Palin knocks ‘em dead in speech to Safari Club International

Warm welcome or not, it still takes a few minutes for Palin to hit her target. At first, she seems to address every topic except the aftermath of Tucson. She admits that she “threw a little politics” into her recent TLC reality show by dragging the crew to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge on the pretense of hunting caribou. Her real purpose? Showing viewers that ANWR is a “barren, desolate, less-than-pristine place”–perfect, in other words, for lots of new oil drilling. “If a caribou needs to be sacrificed for the sake of energy independence,” she adds, “I say, ‘Mr. Caribou, maybe you need to take one for the team.'” She mentions how some media figures have pledged not cover her at all in February, and says the boycott “sounds good” to her: “because there’s a lot of chaos in Cairo, and I can’t wait to not get blamed for it–at least for a month.” She even cites her children’s Christian names as evidence of her outdoorswoman cred. “Piper was named after Todd’s airplane, the Piper cub, which gets us to the hunting grounds,” she explains. “Bristol, Bristol Bay fishing grounds. Willow, a local sport-fishing stream. Trig, I pull the TRIG-ger. Track… I remember when we told my dad that his grandson was named Track, he said, ‘Like TRACKing an elephant?'”

But in the middle of a story about her daughter’s stint on Dancing with the Stars, Palin is suddenly reminded of the pachyderm in the room—”this recent talk coming from the White House,” as she puts it, “about President Obama’s attempts to perhaps infringe further upon our Second Amendment rights.” Somewhere, a man boos, and a few others follow his lead. Palin nods in agreement. “We need to keep tabs on what the White House is telling us,” she continues. “Just think if we had even stricter gun control laws!” As the crowd hoots and hollers, a grin slowly spreads across Palin’s face. It’s the look she gets when she knows she’s on a roll. “Imagine, though—imagine making life even more miserable for the liberals who want that gun control,” she finally says. “Here’s how I figure it. Remember that weird guy in Wisconsin was so angry, so upset, watching a Palin win slot after slot each week on Dancing with the Stars that he shot Bristol through his TV? He blasted his Panasonic? Well, I’m thinking, ‘Imagine more gun control. Then he’d have to attack his Panasonic with a butter knife.'”