When I first heard Sarah Palin make the claim that she could “see Russia from her house” it sounded weird and, checking a map, seemed preposterous. Now, thanks to CNN, it’s been definitively proven an outright lie:
Sarah Palin Has Never Actually Seen Russia From Alaska
By Jed Lewison, Huffington Post
Posted on October 2, 2008Just when you thought the whole “I can see Russia from Alaska” thing couldn’t get any funnier … CNN’s Gary Tuchman delivers the goods: it turns out that Sarah Palin has never seen Russia from Alaska.
Tuchman went up to the part of Alaska from which you can actually see Russia, a remote island called Little Diomede located just 2.4 miles from its Russian twin, Big Diomede.
It turns out Gary Tuchman’s trip to Little Diomede sets him apart from Sarah Palin — because she’s never actually been there, nor has she set eyes on its neighbor in Russia.
Here’s the video of Tuchman’s report: [see the Huff Post website]
Tuchman says that only 150 people live on Little Diomede, and that the town of Diomede has no streets and no cars. The poverty rate is over 40%, there is no television, and the only practical way to reach it is by helicopter. Anchorage (near Palin’s hometown) is 550 miles away.
No Alaskan governor has ever visited Little Diomede, though indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens has made the trip. The town’s residents barely knew who Palin was, and one of them didn’t know she was the VP nominee.
It’s going to be fun watching McCain-land spin this one, and it’s going to be even more fun watching Tina Fey parody it.
2008 Huffington Post All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com//101291/
To be fair, I don’t think Palin ever made that claim, Tina Fey did. It was Cindy McCain who first brought up the subject when she claimed Palin had national security experience because Alaska is right next to Russia:
DJ, Palin said something similar in the ABC interview with Charlie Gibson and Tina Fey picked up on it with the “I can see Russia from my house” crack. What I heard Palin say is “they are our next door neighbor” but not the later part of the interview. From the transcript:
PALIN: “And, Charlie, you’re in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They’re very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.”
GIBSON: “What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?”
PALIN: “They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
My bad. I missed that last line of Palin’s.