Sarah Palin, never a stranger to controversy, decided to weigh in on the one raging over the plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero — that is, a mosque and community center two blocks north of where the Twin Towers used to stand. In the midst of it, she managed to insult Muslims, those who aren’t but still support the mosque and lay a George W. Bush-level malapropism on the masses. She’s a multitasker.
Her Tweet, issued at 1:52 pm ET on Sunday (and pictured to the left) read:
Ground Zero Mosque supporters: doesn’t it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate
Obviously, her Tweet connotes that Muslims who are not peaceful are the ones who are supporting the mosque — despite all evidence to the contrary — but it equally egregiously mashes together the words “refute” and “repudiate” to create out of whole cloth the word “refudiate.”
Refute, of course, means “to deny the truth or accuracy of” while repudiate means “to reject with disapproval or condemnation.” Presumably, what Palin meant to do was to call upon “peaceful” Muslims” to repudiate the construction of a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero.
So, of course, Palin sought to correct her mistake.
She, in fact, erased the original Tweet and replaced it with the one above, which reads:
Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused @ Twin Towers site is too raw, too real.
Palin called upon New Yorkers — many of whom survived the attack on the Twin Towers and others of whom lost family and friends in the Twin Towers — to “refute” the plan to build a mosque and community center in the vicinity of the towers because the pain of the attacks remains too painful to other people.
That, of course, didn’t stop the controversy, so Palin didn’t stop her Tweets. She went back to her initial framing of the controversy: that it’s all about heartless Muslims versus the still-pained (Christian) Americans.
An hour after her initial Tweet, she added this.
It reads:
Peace-seeking Muslims pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing
Again, she equates “peace-seeking” Muslims with those who would reject the mosque, and blames those who don’t for causing unncessary pain and “provocation” to the non-Muslims hurt by the tragedy. She then places the onus for healing from the tragedy on those “peace-seeking Muslims,” because it is obviously the place of “peace-seeking Muslims” to offer healing to the non-Muslims hurt by the tragedy.
And, for those who noticed her malapropism more than her offensive statements about Muslims? Well, she’s got a Tweet for you, too.
It reads:
“Refudiate,” “misunderestimate,” “wee-wee’d up.” English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!
See, she knows it’s not a real word, it’s just that she’s the modern-day Shakespeare, people.
She is trying so hard to coin “refudiate,” in fact, that she’s used it in the past. Watch:
Additional reporting by Brian Beutler.
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