Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin said Wednesday that President Barack Obama’s State of the Union call for job creation was hard to “stomach” and mocked his use of the “Winning the Future” theme, noting that the phrase’s acronym was WTF, which could have another, vulgar meaning.
“His theme last night was WTF, you know, ‘winning the future.’ And I thought, OK, that acronym — spot on,” she said, during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech, namely, that he believed that we can't allow ourselves to eventually become buried under a mountain of debt. That right there tells you he is so disconnected from reality! The problem is: We are buried under a mountain of debt!
“That was a tough speech to have to sit through and kind of try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas on how it is that he believes the government is going to create jobs,” .Palin said. “Obviously, government growth won't create any jobs. It's the private sector that can create the jobs."
Van Susteren asked Palin about Obama’s saying that now is the nation’s “Sputnik Moment,” referring to the need to innovate and move forward, just as the United States did when the Soviet Union moved ahead in the space race by launching the satellite in 1957. “Do you agree with him? Is this our moment?”
“That was another one of those WTF moments,” Palin said, returning to her interpretation of the acronym. “He needs to remember that what happened back then with the former communist USSR and their victory in that race to space. Yes, they won, but they also incurred so much debt at the time that it resulted in the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Union.”
Van Susteren also asked Palin her thoughts on the GOP's giving two responses to the president’s speech and whether Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who gave the tea party response, was “trying to steal the thunder” from the main GOP reply from Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Palin responded that the speeches were complementary.
“They were sound because they were in opposition to President Obama’s message, which basically was the era of big government is here as long as I am, and I'm going to find a way to make you pay for big government,” Palin explained. “I've been accused of dividing within that establishment of the Republican Party, too, for some years now, and I don't see it as division.”