You're steering what I said. I didn't say that politicians have to "clean up" their speeches for particular audiences.
What I said, is that Sarah knows better than anyone that every word she utters in public is going to picked up by international news agencies, and for that reason, she needs to be careful with her off-the-cuff ad libs.
Few politicians have had their public statements scrutinized and analyzed (for the express purpose of causing damage) as much as Sarah Palin has. There's no sense in giving red meat to a slavering press who are just waiting for the slightest slip up, or for any statement that can be twisted to inflict damage.
In this particular instance, it would have only taken Sarah an extra moment or two to describe the unique travel conditions that were peculiar to the Scagway of her youth. That would have caused everyone listening to appreciate her father's reasoning for "hustling across the border" to Canada for health care services in that day and time.
Instead, her statement now appears to anyone not familiar with the Scagway, Alaska of the 1960's to think that she's validating and promoting the nationalized health care system of present day Canada over our (mostly) free market health care system.
Am I clear now?
You can’t go cleaning up speeches for every little thing in the world that you think some little segment of the world’s population is going to misunderstand... it’s way too stupid to operate that way... :-)
That’s what I’m saying... and she was speaking to Canadians... that’s just the way it is...