Babbling like a 6th grader, minus the grammar

Is there a correlation between grammar usage and intelligence? Yes and no. It's possible to be quite bright but inarticulate in the usual sense. More often, though, intelligent people develop a capacity for competent if not elegant expression. Apart from being naturally adept at learning stuff, smart folks tend to be voracious readers. Consume Shakespeare, Hemingway or even the witticisms of a favorite sports writer long enough, and you're bound to improve your own spoken or written prose through simple osmosis. But then there are odd ducks like Sarah Palin. I'll skip judging the quality of the gray matter that allegedly resides in her head. There's no profit in it, as the Ferengi of Star Trek might say. But today Palin walked back a negative-sounding comment she made about Herman Cain (she called him the "flavor of the week"). Doing so violated GOP rule #1: Thou shalt not publicly diss a fellow Republican. For her penance, she performed this soliloquy on Fox News: "I’m saying in this fast, 24/7 news cycle that is our world today that the media does have to gin up some controversy and intrigue so viewers tune in and there’s a lot of competition in the media world in this quasi-reality show it seems that’s being created in the GOP primary." Spoken like a true 6th grader, minus any discernible grammar. In English, Palin's run-on sentence roughly translates to this: The "lamestream" media tend to make mountains out of molehills (which is true). As George W. Bush famously said: "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" Evidently, little Sarah Heath never did. Too busy shooting moose, I guess. But that doesn't mean she's stupid. Palin is no doubt following the Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #15: "Acting stupid is often smart." And it has been undeniably profitable for her.