Statistically Improbable Phrases in the Debate

From the href="http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/">vice-Presidential
debate.

"building our embassy, also, in Jerusalem"



"That world view that says that America is a nation of exceptionalism.
And we are to be that shining city on a hill, as President Reagan so
beautifully said, that we are a beacon of hope and that we are
unapologetic here."



"freedom is always just one generation away from extinction"

All of these seemed just slightly out of place, as though part of a
subtext that could be woven -- artfully, but not
quite seamlessly -- into the main text.  

Personally, I don't care where the embassy is.  But some
people care a great deal.  Those who do
care will pick up on the comment.  Others are likely to not
even notice what she said.  



The Roadmap
for Peace, in 2002, called for a series of negotiations to
end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.  The status of Jerusalem
was left, deliberately, as a "final status" issue, to be taken up in
the third phase (at the end of the roadmap).  This is an href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E3DF133AF93AA1575AC0A961958260">extraordinarily
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C03E7D7143BF931A1575AC0A961958260&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Thomas%20L%20Friedman">contentious
href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0908/Palins_Jerusalem_promise.html">issue.
 Palin signaled which side she is taking. 



As for American exceptionalism, there is a long history to this.
 As explained by href="http://bostonreview.net/BR30.3/zinn.html" rel="tag">Howard
Zinn:

The
notion of American exceptionalism -- that the United States alone has
the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to bring
civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the world, by
violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as 1630
in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop uttered the
words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald Reagan. Winthrop
called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a
hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a
“shining city on a hill.”

The idea
of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what George Bush has
spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of liberty and democracy.
People can look to us and learn from and emulate us.

In
reality, we have never been just a city on a
hill. A few years after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words,
the people in the city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot
Indians...

...Expanding into another territory, occupying that territory, and
dealing harshly with people who resist occupation has been a persistent
fact of American history from the first settlements to the present day.
And this was often accompanied from very early on with a
particular form of American exceptionalism: the idea that American
expansion is divinely ordained. [emphasis added]

Wikipedia has more about the concept of href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism">American
exceptionalism.  It is not always religious.
 Coming from Palin, though, it seems likely to be a reference
to the religious interpretation.  Her statement about being
"unapologetic" is odd.  If she are referring to being a
"beacon of hope," why would she even think of being apologetic?
 



Taken literally, it makes no sense.  It makes sense only if the
phrase is an allusion to something else.  



If she really thinks that America has a divine
right to direct the affairs of other peoples, of other nations, then
she is a very dangerous person.



Just as the "beacon" comment was recycled from Reagan, so too was the
statement, "freedom is always just one generation away from
extinction."  From href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan#Pre-presidency">Wikiquote:

• Freedom is never more than one generation away
  from extinction.
  We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It
  must be
  fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one
  day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was
  once like in the United States when men were free.
  • Address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of
    Commerce, ( title="1961">1961- href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/March_30" title="March 30">03-30).
  • Later variant : Freedom is a fragile
    thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction.
    It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended
    constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.
    Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it
    again.
    • href="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm"
      class="external text"
      title="http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/govspeech/01051967a.htm"
      rel="nofollow">California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech
      (1967- href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/January_5" title="January 5">01-05).

It turns out that href="http://www.mikesoutherland.com/blog/2007/02/one-generation-away-from-extinction.html">Christian
religious groups have paraphrased this, saying "The Church is
one generation from extinction."   Thus it is a
double entendre, alluding both to Reagan, and to
Christianity.  It also is a call to battle, of sorts; it is an
an assertion that one's way of life is under attack, at risk of being
irretrievably lost.  



On a literal level, this is nonsense.  The USA dropped two
nuclear bombs on Japan, then occupied the entire country.  The
Japanese were not free in 1946; now they are.  Poland was
taken over by Germany, then by the USSR, in and after World War II.
 They were not free, but now they are.  



I suspect that Palin's handlers are styling her to be the next Great
Communicator.  I suspect that McCain likes her because he sees
her as a straight talker.  She thinks that of herself:

I'm going to talk straight to the American people and
let them know my track record also.

But I'm being as straight up with Americans as I can

Americans are craving that straight talk

Straight talk is not veiled references,
 code words, dog whistles, and double entendres.