There may not be a god, but apparently there is a goddess, and her name is Tina Fey.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
There may not be a god, but apparently there is a goddess, and her name is Tina Fey.
First.
They didn’t really change the words much.
The first few seconds of it, I thought it was the actual interview.
I’m torn. If we do not vote for her, we will no longer have her to laugh at.
I may vote for her, literally, for laughs.
LOL. Unless you’d seen the actual inteview, there’s no way you’d find this funny – it looks like they’ve gone way over the top trying to make Palin look like a moron. As it is, they own Palin a writer’s credit as they used her most derranged babble almost totally verbatim.
I thought the Bill Clinton one was full of more laughs:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/update-bill-clinton/704104/
I fully expected the Katie character to call her an ignorant slut, and then stomp off the set.
Watch Mean Girls sometime — very funny, also very smart. Tina Fey wrote it and acts in it. Has the bonus of featuring Lindsay Lohan at her cutest. Also a great visual joke involving the letter “K”.
Very brilliant satire without resorting to hyperbole. The Palinistas can’t say that Fey defamed Palin, since she made her so “adorable” while parrotting her almost verbatum. Poeler and Fey make a great team.
You are scaring me Lago @#3. I’m sure Biden will provide a few foot/mouth moments of hilarity too (and I like Biden) without driving our country further in the ground. His Roosevelt on TV for the1929 SMC was hysterical.
LOL!
Is it possible that both our nationwide press and SNL have woken up and realized that they have something they should be doing besides sniffing their own armpits?
Is it too early to hope?
I had the hots for Tina Fey long before Pailin became a household name. But now…
Ooof!
Those pauses were as pregnant as a teenaged Palin.
I’m slightly surprised the blinking didn’t blow the interviewee right out the studio.
I found the real Couric interview funnier than the skit actually. Or at least, it would have been funny if it hadn’t also been so offensive. There was a lot of material they didn’t even get around to making fun of in the skit. Such as when she makes anyone who’s ever traveled outside our borders out to be an elitist bastard, and the sneer in her tone sounds like a cheerleader making fun of you for being the science club.
Yeah Patricia, they have to treat Palin carefully. Any “You Stupid, Clueless,Vapid, Ignorant Bitch” commentary against Sarah just feeds the Palinistas’ persecution complex. They are sure the godless-immoral-Liberals-who-are-destroying-this-Christian-Nation™ are trying to discredit Sarah because she’s God’s annointed candidate. GE will put pressure on SNL if they anyone threatens a boycott due to demonstratable bias – freedom of speech/artistic license be damned. Gotta sell those washers/dryers and lightbulbs! SNL was neutered years ago but now GE execs are threatening a lobotomy.
I can’t tell you how many blog comments have stated “(Blank) was mean to Sarah Palin in an interview, I’ll never watch him/her again. I”m only going to watch the real news on Fox.”
That would be a lot more funny if she weren’t a few votes away from being VP of the USA.
“I’d like to use one of my lifelines” – classic.
Also:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/debate_open_thread.php#comment-1128741
It’s a great clip. On the Russians:
“What are you doin’ here?”… “Shoo! Get back over there…”
I almost agree with Lago. The magnificent farce of a Palin presidency would almost be worth the end of human civilization that would certainly result. I’m guessing Bush called McCain when he was making his choice and begged him to choose someone that would make Bush look like a genius. Who would’ve guessed he would find someone.
“That would be a lot more funny if she weren’t a few votes away from being VP of the USA.”
Actually, that’s exactly the thing that makes it funny.
I’d suck her toes…..
…the economy… and the jobs, and the social security…hummm, and the jobs, and…
LOL
“We have the candidates we deserve.”
(I read this on a blog and am inclined to agree with the irony)
Oh, pish, PZ…..I’ve known Tina Fey was a goddess for a LONG time.
That’s the kind of religiousity we can ALL get behind….
Tina Fey for V.P.! (just kidding). She was perfect!
As to the “real” interview – I agree….very scary.
Kathleen Parker has an an interesting column on Palin as VP choice:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/kathleen/parker092608.php3
They were talking about Tina Fey on MSNBC the other day while I was channel-surfing, and I didn’t realize it was an imitation until one of the reporters said something about it.
I don’t know what SNL is paying Tina to take time away from her own show to do this, but it can’t possibly be enough.
The bit when she’s talking about the bailout? Classic. Tina Fey is brilliant; I’m putting in a vote now for Fey/Stewart 2012, whoever wins this election.
Also, Amy Poehler deserves some credit for perfectly skewering the supreme uselessness and helplessness of Katie Couric when she pretends to be a responsible grown-up journalist. That has to be some of the most incredulous blinking I have ever seen.
This skit was especially ingenious, because for entire sections (the commentary on the economy for example) the script was near verbatim the actual interview. Sarah Palin is now so bad, she has become a self perpetuating black hole of comedy, she may have already slipped beyond the parody event horizon.
Has that happened before?
I dunno, I thought I heard Tina Fey say somewhere a few months ago that she was thinking of voting for McCain.
I remember thinking when I first saw video of Palin that SNL had to get Tina Fey to play her. But appearences aside, I’m amazed at how quickly Tina has mastered an impersonation of her.
As for the comedic aspect of Palin’s potential presidency, I think the flushing sound of our country going down the toilet would easily drown it out. Not to mention that late night comedy writers would be out of a job with Palin as VP or president. You simply wouldn’t need to write satire with her in office–the inanity speaks for itself.
McCain camp prays for Palin wedding
I don’t watch TV, so I don’t know her history, but i have to give Couric credit for coming through with the goods this time. Her interview showed Palin to be vacant and shallow to an extent not revealed in prior interviews.
#31 Reginald Selkirk, from the comments to that article for which you provided a link:
“First of all, prayer worked pretty good for us for over 200 years.
Notice how liberals either have to tell us how smart they are or how stupid conservatives are. As my mom says, “those that have to tell you how smart they are, never are and those they call stupid are typically the smart ones.
Jerry , Cincinnati, USA”
Yikes!
Reginald @ #32:
“I don’t watch TV, so I don’t know her history, but i have to give Couric credit for coming through with the goods this time. Her interview showed Palin to be vacant and shallow to an extent not revealed in prior interviews.”
That’s because nearly all adult women in the US have suffered in junior high and high school thanks to the cruelty of the “mean girls” posse, of which Palin clearly was (and is) the leader.
We KNOW this bitch.
E.V. You are probably right. That in itself is a sad statement about how far America has sunk into stupidity since Akroyd’s days on SNL.
Has that happened before?
Oh, hell yeah. It’s one of a few striking similarities between Palin and Spiro Agnew.
Brian Coughlin (#28) said: “Sarah Palin is now so bad, she has become a self perpetuating black hole of comedy, she may have already slipped beyond the parody event horizon.
Has that happened before?”
Gerald Ford came close. Toward the end, all SNL could do was portray his wife calling him “President Dim-bulb.” Chevy Chase injured himself more than once trying to keep up.
I think Nancy Reagan crossed the line. I don’t remember anyone taking her on after the whole horoscope thing. I think they would have had to sit through an entire sketch as Nancy, pecking birdseed off a plate in order to burlesque what was actually going on. For that matter, I have not seen any portrayal of Laura that crossed the line from realism into parody.
All of the fundie blogs/websites I’m reading are calling for an SNL boycott, writing to SNL for these “attacks” and that they are “disgusting” to watch, pretty much what someone above said. It’s just so scary that some actually want this vapid vamp as our VP.
Personally, if I knew it would matter, I’d ask for everyone to write Tina Fey in as VP this year. :)
Otherwise, the skit was classic.
toni
Tina Fey’s parody is spot on. For even more amusement, see the automatic Sarah Palin interview answer generator: http://www.palinanswers.com.
Spot. On.
It’s got the earnestness, the appeal to sympathy, the vacuity, the legs . . .
It really is hard to tell the difference between the actual interview and the satire so faithfully presented by SNL. This, all by itself, is probably the bone that is stuck in the craw of the ever-so-moral true believers who are, after all, justified in their anger and confusion.
Be it ever so projected, there’s nothing like self-created angst. Poor things. This must be quite painful for them.
Tina, will you marry me?
I dunno, I thought I heard Tina Fey say somewhere a few months ago that she was thinking of voting for McCain.
She said after the first SNL skit that she really doesn’t want to keep coming back to SNL to play Palin, so everybody please make sure that doesn’t happen.
Come on, be fair. Tina Fey has professional writers and is herself a veteran professional performer. Sarah Palin is just a batshit wingnut amateur who just can’t wing it.
Come on, be fair. Tina Fey has professional writers and is herself a veteran professional performer.
By the way, it’s worthy of mention that Fey was the head writer of SNL for several years before she was a performer on the show.
By the way, it’s worthy of mention that Fey was the head writer of SNL for several years before she was a performer on the show.
And may I add “We are not worthy! We are not worthy!”
That’s it! It is the GOP’s answer to vice-presidential debate. They kidnap Fey and make her stand in for Palin. No one would be able to tell the difference and *anything* Fey did would be better then Palin
http://interviewpalin.com/
New slogan:
Palin did it for the lulz.
:P
Life line – hilarious! I love when I can share humor with my teen!
Great episode on dogs and their evolution on Nature tonight.
and this relevant image cracked me up
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k219/burndtdan/2exvepj.jpg
Since we’re on the topic of humor, here’s a cute piggy giving a good opinion of the campaign so far:
And just for Rev. BigDumbChimp – the Typo Dance:
Great episode on dogs and their evolution on Nature tonight.
It is great. I’ve seen it a couple of times.
Dammit! That’s what happens when you have NO flipping computer skills.
Try this one for the piggy-
Shee-it! OK, just try YouTubing:
Jurassic fart
Now, I’ll go get a glass of sangria and await the Chimps pay back… ;o)
It is great. I’ve seen it a couple of times.
New ideas that I didn’t know, one likely location, and the garbage dump. I love science, and dogs.
Her character on 30 Rock said something along those lines. That she’d hell her friends she’s voting for Obama but there’s a good chance she’ll vote for McCain. Whether she was projecting or not is another story.
I wandered over to Free Republic (I don’t recommend it) to see what the freepers had to say about their beloved Sister Sarah. Lo and behold, several had seen the SNL skit and were duly offended. My favorite complaint?
“This skit had the worst writing”
Ha ha ha! The script was nearly a transcript of the actual Couric/Palin interview. Palin did her own writing. (No wonder they won’t let her loose in public.)
“Unless you’d seen the actual inteview, there’s no way you’d find this funny”
Wrong, This is typical of the way in which politicians behave when they don’t have an answer or understand the question.
“The Palinistas can’t say that Fey defamed Palin”
You mean Palin needs assistance to achieve that?
If anyone besides me likes hillbilly humor, Red State Update is really pouring it on about Palin. The one about the lipstick on a pig is really funny.
OT
Hello from LA LA Land: Here is the audio from PZ’s evening at Commie Central, and some pics too.
http://acksisofevil.org/pz-la.html
Am I the only one in the country who doesn’t get that joke/reference?
Am I the only one in the country who doesn’t get that joke/reference?
could be.
Didn’t you want to be a Millionaire?
hope you don’t mind, Scooter, I posted your link in the “tonight” thread.
I haven’t watched TV in at least 10 years, if that helps. :-) I have heard references to some Millionaire show, so I guess you’re saying that’s where it comes from. That will help me google, thanks.
Yes – I think so! :-)
google:
“So you want to be a millionaire”
It was a highlight of Regis Philbin’s career.
I think I might have watched it once, but pop culture references to it are everywhere.
Oh man I envy that. Though I would have missed out on Futurama, Black Books and The Office. Plus how would I keep up with American news witrhout the Daily Show?
That was priceless! Great vid!
Has anyone else thought about what the crisis du jour will be coming this week from the McCain camp – that will cause the VP debate to be either abandoned or postponed.
James
Scooter – The audio wouldn’t work for me.
You gotta dumb it down to the Luddites with magneto’s & kickers man.
Has anyone else thought about what the crisis du jour will be coming this week from the McCain camp – that will cause the VP debate to be either abandoned or postponed.
Shot Gun Wedding that we all get to witness?
In my little corner of Dumbfuckastan the folks are saying Obama is going to trade in Biden for Hillary.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-palinreligion28-2008sep28,0,3643718.story?track=rss
The Flintstones was a documentary to the woman, nice.
Patricia
the link was to a page that has an audio link at the bottom right. Click the link to the page from Pharyngula first.
go to the audio link, right click (save link as) download it, then open with windows media player or whatever.
That’s the brute force no fail method. I’ll be thinkin about you bwap bwappin the canyons tomorrow.
Patricia,
I wonder if someone else heard the same rumor.
Campaign in rain in Virginia –
“While Biden donned a baseball cap, Obama took off his suit jacket and eyed his running mate, sitting on a stool near the edge of the stage. “I’m gonna ask Joe to move that stool up because I don’t want to have to choose another vice-president. I don’t want him slipping over, toppling over there,” Obama said. Biden obliged.” Fox News
Bit: Sarah Palin as Tina Fey interviewing Tina Fey as Sarah Palin.
BTW, I never thought I’d see so many creationists commenting on the skit here.
…
…
…
…
They weren’t?
…
…
…
Damn, they sounded so much like creationists.
You’ve only just now figured that out?
I’m sorry sweethearts, I’m having such a fun fest over on YouTube with Lord of the Rings farts, and Pixar farts that I just have to fade off into fartastan. Palin farts probably aren’t too many minutes away.
Simple things for simple minds. Pfffft!
Scooter – You can’t expect me to figure out a link. I’m a one kicker.
chgo_liz@34
That’s because nearly all adult women in the US have suffered in junior high and high school thanks to the cruelty of the “mean girls” posse, of which Palin clearly was (and is) the leader.
Something tells me that Katie Couric was also one of these girls, but the smarter, quieter one tagging along with the Queen Bee.
Newfie@50 and Others:
Great episode on dogs and their evolution on Nature tonight.
Natural History magazine had a beautifully illustrated article on this topic a few months ago. “Goofy Evolution Museum” indeed!
The Amazing Sastra Memorial Web Page
http://acksisofevil.org/sastra.html
Sastra was every bit as hot as Paul Newman, she will be sorely missed.
This is spot-on.
Tina Fey is just gorgeous
Ouch… I watched the provided clips of the actual interviews, and that ouch is from physical pain. It’s like when I used to watch Three’s Company after they jumped the shark, and the plots were so painfully obvious in their direction and scripting that it hurt to watch.
That kind of painful. Late seventies/early eighties sitcom painful.
I keep waiting for Mr. Furley to barge in and say “Jack! What’s a woman doing in your place? I thought…”
Um, check this out:
It seems like they haven’t changed a word :-|
This isn’t a parody, it’s just an imitation.
A more complete version of the original interview is here – http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=cP12aNzocSc
Have to give it to you Americans – you sure know how to keep those of us out here in the rest of the world amused!
The palingenesis* of stupidity (again) in the world according to McPain.
(* that’s a word in the dictionary BTW, meaning rebirth or regeneration)
I feel sorry for Biden having to coach himself now to hold back in the next debate for fear the wingnuts/Foxmaniacs/Hannity-ites will go ballistic if he humiliates her too much.
(Like 10 times in the first 5 minutes.)
painfully unfunny.
Wow, that was amazing. I think I’m in love…
Wrong, This is typical of the way in which politicians behave when they don’t have an answer or understand the question. – Maxamillion
Nonsense – they are normally fairly skilled in appearing to answer; Palin just babbled.
OT, but amusing. I copied this from a comment on HuffPo:
Experiment. Load McCain and Palin into the Large Hadron Collider. When they collide do they create a tiny black hole that sucks out logic and reason from the universe? Or provide proof that particles with so much negative spin increase the heavy elements of anger and ignorance needed to inflate the alternative Bushverse?
I’m looking forward to the debate with Joe Biden this Thursday, this should provide for some good laughs.
BTW, this SNL video isn’t really a parody, they didn’t really exagerate anything, the text is almost identical to the original.
I thought Sarah Palin’s answers on Russia and the bailout were almost the political equivallent of Miss Teen North Carolina’s ;
“I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps.”
Poor Palin, can you imagine trying to recover the years of educational deficit that she must have within so little time, they must be prepping her like a goose, every day, hundreds and hundreds of questions that she has to learn by heart.
Poor thing, under stress, she gets everything mixed up, and that’s what transpires in her interviews.
This debate with Biden is really going to be make or break for McCain/Palin. If she fails as bad as she did with Couric or Gibson, they’ve both had it.
@8
I like Biden too, mainly from his Real Time appearances and his tendency to say exactly what’s on his mind with few, if any reservations. I wanted him for the Democratic nominee, but of course “clean and articulate”gate put an end to that. I want so much to like him for his honesty, but the dude has a chronic case of foot in mouth disease.
Tina Fey does do a knock dead Palin, but as head writer for SNL for years, she put it in the tank with endless hump jokes. So brilliant isn’t the word for Fey.
Fey winkingly asked for Obama to be elected at her post Emmy Award speech when she declared she hoped she wouldn’t have to play Palin again in any sketch past mid November ’08.
I want so much to like him [Biden] for his honesty – DangerAardvark
Like the time in 1988 he inserted in his speech a riff about his poor-but-honest background and how he was the first in n generations to go to university, taken without attribution from (of all people) Neil Kinnock?
“Palin Should Scare the Hell Out of You”
From the Cafferty File:
There is a reason the McCain campaign keeps Governor Sarah Palin away from the press.
This is a direct excerpt from Katie Courics One-On-One interview with Sarah Palin, which aired Wednesday on CBS.
COURIC: Why isnt it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
PALIN: Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy Oh, its got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.
(and the rest of the statement is about as incoherent and illogical as this…)
If McCain wins, this woman will be a 72-year- old heartbeat away from being president of the United States.
Cafferty puts it nicely :
RB:
Glad to see you’re the arbiter of her career evaluation. Evidently I erred in my use of adjectives. I will defer to your expert opinion. To validate your repudiation of my, and others, assessment of Fey, perhaps you can compare and contrast your resume and bank account with hers.
Y’know, even Einstein sucked at times, but his successes overshadowed his moments of mediocrity. Give us a break.
I’m guessing that it isn’t real, but J. C. Penney has the gift registry for the wedding.
http://www5.jcpenney.com/jcp/GR2_RegistryList_View.aspx?storeRegNo=01233857&
This isn’t a parody, it’s just an imitation.
That’s what makes it so funny, that Palin doesn’t need any changes to be a parody of a vp running mate.
I just watched the original interview.
It was hardly a tough one was it ?
Imagine what would happen if John Humphries or Jeremy Paxman got to interview her.
For those not familiar with who those two gentleman are, they are BBC broadcasters renowned for being tough on those they interview. Paxman once asked one politician the same question seventeen times because the politician was not answering.
“That’s what makes it so funny, that Palin doesn’t need any changes to be a parody of a vp running mate. ”
Or sad. It depends.
I was actually really shocked to find out that she was merely saying the exact same words with almost the exact same tone of voice. I’m not an American, but it scares me that people who are so silly they produce their own satire get a position of power that gives them access and control over hundreds of millions of people.
Besides, I’m Israeli, if America goes down the drain, so do we. We didn’t win our independence because we’re cute and cuddly and Jehova likes us, we won our wars because America’s been throwing billions of dollars at us for centureies.
I still say that Sarah Palin herself is much funnier!
Besides, I’m Israeli, if America goes down the drain, so do we. We didn’t win our independence – Freidenker
[my emphasis]
Oh, is that what you call stealing most of the land and killing or expelling most of those formerly inhabiting it? Well, I guess the foundation of the USA does provide a precedent.
@29, Craig: “I dunno, I thought I heard Tina Fey say somewhere a few months ago that she was thinking of voting for McCain.”
Of course she’s voting for McCain. It means (at least) four years steady work.
I propose Fey’s Law: It’s impossible to tell the difference between Sarah Palin and Tina Feys’ parody. This is more stringent than the analogous Poe’s law, in that Poe’s law states merely that without a smiley face someone will mistake parody for reality. I’m suggesting that if a video of Tina Fey is surrounded by winking,blinking smilies you still won’t be certain that it’s not Sarah Palin being totally earnest.
That is spooky. Although, try as she might, she hasn’t really made it any more painful than it was originally
> Oh, is that what you call stealing most of the land and
> killing or expelling most of those formerly inhabiting it?
> Well, I guess the foundation of
> the USA does provide a precedent.
Please name one modern national state that was not founded by primary acquisition – usually with nasty consequences for the old tribal/feudal/colonial owners. This is the rule, not an exception. In fact, it might be a law of political econmy, that does not allow for exceptions. The only difference is that this process happened at quite recent times in Israel or Vietnam, and quite a long time ago in most western European countries (also, the imperial abbot of Bankrottenburg-Schrotthausen had no friends with oil money, so nobody heard him shrieking when the neighbouring margrave was promoted to grand-duke or king by Napoleon, and added the former imperial abby to his newly created grand-duchy, or kingdom).
johannes,
You are correct that all national states have been founded by force. You are simply wrong in asserting that this has usually meant the death or expulsion of most of the former inhabitants. Genetic studies of the British, for example, show that most are mostly descended from the first inhabitants of the island after the last Ice Age.
I didn’t know that Katie Couric was pregnant…
They replayed part of the actual interview on “The Stephanie Miller” show today. It was the part where Katie questioned her on McCain taking time off from his campaign to deal with the bailout. A caller said it was like Palin had crammed so long that she had all her talking points in a closet. Katie opened the door and Palin had to get them all out at once.
Personally, I would call this “scrambled talking points.”
> You are simply wrong in asserting that this has
> usually meant the death or expulsion of most of the
> former inhabitants.
That depends on how you define “expulsion”. Millions of people were forced to leave the farm or the village of their ancestors, either by direct force, or for economic reasons. Being forced to move from, lets say, the Highlands to an Victorian industrial city, or as an indentured servant to Barbados or Virginia, was probably as traumatic (or more traumatic, because the geographical and cultural distance was greater) as being forced to move from Jaffa to Hebron or even Damascus was.
As for the killings, estimates for the total loss of human life in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, both sides combined, rank from 8.000 to 21.000, most of them soldiers, or at least militiamen.
That depends on how you define “expulsion”. – johannes
That was obvious from the context: expulsion from the territory of the state being founded. My point stands. The foundation of Israel can be seen as part of the Great European Land Grab over the past five centuries.
She’s dumb. Imagine that. Worlds first dumb politican.
The ganging up is stomach turning. Isn’t there a retard somewhere for all you highly educated folks to go laugh at?
We’ve really gotten crass in our society. All the way around. Believers…godless…doesnt matter. Just mean.
“Isn’t there a retard somewhere for all you highly educated folks to go laugh at?”
Yes but Bush was never very funny.
Oh please, Palin brought this on herself. She herself mocks people who travel, people with education, people who don’t share her wingnut views. Besides, poow widdle Sawah isn’t ready for national politics if she can’t get used to people being meenies. She should count her blessing that people are still laughing because it only gets worse.
Thunderfoot ftw
E.V. @ #98 said, “Y’know, even Einstein sucked at times, but his successes overshadowed his moments of mediocrity.”
Crackpot Index Datum!
Believers…godless…doesnt matter. Just mean.
I’m sorry, but you’re just screaming at me to say it.
fuck you.
I think it’s warranted.
There sure is, thanks for coming onto the thread and eliminating our need to go to RaptureReady.com
I agree with bk. Stupid people should be coddled and praised and given positions of power. Who needs to be smart, anyway? Geeks and losers, that’s who.
I agree with bk. Stupid people should be coddled and praised and given positions of power. Who needs to be smart, anyway? Geeks and losers, that’s who.
Yeah! I lurnt that frum watchin’ da Simpsons.
Dun’ taught me wut happens when you edumacated “mensa” types lord it over us reglar folk.
no, wait, didn’t Stephen Hawking save the day, there?
now I’m really confused, and my brain hurts.
> The foundation of Israel can be seen as part of the Great
> European Land Grab over the past five centuries.
Nick,
that might have been true in the fifties and sixties, when Jews of eastern European origin were the majority, or at least culturally and politicall hegemonial; but only if you consider one former part of the Ottoman empire – Galicia and Podolia – to be more “European” than another former part of the Ottoman empire.