Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was in town briefly on Friday to give the keynote address at a Tea Party rally at the state capitol. That, of course, meant there were news cameras around, which usually means one thing here in the Valley: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is close by -- as was the case Friday.
Arpaio welcomed the former Alaska governor to the Grand Canyon State by giving her the same gift he gives the inmates in his jails: a pair of pink undies.
Still (ahem) hip in his old age, the 78-year-old law dog then took to Twitter to brag that he'd met the darling of the Conservative movement.
"I just got done welcoming Sarah Palin to our County," Arpaio tweeted. "Had a nice chat and gave her a pair of pink underwear."
The underwear we'll believe (only because Arpaio provided a photo) --
we'll need further confirmation that the "chat" ever took place.
Last year, Arpaio got caught in a Twitter-related fib when another famous politico dropped by the Valley.
Vice President Joe Biden was in town last November to meet with local
Dems. Following Biden's arrival, Arpaio took to Twitter again to boast
that he "Just got done meeting with the Vice President of the United States."
The suggestion, obviously, is that Biden took time out of his trip to
meet with the (ahem) ever-so-important sheriff for a meeting.
As we found out later, no "meeting" ever took place. Rather, Arpaio
ambushed Biden as he was walking out of a building and basically said
"look at me, look at me!"
"Sheriff Arpaio was not invited to the
event," Biden's deputy press secretary Annie Tomasini told New Times at the time "and did not have a meeting with the Vice
President. He simply shook hands with the Vice President as the Vice
President was exiting the building."
Since Arpaio considers an uninvited handshake as a "meeting," who knows
what he means by "nice chat," but here's our guess: Arpaio muscled his
way through the crowd to get as close to Palin as possible. He handed
her the undies, and said hello, while she secretly thought "why the fuck
is this old coot giving me underwear." She probably winked, said "you
betchya," and the "nice chat" came to an end.
