Chatty Cathy She Ain't
NGINEERS OF THE plastic Sarah Palin doll, used successfully for both the Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric interviews, will transport the Palin 8000 to a retooling factory in Detroit due to "overstressed circuitry" caused by "excessive wear and tear on the unit" during its Vice Presidential debate last Thursday evening.
Lead engineer Jack Landow said of the Palin 8000, "She's been a great little doll, answering questions with an impressive approximation of human speech. Yes, we sent her out with some minor bugs—some people have noticed that she says 'blink' more frequently than an actual human would, for instance. That's really more of a cross-program bug with her eye sockets. Instead of blinking her eyes, sometimes she'll say the word 'blink.' Quite a humorous little glitch to those of us who engineered her. But all in all, we're very proud of the Palin 8000."
Mr. Landow credits his team's expertise producing a life-like substitute with giving the real Sarah Palin the time she needs to bone up on such important vice-presidential skills as naming more than one Supreme Court ruling, knowing that age 71 is not much different than age 72, and being able to recite the names of at least two newspapers. Said Mr. Landow, "As long as our Palin 8000 can say the words 'read' and 'newspaper' in the right order, that seems to be all reporters need for the moment. But just wait until the real Sarah Palin has learned to say, 'I read the Atlanta Journal Constitution and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.' That will be a proud day for me and my staff."
Asked whether the Palin 8000 would be ready to pinch hit for the real Sarah Palin should she become the country's next Vice President, Mr. Landow replied, "Oh, yes. And when she's back online, she'll have been uploaded with some fresh new vocabulary. Don't be surprised if you hear words like 'electorate' and 'socialism' issuing from her beautiful, red plastic lips. Although we don't want to go overboard and make her sound like an intellectual or something. The idea is to make her believeable."
And has Mr. Landow formed a crush on his Palin 8000? "Well, maybe just a little one. She's feisty and pretty, and whenever she starts to get on my nerves with all that 'gosh' and 'by golly' stuff, I just power her down. Sadly, we just can't do that with the real one."
© 2008 Kate Heidel
