Right-wing media defend “busy mom” Palin's “crib note[s]” by claiming it's “folksy” and “down to earth”

Fox & Friends: Palin was “folksy,” “down to earth,” and “it's an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter.” On Fox News' Fox & Friends, after co-host Steve Doocy noted that the “left” was criticizing Palin for apparently using crib notes while she took a “shot at the guy who uses a teleprompter,” co-host Gretchen Carlson replied, “I think she did it on purpose. Yeah, because I think it's an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter. Reading off complete script written for you with every word in a sentence, and here she's just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes it look as if she can just talk off the cuff and that she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went off to give a big, long speech.” Later, co-host Brian Kilmeade called it “folksy,” and “down to earth.” From the February 8 edition of Fox & Friends:

CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose.

DOOCY: You do?

CARLSON: I think she did it on purpose. Yeah, because I think it's an exact opposite of reading off the teleprompter. Reading off complete script written for you with every word in a sentence, and here she's just taking crib notes on her hand. It makes it look as if she can just talk off the cuff and that she just jotted down a few couple notes before she went off to give a big, long speech.

KILMEADE: I am jealous.

DOOCY: I think she did -- I think she did it because she probably does it a lot. I do that all the time.

KILMEADE: I personally am jealous, because I used to get in trouble if I wrote on my palms because my mom explained to me the ink would get through my pores and I would die. So I stopped doing that in the fifth grade.

DOOCY: Really?

KILMEADE: Why doesn't she just -- there's nothing wrong with if she had a card. Just jot a card down -- energy, taxes, hope, whatever it is. But -- then no one has a problem. But to sit there and look at -- do the interview and then look down at her hand, I think that is -- it's, like you said, Gretchen, before, folksy, absolutely. Down to earth. I can identify. But if you're going to write it on your hand, why not just say, staffer, can you hand me a card? And then it would have been OK.

CARLSON: Like I say, I think it was on purpose. But anyway, we may never know.

Gateway Pundit's Hoft: It's a “non-issue” for the “TelePrompter-less former Governor.” On Gateway Pundit, blogger Jim Hoft wrote: “On Sunday the left went bonkers after they discovered that the TelePrompter-less former Governor Sarah Palin wrote notes on the palm of her left hand for her speech to the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. The far left absolutely freaked over this non-issue rather than focus on her brilliant speech knocking the Obama Administration's horrid record on economics and national defense."

NRO's Spruiell writes in defense of Palin: She “speaks from concise notes like everybody else. And, like other busy moms, she sometimes writes notes on her hand.” Stephen Spruiell at the National Review Online blog The Corner wrote of the criticism: “On the left, where this opinion of Palin already prevails, anything which reinforces it will be picked up and cheerfully passed around. And, to the extent that anyone not on the left notices this giddy snobbery, it will play to Palin's strengths.” He continued, “For example, one might say: 'Unlike the guy who needs a three thousand dollar teleprompter to get out of bed in the morning, Palin speaks from concise notes like everybody else. And, like other busy moms, she sometimes writes notes on her hand.' The comeback is so obvious that, again, I really can't figure out why Palin's detractors are bringing this up at all.”