Annie Oakley - Not!

"I am not a good American...I prefer to form my own opinions" - George Carlin


"It's difficult to remember one came to drain the swamp when one is up to one's ass in alligators" - Barack Obama (not really...but it should have been)

I just can't help myself. This makes me pee my pants it's so good.

There was a 1964 film starring Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss, called Man's Favorite Sport? Hudson plays a well-known fishing expert who works for Abercrombie & Fitch Co. The problem is, he cannot fish. Not only that, he just isn't an outdoorsy kind of guy. He can't set up a tent...can't make a fire...can't find his way in the woods...and, he cannot run or even board a motorboat. He cannot even swim. In other words...he's a fraud, and Paula Prentiss proceeds to expose him when she finds out. It's a Drawing Room Comedy, taken outdoors.

Expose, is a good thing, methinks.

Why am I bringing this fairly unknown film up you want to know? Because I thought of it when I read an article in The Independent, sent to me by my brother.

It's about our own pistol-packing momma, 21st Century Annie Oakley, re-loading...Sarah Palin...sans drawing room...but certainly comedic.

Excerpts from the article highlight my amusement:

The Conservative blogosphere, usually a forum for cheer leading on behalf the Palin cause, was awash yesterday with suggestions that her outdoorsy image is an elaborate charade.

"I turned on Sarah Palin's Alaska and she just shot four maybe even five times at a caribou and missed," noted a typical comment on the Fox News host Sean Hannity's website. "Needless to say I'm not impressed with her ability to handle a firearm let alone aim it and hit."

Among the basic items of protocol blithely ignored by Palin as she set off into the wilderness in a Rambo-style headband was her failure to take practice shots, or check the sights of the rifle, which duly turned out to be off-kilter. She failed to carry her own weapon, relying on her elderly father and his companion, Steve, to lug it around. When a beast eventually wandered into range, Ms Palin left Chuck Snr to load the rifle, and discharge spent bullet casings.

"What a joke," wrote one viewer on Palin's Facebook page. "I was a fan before the show. No one who is a true hunter lets others carry their rifle or can't load their own shells. Sarah, you are a phony."

The Awl, a website which collated reactions to the episode, noted that, while being passed the firearm, Ms Palin immediately moved her finger inside its trigger guard, a breach of basic safety rules. After missing the caribou several times, she then appeared to panic and shot at the beast while it was still moving, a technique usually avoided by all but the very best marksmen.

On leaving her hunting camp one morning, Ms Palin pointed to the horizon and declared "Let's go west." There followed an awkward pause. "That's east," noted her father.

The cognoscenti was meanwhile perturbed that the fact that Palin seemed scared by her weapon, a small gun described by Chuck Snr as a "varmint rifle". Several times during the episode, she anxiously asked: "Does it kick?"

"What kind of a question is that?" wrote a fan called Brad Schegel on Palin's Facebook wall. "Doesn't matter if it kicks or not, you shoot it the same. That was a girly question, momma griz."

Even Chuck Snr's handling of his weapons drew criticism. "I was surprised to see him using the gun as a walking stick," noted one user on the Free Republic website.

"I do like the woman but think she needs some serious range time. I had the impression it was her first time firing a rifle."

Previous episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska have already caused debate in sporting circles. On the first episode of the show, she went salmon fishing, but cynics noted that she handled a rod awkwardly and failed to catch a fish, despite being on a river chock full of them.

Here is part of it in video (btw-note that she has a FUCKING SCOPE on the rifle. Even not zeroed in, after the first couple of shots she should have hit something) (btw2-How does one pronounce Snr? Does anyone know? And...isn't that what some people do when they go to sleep? Just wondering.) (btw3-The test out here on the plain Plains as to a real pistol-packing gal is...can she change a tire? I want to see Sarah change a tire):

SARA PALIN'S ALASKA - SHE'S A GREAT SHOT. HAR!