Calling Tina Fey.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has just said something pretty amazing — and very familiar, thanks to a famous Fey bit on “Saturday Night Live.”
On CNN Wednesday, she was discussing Iran’s seizure of 10 US sailors who’d strayed into its territorial waters. “I’ve been to the region,” Pelosi explained. “I’ve been to Bahrain and looked right across the Persian Gulf to Iran. Everything is very close there.”
Sarah Palin must have loved that one, after the ridicule heaped on her for saying during her 2008 vice presidential campaign that “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.”
It’s true: The Russian mainland at one point is 37 miles from Alaska, her home state.
Fey’s line came two nights later, while playing Palin on a later “SNL” skit, when “Sarah” chirped, “I can see Russia from my house.”
The power of popular culture: Palin never said it — but most folks now think she did.
Now, Pelosi’s words are about as accurate as what Palin actually said. What’s amazing is that Nancy went ahead with it anyway, despite all the slams Sarah took.
Not that anyone believes Pelosi will face the withering scorn that Palin did. Proving the truth of the old Latin phrase, translated as: “What the gods can get away with, the swine can’t.”