It's the day before election day, and you (presumably) have already been reminded of this fact by no fewer than four "John McCain was pretty good on SNL" watercooler conversations, that may or may not have taken place around actual watercoolers. When you close your eyes, you see poll after poll, their sharp bar graphs and razor-edged pie charts pointing menacingly back at you, while Tina Fey's great, though increasingly tiresome Sarah Palin "You betcha!" rings in your ears. I'm pretty sure that if any of us got a cut today, we would bleed not blood but that red white and blue fabric bunting–that's how over-saturated we are with election fever.
As if you needed more proof that this election should be over, along with the news story about the woman who handed out Peanut M&Ms; with McCain/Palin leaflets to trick-or-treaters, and the one about the little boy who was shocked when he tried to steal a McCain sign off of a lawn, comes the story about two French Canadian Radio Drive-Time Zoo DJs who pretended to be French president Nicolas Sarkozy and prank called Sarah Palin. No, seriously:
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Good one, guys. It's about time someone alluded to the fact that Sarah Palin isn't that bright!
While the Pepe Le Pew accent is pretty amusing, and the fact that two French-Canadian drive-time DJs could get through to a vice-presidential candidate is pretty remarkable, this just isn't that funny. Embarrassing? Yes. Surprising? Maybe. Funny? Not really.
In the Globe & Mail, the DJs expressed surprise that Palin didn't catch on, "She never, never suspected anything," Mr. Trudel said. "It was a little bit frightening." While it's a little frightening that her aides didn't check out the call for her, or that she thinks the French President just called to say hi, or that she has no idea who the Canadian prime minister is, the rest of jokes in the call aren't that unbelievable.
I'm sure if I were French-Canadian, I'd get hours of amusement out of the fact that Sarah Palin thinks Sarkozy has a "special American advisor" named "Johnny Hallyday," but considering that no one outside of Quebec (or France) has any idea who Johnny Hallyday is, that joke is pretty much lost in translation. The same goes for Sarkozy being a bit of a Pepe Le Pew-like perv–he left his wife for Carla Bruni, after all–and for Carla writing a song about Joe The Plumber. Those things are ridiculous, yes, but not totally unbelievable. Bruni recorded an entire album of famous poems set to song, and she wrote a song called "Hello, Seaman." Why not a song inspired by Sarah Palin?
Then, of course, there's the part at the end where the DJ says, "I loved the documentary about your life. You know from Hustler? Nailin' Palin?" and Palin agrees with him. That is pretty embarrassing–But considering the nearly unintelligible accent, it's just the French-Canadian equivalent of saying, "Asphinctersezwhat?" and laughing when the confused person says, "What?" It's obvious that Palin didn't understand what "Sarkozy" said, and is just bullshitting a response–something that she does throughout the phone call.
In truth, she comes off as kind of endearing in this prank phone call–clueless, slow, dumb, and gushy, yes, but she's also sympathetic, an impression that's only hammered home by the fact that the joke's not that funny. So thanks a lot, Masked Avengers. And, remember: every time a Drive-Time Zoo DJ gets attention, an angel loses his wings.