Cool. I'd like to think this through a little further.

I got solid on the gang pronunciation point when I lived in Italy. Most Italians are simply incapable of pronouncing my name correctly; two hard consonant stops are bad enough, and then there are the y and k that aren't normally used in their alphabet. So I became Carlo Da-ee-kay.

This attuned me; I had never before noticed that my grandparents from New England were also unable to pronounce my name correctly. I was Cahl. (My mom got my r. She was Linder.)

When I started to make rent and beer money doing telephone fundraising and sales in college I quickly discovered that I am also unable to pronounce my own name correctly. I have trouble with the rl, so what I say sounds more like Paul over the phone.

Nevertheless, it has never occurred to me to introduce myself as Carlo Daeekay in Italy, or as Cahl in New England, or as Paul on the phone. I speak the way I speak; I expect others to do the same.

So I don't think the problem is how Barack says Pakistan. It's that his diction is normatively "correct" according to urban, educated, cosmopolitan standards, which triggers reactions ranging from ethnocentrism to class war to raw and defensive humiliation in audiences outside that dominant culture fraction. To them he's a clueless snob. Well right, and when Sarah gets the a's in Pakistan right up in her nose she sounds like a right chick to her posse and a dumb hick to the rest, as you note.

She's making no attempt to adjust her diction to different audiences either. Like Barack, there are two possible reasons for this, not mutually exclusive. One is that she has a tin ear and really can't make that adjustment. The other is that she's talking to her peeps and is willing to pay the price of sounding annoying to the rest.

But there's a final consideration. These candidates are under relentless media scrutiny; they can't have private conversations with different audiences. How would it go for Barack if Jon Stewart got hold of video of him pronouncing Pakistan three different ways to three different audiences? Think he's a phony now? So much for authenticity; just another lying two-faced sack of shit politician, q.e.d.. And how's he supposed to pronounce Pakistan in a formal debate with a national audience? Should he be reading the accents at the town hall on the fly, changing his diction for each question? That is, what's he supposed to do when the audiences are mixed?

So I think you're right about the gang part, wrong about the phony part. He may be one, but there's no way to tell from his diction. Which was your point about Palin, after all.

"they can't have private conversations with different audiences"

Well, but they do. They talk down the roobs when talking to the swells, and the reverse. There's no impenetrable fire wall so news gets out, but they do tune their talk to the audience. I have an earlier post about such contradictions and the interesting mental tricks that partisans do to remain unaware of them, or hyper aware of them, depending on the tilt of their hats.

When I speak to homogenized Americans I speak to them as they speak to me. But, when I'm among the local Okies - or Mexies, or Texies, or Arkies, or Portagees, or Dutch, or Swedes, or Hmong - there is a necessary adjustment to improve communication. The better I can do this, including alteration of pronunciations, the smoother things go.

Are you trying to tell me that this is a rare skill that we should not expect national politicians to possess? Seems unlikely to me. Or, do you think that anyone finds my speech shifts to be dishonest or something? The only downside I can see is that I sometimes get it wrong, and then we all have a laugh and a "learning opportunity".

You're right. And you're funny the same way my wife is funny. She's an artist and can do things with her brain and hands that only a tiny fraction of humans can do. But to her it seems normal and obvious; you just do it.

Yes, I am trying to tell you this is a rare skill. It's rare like really good teachers are rare and really good race car drivers are rare. Yet anyone can teach and drive. That is, most everyone can manage some elementary level of performance, but few really have a feel for it.

When I get all stupid and idealistic I don't wish I or someone else in particular was better at bridging communication gaps. What I wish is that everyone else understood and took responsibility like I do for the arbitrary localities of our experiences, habits, customs, languages and so on, so that we could all do a lot of laughing and learning all the time when we inevitably get it wrong. Instead most of my conversations require me to do all of the understanding and adjusting. This is a failure of elementary anthropological reciprocity and gives me lots of power I don't want.

I think my point about national politicians and audience is still valid. They simply cannot seal off audiences. So they have to be especially careful not to create trails of intersubjective disconfirmation. How often do you end up in conversations with more than one of your constituencies at once? How would you handle that dissonance?

UPDATE: Just had a conversation with my freshman class about this, in relation to the survival value of flexibility and resilience, and ethics of relationship, community and character growth. They agreed with you that Barack is annoying and should probably pronounce country names their way when he's there, and our way when he's here. But they noted that since he's running for a job that requires international relations he might have an interest in appearing diplomatically competent here. And they accepted that ethically Americans in general have a responsibility to pronounce other people's country names as those others prefer.