My dad has joked for years that my mom commits plausible deniability — when you don’t remember, you claim you didn’t do or say the thing in question. Children are particularly tenacious at this because they don’t realize you realize they’re full of shit. Did you brush your teeth before bed? Well, no, you didn’t, because I can smell you from here.

I suspected, and found in myself at least, that this tendency dwindled a lot by adulthood. As “grownups,” really, we either see that our lies are silly or stand up for them and make them better. There’s no remaining guise of trying to teach us how to be responsible people, or, to reuse my above example, tell us to brush our teeth.

Imagine my surprise to learn that our Republican vice-presidential candidate employs the same technique used by elementary-school children with poor dental hygiene nationwide.

The moral of this Aesop Palin’s* fable is: If you don’t remember saying something inflammatory, illogical, or ignorant, just claim you didn’t say it at all. Then the American people can know fair and square that Charlie Gibson will be a better vice president than you.

* Actually, this isn’t a bad name to fit alongside the other Palin children. Take a memo.

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