In what may fairly be assumed is a response to Bristol Palin slamming Keith Olbermann on Facebook, MSNBC stooped on Monday afternoon to speculating that Bristol’s Facebook posts are written by a ghost writer, since the words in her posts sound too advanced for a young Palin.
Anchor Thomas Roberts was conducting a light interview with comedian Sherrod Small of VH-1's The Short List, and said “Now the young reality TV star is using the page to slam certain critics out there and fire back at people that come at her.” Small joked: “If she's using subjects and predicates together in a sentence, somebody else is writing it for her.”
Roberts began by reporting on Bristol's high school transcript.
ROBERTS: Some people are saying that maybe Bristol has a ghost writer. As I said, she graduated from high school –
SMALL: Maybe?
ROBERTS: Has roughly a 3.5, a 3.5 grade point average. So smart young lady.
SMALL: Right.
ROBERTS: But there's been postings on her page where she used the word “canard.”
SMALL: Canard. I know a dude, I know a guy named Canard. That's how black I am. Spelled with a K. Don’t even think about the words she used. If she's using subjects and predicates together in a sentence, somebody else is writing it for her.
ROBERTS: Well, it just seemed like, you know, there were some words didn't seem like they would be in the vocabulary, or in the firing back of, you know –
SMALL: She never used the word canard in her life.
ROBERTS: You know, I had to go to Dictionary.com to look it up.
SMALL: If I didn't have a friend named canard, I wouldn't use it either. So come on.
Roberts not only admitted he had to look up "canard" on the Internet, he confused Facebook "friends" with Twitter "followers." He volunteered to Small that "The Facebook thing is working out for her. She’s got over 40,000 followers now." Small said "the ghost writer's got over 40,000 followers." Small then joked: "Let me tell you something. Palins are the new Kardashians. You can't get rid of these people. They're everywhere. The more you try to get rid of 'em, the more shows they come out with, the more books they come out with. Just enjoy it. It’s part of our culture now."
