# Sarah Palin Pranked; Thinks She's Talking to the President of France **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 3, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876 "2008-11-03T16:24:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Catchy\_Wins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Catchy\_Wins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catchy_Wins)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/1 "2008-11-03T16:24:02Z")
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV\_IphAIGPg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV_IphAIGPg) This is hilarious… Here’s the debate… does her sounding like an idiot at this point have any effect on the election? I would assume that everyone already knows she’s an idiot so a stunt like this late in that game probably wouldn’t have much of an effect, but then again a voter with something like this in their mind in the ballot box… who knows? It’s getting a lot of play in the mainstream media. * * * “If the choice is between right and catchy, catchy wins.” Cecil Adams ---
**Author:** ![atomicbadgerrace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@atomicbadgerrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atomicbadgerrace)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/2 "2008-11-03T16:47:50Z")
Heh. Is it just me, or at 5:52ish, does it sound like one of her aides in the background saying “oh my god, we are so fucked”? ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/3 "2008-11-03T16:55:40Z")
I’ve seen this splashed all over the internets this weekend, but I haven’t seen any details on how they pulled it off. The only thing I saw was that it actually took the pranksters a few days of going through some kind of examination from the campaign before they could get through. I’m guessing the examination wasn’t too thorough. It seems like it would be impossible to pull this off with even a cursory amount of work on Palin’s side. Wouldn’t they at the very least make at least one call from the campaign to France in some official capacity, maybe to the embassy? And would the president of France really be happy to talk to one of the heads of the political party that have used his country as a punchline for the last 10 years? ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/4 "2008-11-03T17:22:30Z")
[thread=490670]Previous thread[/thread] on this subject. ---
**Author:** ![Catchy\_Wins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Catchy\_Wins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catchy_Wins)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/5 "2008-11-03T17:39:25Z")
sorry Mods… didn’t see that this was redundant… please close the thread ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/6 "2008-11-03T17:45:57Z")
She’s in [good comapny.](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081103.PALIN03/TPStory/National) > [@](#): > > They’ve previously used the telephone to mock the likes of Britney Spears, Jacques Chirac, Bill Gates, Ozzy Osbourne, Tiger Woods and Mick Jagger. > > In August of 2005, pretending to be Celine Dion, they managed to get Britney Spears to take a call. “Ms. Dion” told Ms. Spears that Tiger Woods had agreed to sing a duet with her called Let’s Make a Hole in One. > > In January of 2006, they conned then French president Jacques Chirac into taking a call from a man he believed was new Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The BBC apparently rated this prank one of the 30 best moments in radio history. > > Last year, they fooled Mr. Sarkozy himself, again by impersonating Mr. Harper. > > In 1995, another Quebec DJ, Pierre Brassard, posed as then Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien and succeeded in getting the Queen on the phone. He then asked her to record a speech in support of Canadian unity before the Quebec referendum. > > Earlier, also posing as Mr. Chrétien, Mr. Brassard got through to then Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. Not that she is not an idiot, mind you. As to how they did it- > [@](#): > > Mr. Audette said there are two important tricks in making these kinds of pranks succeed. “First, you have to be extremely convincing in the preliminary calls to aides, and second, you never leave a callback number. You always arrange to place the call at a designated time.” > > With Ms. Palin, Mr. Audette and Mr. Trudel, known to their Quebec fans as les justiciers masqués (the masked avengers), pretended to be aides to Mr. Sarkozy and worked their way up over the week from relatively low-level staff in the Alaska Governor’s office to more senior campaign organizers. > > Only on Saturday did they learn that Ms. Palin had agreed to take the call. “We were in paradise,” said Mr. Audette. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/7 "2008-11-03T18:08:14Z")
What if Sarah Palin had to answer the WH telephone at 3 a.m.? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/8 "2008-11-03T18:12:41Z")
I don’t think she really sounded like an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/9 "2008-11-03T18:22:25Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I don’t think she really sounded like an idiot. Except when she said she was glad he enjoyed the “Nailin’ Palin” documentary about her. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/10 "2008-11-03T18:28:34Z")
> [@Slacker](#): > > Except when she said she was glad he enjoyed the “Nailin’ Palin” documentary about her. :smack: Oh heh, I missed that one. My impression was that she seemed unsure about the whole thing but wanted to err on the side of being cordial. I actually felt kind of sorry for her. She sounded a bit star struck. You know like the unpopular girl who thinks she is being invited to the cool kids party and subliminally knows she is being made fun of but doesn’t want to call them on it in case she’s actually in the process of being accepted. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/11 "2008-11-03T18:30:28Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I don’t think she really sounded like an idiot. She showed her idiocy, or at least ignorance, in her willingness to believe a foreign head of state would simply call an American presidential candidate without prior arrangement through intermediaries. ---
**Author:** ![Clu-Me-In](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@Clu-Me-In](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clu-Me-In)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/12 "2008-11-03T18:36:34Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Oh heh, I missed that one. > > My impression was that she seemed unsure about the whole thing but wanted to err on the side of being cordial. I actually felt kind of sorry for her. She sounded a bit star struck. You know like the unpopular girl who thinks she is being invited to the cool kids party and subliminally knows she is being made fun of but doesn’t want to call them on it in case she’s actually in the process of being accepted. And, you still don’t think she sounded like an idiot. Dayuuuuum!!:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/13 "2008-11-03T18:46:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > She showed her idiocy, or at least ignorance, in her willingness to believe a foreign head of state would simply call an American presidential candidate without prior arrangement through intermediaries. But they did make prior arrangements through intermediaries. That’s not the stupid part. The stupid part is A) not looking at the caller ID and wondering why the President of France is calling from Montreal, and B) not picking up on several over the top and factually incorrect statements - “fun to take a life” with regards to hunting, wrong name for Canadian PM, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Clu-Me-In](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@Clu-Me-In](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clu-Me-In)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/14 "2008-11-03T19:07:31Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > But they did make prior arrangements through intermediaries. That’s not the stupid part. The stupid part is A) not looking at the caller ID and wondering why the President of France is calling from Montreal, and B) not picking up on several over the top and factually incorrect statements - “fun to take a life” with regards to hunting, wrong name for Canadian PM, etc. Actually, the stupid and idiotic thing is to think that the President of France would call the “Sarah Palin” of the losing side of a super-charged election process to chit-chat and brag about how hot his wife is and carry on and on about bull-crap for 2-minutes. A first term Senator would hangup after the first 30-seconds if such a call manages to get through his aides. ---
**Author:** ![atomicbadgerrace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@atomicbadgerrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atomicbadgerrace)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/15 "2008-11-03T19:19:20Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > She showed her idiocy, or at least ignorance, in her willingness to believe a foreign head of state would simply call an American presidential candidate without prior arrangement through intermediaries. > [@](#): > > With Ms. Palin, Mr. Audette and Mr. Trudel, known to their Quebec fans as les justiciers masqués (the masked avengers), pretended to be aides to Mr. Sarkozy and worked their way up over the week from relatively low-level staff in the Alaska Governor’s office to more senior campaign organizers. > > Only on Saturday did they learn that Ms. Palin had agreed to take the call. I agree with **mswas** ’s interpretation of it – at some point, she probably realized something didn’t quite add up, but kept it cordial _just in case_. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/16 "2008-11-03T19:41:20Z")
I do not like Palin at all but this was uncomfortable for me to listen to. They put her between a rock and a hard place. Was she supposed to be nice to what might be pranksters or hang up on someone that has even a 10% chance of being the President of France? I doubt she had much to do with arranging the call; it’s her aides that dropped the ball here. ---
**Author:** ![Clu-Me-In](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@Clu-Me-In](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clu-Me-In)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/17 "2008-11-03T19:51:26Z")
A sophomore undergrad at any college in America would hangup after the first 30 seconds. Listen to it again and put yourself in her shoes. It doesn’t take much to figure out that it was a hoax. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/18 "2008-11-03T20:16:29Z")
I’m not a fan of shock jock pranks, but Palin should have figured this out. It was full of red flags. The Prime Minister of Quebec? I can see Belgium from my house? Come on. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/19 "2008-11-03T21:34:18Z")
> [@Clu-Me-In](#): > > A sophomore undergrad at any college in America would hangup after the first 30 seconds. Listen to it again and put yourself in her shoes. > > It doesn’t take much to figure out that it was a hoax. A college student would hang up because nothing is riding on them being wrong. For Palin, she was told it was Sarkozy… and even if it sounded entirely wrong, there is much more downside for her hanging up and being wrong, than playing along with doubts and being wrong. On the former case, she may have insulted a foreign leader, even an erratic one. In the later case, people who hate her anyway will mock her, without stopping to put themselves in her shoes. Non-event and issue. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2008, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876/20 "2008-11-03T23:33:23Z")
Slightly off topic: > [@atomicbadgerrace](#): > > I agree with **mswas** ’s interpretation of it – at some point, she probably realized something didn’t quite add up, but kept it cordial _just in case_. There’s a game we often play on the rookies called Spoons. A player from the home and visiting teams are blindfolded and handed an ordinary soup spoon. The emcee, if you will, has them sit facing each other. They’re instructed to find the other players head, put their spoon in their mouth, and hit their opposite as hard as they can with a nodding motion of their head. The “trick” is that the emcee has a serving spoon in his hand, and hits each guy as he’s being hit with the small spoon. We did it to a couple of the college kids this weekend, and one of them caught on (the other may or may not have). He actually said out loud, “I know something else is going on, but I’m not sure what it is.” Later, while still blindfolded, he said, “I know what you guys are doing, but I’m still going to play along.” I like this interpretation of the tape a bit better than **mswas** ’s, because the guy knew he was the butt of the joke, called us out, and then kept playing. On the other hand, I’m not sure if I can give Palin that much credit. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-palin-pranked-thinks-shes-talking-to-the-president-of-france/470876.md?page=2)