesther:

    You are in fact correct… I googled Sourdoughs and Cheechakos as soon as I heard it, and apparently they are Yukon terms for old hands and people new to the area respectively… and it’s also true that the spoken word often doesn’t scan well when transcribed. So it’s probably more than a little unfair to her… but still, reading that section remains mind bending.

    Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.

  48. 48.

    Bad Horse's Filly

    Man are you trying to get me fired. Hard to stealth BJ surf with that total WIN.

    @Comrade Mary: Oh and don’t think Bad Horse hasn’t noticed your moniker change. There’s been some whinnying under his breath about what to do about you. ;-) Something about sending Dead Bowie to ‘take care of you’ or something like that. But I start to ignore him when he goes all “thorough-bred of sin” on me.

  49. 49.

    harlana pepper

    @adolphus: Don’t care for the original Kirk?????? There IS no other Kirk, please. For many reasons, but perhaps this is the most profound, I weep for those born after 1980.

  52. 52.

    Jason

    When I shared this on my Facebook, and watched it go around, there were a lot of people who hadn’t actually seen the speech and didn’t believe it was verbatim. So they googled up the speech itself. Not a good end result for Republicans.

  53. 53.

    Ned R.

    Keep an eye out for honestly outraged reactions to Shatner’s brilliance around the Intertrons. Because that’s going to be even *funnier.*

  57. 57.

    Uloborus

    Uh… honestly, guys, I assumed it was deliberately poetry in the first place. It sounds more like bad poetry, which she’s obviously got a high enough opinion of herself to think she can stick into a speech, than rhetoric.

  60. 60.

    Left Coast Tom

    You are in fact correct… I googled Sourdoughs and Cheechakos as soon as I heard it, and apparently they are Yukon terms for old hands and people new to the area respectively… and it’s also true that the spoken word often doesn’t scan well when transcribed. So it’s probably more than a little unfair to her… but still, reading that section remains mind bending.

    It’s hardly unfair…she’s quitting before her first term is up. She didn’t make it into an “old hand”. Also.

  61. 61.

    Comrade Darkness

    @Jason: Not a good end result for Republicans.

    Palin railroading (frozen-roading?) herself IS good for the republicans. I can only hope and pray the backlash effect mobilizes her minions and makes up the lost ground.

  62. 62.

    gnomedad

    @Uloborus:

    Uh… honestly, guys, I assumed it was deliberately poetry in the first place. It sounds more like bad poetry, which she’s obviously got a high enough opinion of herself to think she can stick into a speech, than rhetoric.

    I think you’re right. It would have been more obvious if her “normal” speech were somewhat intelligible.

  63. 63.

    KRK

    It’s fitting for Shatner to take on Palin’s “rhetoric” since there were comparisons last fall between Palin and Shatner’s Adam Kramer character in The Intruder from 1960: a young John Bircher comes to a small town and stirs folks up against school integration with fiery speeches and lies; things get out of hand. Highly recommended if you can take the subject matter; Shatner is quite good.

  64. 64.

    BerkeleyMom

    OK. Sarah’s speeches now make sense :-)
    But wtf is up with those corsages? Can someone explain those butt ugly things the likes of which I haven’t seen since prom night in the mid 70’s??

  65. 65.

    adolphus

    @harlana pepper: I was born in 1965 and have not seen the new Trek movie and probably won’t. Considering the new movie I probably phrased that poorly. There was just a style of acting in the mid-60’s to early 70’s that is just atrocious. Emoting with no real emotion. You saw it in Shatner in the shows, but not in Shatner’s earlier TV appearances or in later Kirk roles in the movies. You also saw it in Robert Conrade in Wild Wild West, McGoohan in The Prisoner (especially that last episode jumping jeebus on a pogo stick), a number of actors in all those Irwin Allen shows. Broad gestures, loud voices, comically inappropriate facial gestures, and over reacting to just about every plot development. I guess they made scenery back then out of cake or red meat because so many actors enjoyed chewing it. It was a transient style of acting I can’t stand and makes otherwise excellent shows unwatchable for me.

    That’s what I meant.

  66. 66.

    El Cid

    I remember the brilliance of Saturday Night Live in getting Jesse Jackson to read “Green Eggs & Ham”.

  67. 67.

    Martin

    Uh… honestly, guys, I assumed it was deliberately poetry in the first place. It sounds more like bad poetry, which she’s obviously got a high enough opinion of herself to think she can stick into a speech, than rhetoric.

    See, the problem is that when my dog starts barking out poetry, I can’t tell either – even when he’s thoughtful enough to arrange for the bongos. It turns out that making sense to the listener is actually an important component to the various literary and spoken word styles.

  68. 68.

    ellaesther

    @J.W. Hamner: No argument from me! I wouldn’t even say it’s being unfair to judge her words when transcribed — I mean, either they make sense, or they don’t. I just could tell that my lower 48 privilege was showing on that one graf…

    Indeed, like many here, I’ve found the entire Palin phenom mind-bending from day A. Also.

  69. 69.

    Comrade Jake

    I assume some of you caught Colbert last night, where he followed in Palin’s footsteps by drawing random words out of a hat and reading them into a speech. Stewart was pretty brutal as well.

  70. 70.

    PurpleGirl

    What made the bit even better was the setting as a bohemian beat coffeehouse thing with the bongo drum and the bass, a very late 1950s and 1960s Greenwich Village beat poet vibe. Shatner in trousers and big overshirt, as he if just wandered in for a coffee and began reciting his latest poem. Brilliant. Also.

  72. 72.

    aimai

    I don’t think its wrong to laugh at this because “it would make more sense to an alaskan.” It made perfect sense to me–I didn’t even blink at the “cheechachko/sourdough” line. Its just bad writing *for a resignation speech* –as a tone poem it reads like a really bad version of the intro to a travelogue. Its not that we don’t “get it” or don’t “love Alaska” its that Alaska and its beauties are worth more than this pathetic verbal sludge.

    I thought Palin’s speeches were naturals for this kind of spoof from the moment people started using the phrase “word salad” because that is what so much modern (ist) poetry sounds like. Palin is and always was a post literate speaker–that is, she is barely literate herself and she has probably always been fed what to say, both as a sportscaster and as a political figure–when she has to write her own stuff she writes it as she speaks it. That’s great if you have a wonderful ear for the poetry of the spoken word. Less great if you don’t.

    Also, Joe from Lowell–that is a fantastic found haiku. Brilliant.

    aimai

  73. 73.

    gnomedad

    I wouldn’t be shocked if she’s deliberately goading the evil liberal media into mocking her so she can use it to rally the troops. For them, she’s an icon; it barely matters what she says.

  74. 74.

    ironranger

    @ellaesther:
    I live in Minnesota. Granted we have don’t have mountains or grizzly bears but we do get terrifying, life threatening winter storms, extremely cold temps and remote, sparsely populated areas with no cell phone coverage if you get lost or your vehicle breaks down. We also have a lot of hunters, fishermen, hikers, campers, independent personalities, free spirits, rednecks & so on. Many Minnesotans have moved to Alaska because northern MN even though it has similarities was too tame.
    I would say Minnesotans understand the Alaskan references better than most americans. Unless one is a hardcore R Palin groupie, most people here roll their eyes when her name is mentioned. Aside from her complete unsuitability for any kind of office, her attempts to present herself as the ultimate Alaskan frontier woman draped over a bear skin rug, donning hip waders, hunting moose & yada, yada make people here groan & snort with laughter.

  75. 75.

    binzinerator

    @gizmo:

    I wonder if psychologists have a term for people like Palin?

    Yes. It’s called Idiocy.

    But I think I’ll go with Shannyn Moore on Countdown, describing Sarah Palin:

    “Her political ambition combined with her intelligence is much like putting a jet engine on a golf cart.”

  76. 76.

    gnomedad

    @ironranger:

    I would say Minnesotans understand the Alaskan references better than most americans. Unless one is a hardcore R Palin groupie, most people here roll their eyes when her name is mentioned.

    It’s really wonderful having people like ironranger pop up at just the right time. Go lurkers!

  77. 77.

    Comrade Jake

    I’m not sure there was anything much more damaging to Palin during the general election campaign than when Tina Fey repeated one of her Couric responses verbatim. When late-night comediennes are mocking you using your own words, your campaign is pretty much in the shit.

  78. 78.

    Tax Analyst

    I happened to catch this last night…can’t remember if it was on Conan or Letterman (I was surfing between the two), but it was great.

  80. 80.

    gwangung

    There was just a style of acting in the mid-60’s to early 70’s that is just atrocious. Emoting with no real emotion. You saw it in Shatner in the shows, but not in Shatner’s earlier TV appearances or in later Kirk roles in the movies. You also saw it in Robert Conrade in Wild Wild West, McGoohan in The Prisoner (especially that last episode jumping jeebus on a pogo stick), a number of actors in all those Irwin Allen shows. Broad gestures, loud voices, comically inappropriate facial gestures, and over reacting to just about every plot development. I guess they made scenery back then out of cake or red meat because so many actors enjoyed chewing it. It was a transient style of acting I can’t stand and makes otherwise excellent shows unwatchable for me.

    A certain amount of it was in the times, and a certain amount of it, I think, is in the medium–broadcast TV oftentimes was snowy and not very sharp or clear. OVerly broad gestures and facial expressions can register on even the snowiest TVs.

  81. 81.

    Redshirt

    Protip: I find that whenever I’m feeling a bit glum or down, talking like SuperHammy Shatner is an easy way to pick my spirits up. Try it! Give the next five minutes over to the Shat.

  82. 82.

    Tony J

    [blockquote]Shorter Shatner: Let’s see Patrick Stewart do this![/blockquote]

    “Sarah, in the North, with the twitters.”

    “What?”

    “Sarah, in the North, with the twitters.”

    “Sorry, I just don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

    “Sarah, in the North, with the twitters”

    “Ohhhhh, I get it. You mean you quit?”

    “Sarah, in the North, with the twitters, also.”

    “I get you now.”

  83. 83.

    Polish the Guillotines

    This could represent the discovery of the “Irony Warp.” I mean, this functions in so many dimensions simultaneously it’s in danger of freezing time or folding the universe back onto itself.

  84. 84.

    Theron

    Reading it, it reads like a suicide note, in the style of “Seasons in the Sun.” “Goodbye my friend it’s hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky, now that the spring is in the air….” etc. It’s actually kind of creepy.

  87. 87.

    jenniebee

    I wouldn’t be shocked if she’s deliberately goading the evil liberal media into mocking her so she can use it to rally the troops. For them, she’s an icon; it barely matters what she says.

    I wouldn’t be shocked if the evil liberal media wasn’t double-secretly pushing her to goad them into mocking her so that she can rally the troops because Jesus, man, she’s the Comstock Lode of Democratic politics.

  91. 91.

    asiangrrlMN

    I watched it twice to get the full nuance of the poetry that is William Shatner. Man, that was absolutely brilliant. I busted a gut each time. Nicely played, William Shatner, William Shatner.

  92. 92.

    chopper

    @gizmo:

    I wonder if psychologists have a term for people like Palin? Maybe there is some sort of neurological syndrome that intervenes between brain and mouth and scrambles the signal?

    yeah, they call it ‘whatever the hell george bush had’.

  95. 95.

    Chinn Romney

    I’m givin’ her all she’ll take Captain, but she still won’t make any sense!

    Ah brutus, that was most excellent!

  96. 96.

    vacuumslayer

    Wanna hear a classic snark? Norah Odonnell was updating Contessa Brewer on the Palin speech and mentioned that Sarah said they “hunt because they eat.” Without missing beat, Contessa says “Sarah Palin eats wolves?” Those two are must-see TV in the afternoons. Also really enjoy Tamron Brown and David Schuster.

  97. 97.

    The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge

    Maybe we do need Patrick Stewart’s take on this as well. Palin’s speech as Beat poetry? Yeah, maybe…. To me it was much more like: “Darmok and Jalad, at Tanagra, when the walls fell.”

  98. 98.

    tess

    I’m hoping Conan will have the cast of Heathers act out the part of her speech about the media makin’ stuff up.

  100. 100.

    vacuumslayer

    @tess:

    I’m hoping Conan will have the cast of Heathers act out the part of her speech about the media makin’ stuff up. I thought the cast of “Heathers” was making the speech.

  101. 101.

    LD50

    @chopper: I always assumed that what Bush had was low intelligence combined with dry drunk syndrome. Our Sarah has never been a drunk, far as I know, so I guess that’s proof that this pattern of verbal expression does not necessarily depend on a history of substance abuse.

  102. 102.

    BruceK

    “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal.”

    …

    …

    KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

  103. 103.

    Egypt Steve

    the fucks at YouTube have taken it down. Is it cached anywhere else???? Send alternative link urgently!

  106. 106.

    Tony J

    @gnomedad:

    If, like me, you’ve ever caught the episode of Ricky Gervais’ ‘Extras’ (After many blockquote fails, I fear any attempt to link) where Stewart plays himself as a deeply disturbed pervert obsessed with writing nude-scenes into everything, there’s no getting around it – Patrick Stewart is a funny, funny guy.

    “She starts to say something about the Media insulting the troops, and the music soars, and everyone is listening, but then her clothes just – fall off – and she’s stuttering, and she’s trying to hold onto her shirt, but it’s too late. I’ve already seen everything.”

    “You saw..?”

    “Everything. You understand? All her bits. She’s nude. I see – everything.”

  108. 108.

    RedKitten

    Thank goodness one of my friends posted it on their Facebook, as those bastards at Hulu don’t allow access from Canuckistan.

    That was absolutely delightful, and the bongos certainly added that extra soupçon of win.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    @Crashman06:

    Wow… Just, wow. I’m in awe. Thank you, William Shatner, you national treasure.

    Shatner’s an old hand at deciphering gibberish, and he probably didn’t even have to use the Universal Translator. True fact:

    Shatner starred in the 1965 Gothic horror film Incubus, the second feature-length movie ever made with all dialogue spoken in the constructed language Esperanto.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shatner

  111. 111.

    Charon

    Always loved Shatner. Looking back at his cultural legacy, don’t forget “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” That was the Twilight Zone episode where a passenger (Shatner) sees a gremlin destroying the plane that he’s in, but can’t convince anyone else of its existence.

  112. 112.

    LD50

    @Brachiator: Ah, but Shatner’s linguistic skills may not be all that transcendent:

    Most English speakers have given [Incubus] good ratings and reviews, likening it to the work of Ingmar Bergman, while Esperanto speakers are generally disappointed by the actors’ dreadful pronunciation — in particular, Shatner’s dialogue was delivered with a very noticeable French accent (Shatner grew up in mainly French-speaking Quebec, although he lived in a largely English speaking part of Montreal, and came from a community where many families spoke Yiddish).

  113. 113.

    Blue Raven

    I got to a copy of the poetry reading by searching on “shatner palin” in the YouTube embedded player in the post. Someone else’s hadn’t been yanked yet.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    @LD50:

    Hah! I don’t know which is funnier, the stuff about Shatner’s pronunciation, or the fact that there were actual Esperanto speakers.

    Looking back at his cultural legacy, don’t forget “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.”

    There’s also the Zone episode “Nick of Time,” where Shatner plays a guy who’s afraid to leave a cafe because he has become hooked on the seemingly infallible predictions of a fortune telling machine.

  115. 115.

    steve davis

    Thank you, NBC Universal….I’m sure protecting copyright there was critical, as you consider building a series around this. Anybody got a different link to this?

  116. 116.

    YellowJournalism

    There’s also the Zone episode “Nick of Time,” where Shatner plays a guy who’s afraid to leave a cafe because he has become hooked on the seemingly infallible predictions of a fortune telling machine.

    I always love that episode, especially when you (spoiler) see the other couple at the end and see what Shatner’s fate might have been.

  121. 121.

    HRA

    Amazing!

    The truth is I did not hear Palin’s speech. I read some excerpts here and elsewhere. This part is new to me. Poetry is the first thought I had on hearing her in this video – like what the — is she doing reciting poetry as a speech?

    On a daily basis all poetry material that is put into our data base goes through me first. So now I see a connection of Sarah to some of the more way out material I handle presented as poetry. To be more exact about it I offer a small vial of mustard seeds, a miniature matchbox I refused to open, etc.

  122. 122.

    Anne Laurie

    A certain amount of it was in the times, and a certain amount of it, I think, is in the medium—broadcast TV oftentimes was snowy and not very sharp or clear. OVerly broad gestures and facial expressions can register on even the snowiest TVs.

    True, on both counts. I’ll add that William ‘Trained Shakespearan’ Shatner came up during the post-WWII period when Lee Strasberg’s interpretation of Stanislavski’s “Method” was hitting the classicists like a semi hitting a freight train — some professionals never quite recovered from the trauma.

  123. 123.

    Steve T.

    You know, this is rather interesting. You want to watch it? I won’t attempt a link because of the weird formatting things that have been happening, but just paste this:

    http://www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/video/clips/shatner-does-palin-072709/1139665/

    That’s the website for the Tonight Show, for the Shatner clip. Enjoy. But what strikes me is the grumbling & muted outrage that NBC should ask a repeater site like YouTube to please not spread around THEIR PROPERTY without permission.

    But NBC doesn’t want to keep it from you. They’re saying, if you want to see clips like these for free, great, but come to US for it. Is that really so outrageous?

    (OK, OK, you might have to sit through a 15 second ad first. But my computer has a mute button for the audio, doesn’t yours?}

  124. 124.

    Steve T.

    P.S.: Interesting. The site went ahead and made a functioning link from the URL anyway. I guess whatever was wrong has been fixed.

  125. 125.

    RedKitten

    But NBC doesn’t want to keep it from you. They’re saying, if you want to see clips like these for free, great, but come to US for it. Is that really so outrageous?

    It’s not outrageous, per se, but sometimes it’s damned inconvenient for those of us who don’t live within the United States. In this case, the clip IS available, but on more than one occasion, I’ve tried to find something on NBC but was unable to view it due to not being within the U.S., and Hulu isn’t accessible from here at all. YouTube was good that way — no residency requirements.

  127. 127.

    Remuŝ

    Shatner has not a horrible French accent, but a very pleasant English accent… for those familiar with English… The subtitles are very helpful to understand him, also in the Esperanto version.

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