intraordinaire 

code switching

Put simply, if Palin says “Barack Obama consorts with terrorists”, she is making the assertion that he supports acts of violence against American citizens and the media will refute this obviously false assertion. If, instead, Palin says he “pals around with terrorists”, she’s used code-switching to mask the seriousness of the charge, obfuscating her meaning enough to get away with making an assertion that inevitably calls for the imprisonment or even assassination of a political opponent.

This clever use of language only hides Palin’s meaning from members of the press.

Anil Dash, What Sarah Palin is saying

Anil Dash décrypte les intentions derrière le langage familier de Sarah Palin. Les passages sur le code switching sont particulièrement incisifs : la dangerosité de cette femme ne vient pas de ses opinions, mais de sa capacité à s’adresser directement à sa base électorale rurale blanche en passant sous le radar de la presse, qui semble ne s’intéresser qu’au langage soutenu…