“Westbrook Pegler.” I’m fairly well read, but this is the first time I’ve heard of the guy, even as a passing reference. According to Pegler’s Wikipedia, he died in 1969 when I was 7 and Palin was probably on a tricycle. He seems like Pat Buchanan on a bender, a rather nasty chap who’d have a very limited following today.

The quote she borrowed seems OK, even if the person her speech-writer borrowed it from seems obnoxious.

There’s an old saying-”Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” Or at least ignorance.

I would not have picked Pegler’s name out of a lineup 15 minute ago, nor recognize that a quote came from him without Googling it. Palin has a Poli-Sci background in college, but her classes at Idaho in the mid 80s were likely as Pegler free as my early 80s Poli-Sci classes at Central Michigan, so she was probably as clueless about Pegler as I am, at least until last week when this started to get into the news; I hadn’t heard of this until today.

Probably…however, her husband leans a bit to the Buchanan side of politics, so it may have came in via him.