Tweets on Parade

I believe I officially hit the big time! A Sarah Palin admirer on Twitter just chastised my article about the former half-term governor for "spreading ignorance." (To be fair, it's possible that he may have been praising me.)

My favorite part though may have been how he phrased it.

I wrote back, gee,, why in the world would he possibly think I would be insulted by that?

Unfortunately, Twitter only allows 140 characters, so it was impossible to reply how I really wanted to. Like, say to him that I took it as a big honor that someone who describes himself on his homepage as a follower of Sarah Palin and therefore clearly knows so much about spreading ignorance would single out my work. I also wanted to ask him how he knew that a full half of my readers were alienated by criticism of Ms. Palin? Personally, I would have put the number far lower, but he apparently has different polling data. In addition, I wanted to explain that without knowing his standards for alienating others, it wasn't possible for me to be insulted by a total stranger. I considered, too, about replying that my job wasn't "devoted" to spreading ignorance but that it was just a lucky byproduct -- but I had the sense he might take that the wrong way. Also, I thought about simply just answering his question, and saying that, no, I didn't see my job as spreading ignorance, and that I was happy to help clear that up for him.

I also decided to not say that, given how he also described himself as a Green Bay Packers fan, I wasn't surprised at him being a follower of Sarah Palin and bewildered by the world. But being a Packers fan, I figured he wouldn't get it, and thought it best to just stick with politics.

I intentionally did leave out that the correct spelling is "you're," since as someone who often makes typos, I felt that unfair. Besides, with this being Twitter, he might have just been saving one character.

So, in the end, I just went with, gee, why would he possibly think I wouldn't be insulted by being accused of spreading ignorance and alienating half my readers?

Not to my shock, he didn't get the sarcasm, and instead actually answered my question.

Again, so many things to answer, and so few characters allowed. So, I left out saying that I had a feeling that people who were admirers of Sarah Palin saw anyone to the left of Attila the Hun as a "radical left winger." I also wanted to ask him to name three things that Sarah Palin had accomplished in her entire career in politics, up through quitting halfway through her term as governor. But that seemed a better thing to save for a latter tweet, if needed.

Instead, I chose to be thoughtful and just go with straightforward, and explained that he had missed the point of my previous note, saying "No, what I meant was that after you intentionally tried to insult me, why would you think I shouldn't be insulted by that?"

Alas, he never answered.

Yet I still feel honored.