Fun Facts about Sarah Palin!
Back from the dead to rave about how crazy Sarah Palin is. I cut it, because I wound up with about seven PAGES of crazy (and this is after restraining myself), but I highly, highly, highly recommend that you read.
I even sourced everything!
(Pick and choose which you'd like to send on, if you'd like. Any single one of these should invalidate her as Vice President anyway.)
This is the woman McCain chose to nominate for Vice President?
First -- Sound Science!!
On GLOBAL WARMING:
"In an interview for the September issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior.
“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin said in the interview, which was posted online Friday."
Source : http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/palin-global-wa.html
on INTELLIGENT DESIGN
"Palin: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information.
Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.
And, you know, I say this, too, as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject - creationism and evolution.
It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.”"
Source: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=08&year=2008&base_name=sarah_palin_on_teaching_intell#108728
via http://community.adn.com/adn/node/102978
(The interview also mentions that she thinks that religious figures (pastors, priests, Jerry Falwell, etc) can endorse particular candidates when, by law, they actually cannot.)
On KNOWLEDGE:
"What does a VP do anyway?" Go to this link to watch Sarah Palin’s wonderfully edumacated opinion!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=006axc2aELE
(Because being one heartbeat away from Presidency is comparable to mayoring 5,469 people (per Wikipedia -- have seen estimates as high as 10,000, which is at least creeping into quintuple digits) or governing 683,478 in Alaska(again per Wikipedia).)
On FREE SPEECH
From a TIMES article: “[Former Wasilla Mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.”
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1837918,00.html#
(The article also mentioned that she gave a ‘gag order’ to her department heads, advising them that they could only speak to reporters with her explicit permission, not otherwise. Sound like anyone we already know?)
On RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
Obama was criticized of attending the church of a somewhat unbalanced pastor. How about we take a look at Sarah Palin’s personal religious figure?
“Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode."”
From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
(She’s been a member of this church most of her life, only leaving in 2002, although she continues to attend special events there. She was baptized there at the age of twelve. This church might also explain why Mrs. Palin believes that church figures are allowed to campaign for particular candidates. Again, they are not.)
On FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE
Cindy McCain: “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia…”
Go to this link to watch the video of Mrs. McCain trying to defend Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience! (At least we know she passed Geography!)
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/cindy_mccain_on_palin_shes_qualified_because_alaska_is_close_to_russia/#When:01:44:00Z
On EARMARKS
Palin claims to be opposed to earmarks (funds added as sort of ‘afterthoughts’ to popular bills to get around the fact that most of them would be voted down if presented independently for vote. Also referred to as pork barreling). However, according to an LA Times article, “under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget, according to the website of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.” And, while Mayor of Wasilla, she hired a man named Steven Silver to represent the town in DC and obtain more funding. According to Talking Points Memo, guess who Silver used to work for?
If you guessed Jack Abramoff, you’d be right.
Talking Points Memo: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/palins_lobbyist_has_abramoff_t.php
LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-earmarks1-2008sep01,0,6108885.story
(Coincidentally, the main issues Silver was working on were, essentially, Native American rights & assoc issues, oil & gas exploration, and gaming - same things Abramoff was working on for Greenberg.)
On SOUND FISCAL POLICY
While Palin was mayor of Wasilla, she managed to rack up nearly $20 million in long term debt. When calculated out, that amounts to $3,000 per resident. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12987.html
On WILDLIFE
Palin supports shooting wolves from planes, despite the fact that this just might be illegal, as the US has laws against aerial hunting. http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/2008/08/yesterday-just.html
Palin opposed protecting beluga whales in Cook Sound (only 375 left!) because it would have adversely impacted (Did you guess?) the oil and gas industries in the area. http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/30/20129/1935
Palin opposed legislation to put the polar bear on the endangered species list, threatening to sue if it was. http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html
On ABORTION
Palin opposes ANY abortion unless the mother’s life is at stake. This includes abortions in case of RAPE AND INCEST. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-on-abortion-id-oppo_n_122924.html
(Even South Dakota shied away from making abortion in case of rape illegal, In ’06.)
On VETTING
News Commentator reveals that McCain only met Sarah Palin ONCE, SIX MONTHS before announcing her as his Vice President.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/andrea-mitchell-john-mcca_n_122517.html
And here’s what Chicago Tribune writer Steve Chapman had to say. I’ve bolded some things to bring attention to them, but left the article whole:
“How Palin subverts McCain's message”
September 4, 2008
The last few days have offered some startling revelations about a running mate-Sarah Palin's running mate. For months, Republicans have been asking the ominous question: How well do we know Barack Obama? The GOP nominee's vice presidential choice raises another one: How well do we know John McCain?
McCain's central message all along has been twofold. The first is that he would keep us safe in a scary, hostile world. The second is that he would always do what is right for the country he loves, no matter what the political or personal cost.
The first theme is a favorite of Republican presidents, but McCain's background has made it especially potent for him. During the Republican primaries, he made a point of noting that he, unlike his rivals, had "a military background and experience in these issues." His five years as a prisoner of war also dramatize the second theme, highlighting his patriotic devotion.
Both of those points are hard for Barack Obama to match. He's never worn the uniform; his father was a Muslim; he had a radical pastor who damned America. Obama's critics paint him as a mystery man who carries profound risks. Voting for him, we are told, would be a dangerous leap of faith.
McCain, by contrast, has gotten where he is because he's a familiar, well-seasoned quantity. He has been in public office for more than three decades, leaving an extensive record. Love him or hate him, we assumed, we knew what we were getting.
The biggest problem with Palin is not that she's inexperienced or has a wayward daughter or recently admitted ignorance of what the vice president does. It's that she's a human torpedo aimed at McCain's strongest attributes.
You don't come across as the prudent option when you propose to put an untested neophyte in line for the most powerful job on Earth. Or when you choose a running mate you barely know without investigating her to within an inch of her life. Or when you cheerfully contemplate turning over the nuclear codes to someone with no apparent knowledge of or interest in national security matters. The safe guy suddenly looks like Evel Knievel.
The McCain campaign says it knew about the pregnant daughter before Palin was chosen. But the vetting process was clearly far from exhaustive. Several prominent Alaska politicians, including the one directing an ethics investigation of her, said they never got a call. The senator and his subordinates didn't do everything they could to learn everything they needed to know about Palin.
And what happened to McCain's commitment to his country? By choosing someone so transparently unprepared for the presidency, he indicated he was willing to do anything, including jeopardize American lives, to win the election. If terrorism and the war in Iraq were truly "transcendent" to McCain, as he claims, he would have never considered someone so unacquainted with the topics.
At the rally Friday where the nominee introduced his running mate, the banners said: "Country First." But his actions said something different: "Politics First. Country Second."
Besides helping him with women and the religious right, McCain's selection was supposed to appeal to independents by reminding them how much he loves sticking it to the man. The campaign celebrated Palin as a bold reformer opposed to federal boondoggles and tough enough to buck her own party chieftains in Alaska.
All that may be true, but Palin probably won't enhance his image as a maverick. Choosing a conspicuously underqualified running mate mainly because of her sex was a classic case of pandering. And mavericks don't pander: They do what they think is right and let the chips fall where they may.
That's not what happened here. McCain, by all accounts, wanted either Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore's 2000 running mate, or Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security-each of whom has the national security chops that Palin lacks. But apparently McCain wasn't willing to risk a fight with conservatives over a running mate who favors abortion rights.
Democrats have been trying without success to convince voters that the Republican candidate is not the strong, principled, trustworthy leader he claims to be. Now they can stand back and let McCain make the case for them.”
The accusation of pandering is one which many people have made. Says Ann Friedman of “The American Prospect”:
Palin's addition to the ticket takes Republican faux-feminism to a whole new level. As Adam Serwer pointed out on TAPPED, this is in fact a condescending move by the GOP. It plays to the assumption that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters did not care about her politics -- only her gender. In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them. As Serwer noted, it's akin to choosing Alan Keyes in an attempt to compete with Obama for votes from black Americans.
I can't help but be, oh, a little bit skeptical of Republicans' sudden interest in the glass ceiling. After all, this is the party that threw women like Lilly Ledbetter under the bus, in favor of businesses that practice wage discrimination. The party that stymied the Equal Rights Amendment. The party that not only wants to force women here and abroad to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, but also wants to deny them access to a range of contraception options.
Not to mention hypocrisy at play. Republicans directed an inexcusable amount of sexist vitriol at Hillary during the primary. As Michelle Malkin said on Fox News about Hillary, "If that's the face of experience, I think it's going to scare away a lot of those independent voters that are on the fence." At National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez blamed polling that said America isn't ready for a woman president on the failure of Geena Davis' TV show (in which she played a vice president who was elevated to commander in chief after the president's death). And Kristol credited Hillary's brief, misty-eyed moment for propelling her to victory in the New Hampshire primary: "It's the tears. She pretended to cry, the women felt sorry for her, and she won."
It's clear that Republicans believe that what made Hillary Clinton such a good candidate was her gender, not her political experience or positions on the issues. And McCain's decision to pick Palin shows he took this message to heart and chose to add her to the ticket primarily because of her gender. In so doing, McCain has turned the idea of the first woman in the White House from a true moment of change to an empty pander.
Now. What do Republicans in her own home state have to say about her? Remember, these are REPUBLICANS! No false accusations of party bias here!
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Lyda Green, the president of the state senate, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Her approval rating in Alaska WAS at 90% -- when she was first elected and the afterglow hadn’t worn off. After what is now glibly being called “Troopergate” her approval rating actually fell to 67%. Some blogs and news sites say still falling, conservative blogs and news sites are claiming that her nomination for VP jumped it back up again. Either way, here’s the explanation of Troopergate from one Alaskan’s blog: Sarah Palin’s sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin’s father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten’s story is that he was basically stalked by the family.
After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin’s appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got “offered another job” (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, beforethis investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I’m not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin’s investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor’s husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin’s office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.
As if this weren’t enough, Monegan’s appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harassment allegations by a former coworker who didn’t like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.
After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin’s approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that’s being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today.”
So, not only did she first illegally pressure the head of the state troopers to illegally fire her ex-brother-in-law, she then spent state funds to investigate herself to see how bad the case against her was.
While Troopergate is fresh in your mind, might I also mention that this is not the first time Palin has fired employees for, shall we say, non work related circumstances?
According to this site, which links to other news stories, Palin fired both the police chief and head librarian of Wasilla - apparently because they campaigned for ‘the other guy’ during the election. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/another-dubious.html
She sounds like one gem of a Vice President, doesn’t she?
On a side note:
John McCain has some of the most awesome Bushisms I’ve ever seen.
When asked “How many houses do you you and Mrs. McCain own?”
“"I think," said McCain, "uh, I'll have my staff get to you. I'll try to tell you about that."”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/21/politics/fromtheroad/entry4372200.shtml
(His staff did get back to the reporter - the number is “at least four”. At least four houses, at a time when many American are struggling with their ONE. Other websites say eight properties. One of these properties has (per John McCain) six houses. This brings McCain’s count to THIRTEEN HOUSES. This from the man whose campaign rests primarily upon attacking the other guy for ELITISM. )
I even sourced everything!
(Pick and choose which you'd like to send on, if you'd like. Any single one of these should invalidate her as Vice President anyway.)
This is the woman McCain chose to nominate for Vice President?
First -- Sound Science!!
On GLOBAL WARMING:
"In an interview for the September issue of the conservative magazine Newsmax, Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, said she does not believe climate change is caused by human behavior.
“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I'm not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin said in the interview, which was posted online Friday."
Source : http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/08/palin-global-wa.html
on INTELLIGENT DESIGN
"Palin: “Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information.
Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.
And, you know, I say this, too, as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject - creationism and evolution.
It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.”"
Source: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=08&year=2008&base_name=sarah_palin_on_teaching_intell#108728
via http://community.adn.com/adn/node/102978
(The interview also mentions that she thinks that religious figures (pastors, priests, Jerry Falwell, etc) can endorse particular candidates when, by law, they actually cannot.)
On KNOWLEDGE:
"What does a VP do anyway?" Go to this link to watch Sarah Palin’s wonderfully edumacated opinion!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=006axc2aELE
(Because being one heartbeat away from Presidency is comparable to mayoring 5,469 people (per Wikipedia -- have seen estimates as high as 10,000, which is at least creeping into quintuple digits) or governing 683,478 in Alaska(again per Wikipedia).)
On FREE SPEECH
From a TIMES article: “[Former Wasilla Mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.”
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1837918,00.html#
(The article also mentioned that she gave a ‘gag order’ to her department heads, advising them that they could only speak to reporters with her explicit permission, not otherwise. Sound like anyone we already know?)
On RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE
Obama was criticized of attending the church of a somewhat unbalanced pastor. How about we take a look at Sarah Palin’s personal religious figure?
“Pastor Kalnins has also preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode."”
From Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html
(She’s been a member of this church most of her life, only leaving in 2002, although she continues to attend special events there. She was baptized there at the age of twelve. This church might also explain why Mrs. Palin believes that church figures are allowed to campaign for particular candidates. Again, they are not.)
On FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE
Cindy McCain: “Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia…”
Go to this link to watch the video of Mrs. McCain trying to defend Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience! (At least we know she passed Geography!)
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/cindy_mccain_on_palin_shes_qualified_because_alaska_is_close_to_russia/#When:01:44:00Z
On EARMARKS
Palin claims to be opposed to earmarks (funds added as sort of ‘afterthoughts’ to popular bills to get around the fact that most of them would be voted down if presented independently for vote. Also referred to as pork barreling). However, according to an LA Times article, “under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget, according to the website of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.” And, while Mayor of Wasilla, she hired a man named Steven Silver to represent the town in DC and obtain more funding. According to Talking Points Memo, guess who Silver used to work for?
If you guessed Jack Abramoff, you’d be right.
Talking Points Memo: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/palins_lobbyist_has_abramoff_t.php
LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-earmarks1-2008sep01,0,6108885.story
(Coincidentally, the main issues Silver was working on were, essentially, Native American rights & assoc issues, oil & gas exploration, and gaming - same things Abramoff was working on for Greenberg.)
On SOUND FISCAL POLICY
While Palin was mayor of Wasilla, she managed to rack up nearly $20 million in long term debt. When calculated out, that amounts to $3,000 per resident. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12987.html
On WILDLIFE
Palin supports shooting wolves from planes, despite the fact that this just might be illegal, as the US has laws against aerial hunting. http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/2008/08/yesterday-just.html
Palin opposed protecting beluga whales in Cook Sound (only 375 left!) because it would have adversely impacted (Did you guess?) the oil and gas industries in the area. http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/8/30/20129/1935
Palin opposed legislation to put the polar bear on the endangered species list, threatening to sue if it was. http://www.adn.com/polarbears/story/413710.html
On ABORTION
Palin opposes ANY abortion unless the mother’s life is at stake. This includes abortions in case of RAPE AND INCEST. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/01/palin-on-abortion-id-oppo_n_122924.html
(Even South Dakota shied away from making abortion in case of rape illegal, In ’06.)
On VETTING
News Commentator reveals that McCain only met Sarah Palin ONCE, SIX MONTHS before announcing her as his Vice President.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/andrea-mitchell-john-mcca_n_122517.html
And here’s what Chicago Tribune writer Steve Chapman had to say. I’ve bolded some things to bring attention to them, but left the article whole:
“How Palin subverts McCain's message”
September 4, 2008
The last few days have offered some startling revelations about a running mate-Sarah Palin's running mate. For months, Republicans have been asking the ominous question: How well do we know Barack Obama? The GOP nominee's vice presidential choice raises another one: How well do we know John McCain?
McCain's central message all along has been twofold. The first is that he would keep us safe in a scary, hostile world. The second is that he would always do what is right for the country he loves, no matter what the political or personal cost.
The first theme is a favorite of Republican presidents, but McCain's background has made it especially potent for him. During the Republican primaries, he made a point of noting that he, unlike his rivals, had "a military background and experience in these issues." His five years as a prisoner of war also dramatize the second theme, highlighting his patriotic devotion.
Both of those points are hard for Barack Obama to match. He's never worn the uniform; his father was a Muslim; he had a radical pastor who damned America. Obama's critics paint him as a mystery man who carries profound risks. Voting for him, we are told, would be a dangerous leap of faith.
McCain, by contrast, has gotten where he is because he's a familiar, well-seasoned quantity. He has been in public office for more than three decades, leaving an extensive record. Love him or hate him, we assumed, we knew what we were getting.
The biggest problem with Palin is not that she's inexperienced or has a wayward daughter or recently admitted ignorance of what the vice president does. It's that she's a human torpedo aimed at McCain's strongest attributes.
You don't come across as the prudent option when you propose to put an untested neophyte in line for the most powerful job on Earth. Or when you choose a running mate you barely know without investigating her to within an inch of her life. Or when you cheerfully contemplate turning over the nuclear codes to someone with no apparent knowledge of or interest in national security matters. The safe guy suddenly looks like Evel Knievel.
The McCain campaign says it knew about the pregnant daughter before Palin was chosen. But the vetting process was clearly far from exhaustive. Several prominent Alaska politicians, including the one directing an ethics investigation of her, said they never got a call. The senator and his subordinates didn't do everything they could to learn everything they needed to know about Palin.
And what happened to McCain's commitment to his country? By choosing someone so transparently unprepared for the presidency, he indicated he was willing to do anything, including jeopardize American lives, to win the election. If terrorism and the war in Iraq were truly "transcendent" to McCain, as he claims, he would have never considered someone so unacquainted with the topics.
At the rally Friday where the nominee introduced his running mate, the banners said: "Country First." But his actions said something different: "Politics First. Country Second."
Besides helping him with women and the religious right, McCain's selection was supposed to appeal to independents by reminding them how much he loves sticking it to the man. The campaign celebrated Palin as a bold reformer opposed to federal boondoggles and tough enough to buck her own party chieftains in Alaska.
All that may be true, but Palin probably won't enhance his image as a maverick. Choosing a conspicuously underqualified running mate mainly because of her sex was a classic case of pandering. And mavericks don't pander: They do what they think is right and let the chips fall where they may.
That's not what happened here. McCain, by all accounts, wanted either Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore's 2000 running mate, or Tom Ridge, the former secretary of Homeland Security-each of whom has the national security chops that Palin lacks. But apparently McCain wasn't willing to risk a fight with conservatives over a running mate who favors abortion rights.
Democrats have been trying without success to convince voters that the Republican candidate is not the strong, principled, trustworthy leader he claims to be. Now they can stand back and let McCain make the case for them.”
The accusation of pandering is one which many people have made. Says Ann Friedman of “The American Prospect”:
Palin's addition to the ticket takes Republican faux-feminism to a whole new level. As Adam Serwer pointed out on TAPPED, this is in fact a condescending move by the GOP. It plays to the assumption that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters did not care about her politics -- only her gender. In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them. As Serwer noted, it's akin to choosing Alan Keyes in an attempt to compete with Obama for votes from black Americans.
I can't help but be, oh, a little bit skeptical of Republicans' sudden interest in the glass ceiling. After all, this is the party that threw women like Lilly Ledbetter under the bus, in favor of businesses that practice wage discrimination. The party that stymied the Equal Rights Amendment. The party that not only wants to force women here and abroad to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, but also wants to deny them access to a range of contraception options.
Not to mention hypocrisy at play. Republicans directed an inexcusable amount of sexist vitriol at Hillary during the primary. As Michelle Malkin said on Fox News about Hillary, "If that's the face of experience, I think it's going to scare away a lot of those independent voters that are on the fence." At National Review, Kathryn Jean Lopez blamed polling that said America isn't ready for a woman president on the failure of Geena Davis' TV show (in which she played a vice president who was elevated to commander in chief after the president's death). And Kristol credited Hillary's brief, misty-eyed moment for propelling her to victory in the New Hampshire primary: "It's the tears. She pretended to cry, the women felt sorry for her, and she won."
It's clear that Republicans believe that what made Hillary Clinton such a good candidate was her gender, not her political experience or positions on the issues. And McCain's decision to pick Palin shows he took this message to heart and chose to add her to the ticket primarily because of her gender. In so doing, McCain has turned the idea of the first woman in the White House from a true moment of change to an empty pander.
Now. What do Republicans in her own home state have to say about her? Remember, these are REPUBLICANS! No false accusations of party bias here!
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Lyda Green, the president of the state senate, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Her approval rating in Alaska WAS at 90% -- when she was first elected and the afterglow hadn’t worn off. After what is now glibly being called “Troopergate” her approval rating actually fell to 67%. Some blogs and news sites say still falling, conservative blogs and news sites are claiming that her nomination for VP jumped it back up again. Either way, here’s the explanation of Troopergate from one Alaskan’s blog: Sarah Palin’s sister Molly married a guy named Mike Wooten who is an Alaska State Trooper. Mike and Molly had a rocky marriage. When the marriage broke up, there was a bitter custody fight that is still ongoing. During the custody investigation, all sorts of things were brought up about Wooten including the fact that he had illegally shot a moose (yes folks this is Alaska), driven drunk, and used a taser (on the test setting, he reminds us) on his 11-year old stepson, who supposedly had asked to see what it felt like. While Wooten has turned out to be a less than stellar figure, the fact that Palin’s father accompanied him on the infamous moose hunt, and that many of the dozens of charges brought up by the Palin family happened long before they were ever reported smacked of desperate custody fight. Wooten’s story is that he was basically stalked by the family.
After all this, Wooten was investigated and disciplined on two counts and allowed to kept his position with the troopers. Enter Walt Monegan, Palin’s appointed new chief of the Department of Public Safety and head of the troopers. Monegan was beloved by the troopers, did a bang-up job with minimal funding and suddenly got axed. Palin was out of town and Monegan got “offered another job” (aka fired) with no explanation to Alaskans. Pressure was put on the governor to give details, because rumors started to swirl around the fact that the highly respected Monegan was fired because he refused to fire the aforementioned Mike Wooten. Palin vehemently denied ever talking to Monegan or pressuring Monegan in any way to fire Wooten, or that anyone on her staff did. Over the weeks it has come out that not only was pressure applied, there were literally dozens of conversations in which pressure was applied to fire him. Monegan has testified to this fact, spurring an ongoing investigation by the Alaska state legislature. But, beforethis investigation got underway, Palin sent the Alaska State Attorney General out to do some investigative work of his own so she could find out in advance what the real investigation was going to find. (No, I’m not making this up). The AG interviewed several people, unbeknownst to the actual appointed investigator or the Legislature! Palin’s investigation of herself uncovered a recorded phone call retained by the Alaska State Troopers from Frank Bailey, a Palin underling, putting pressure on a trooper about the Wooten non-firing. Todd Palin (governor’s husband) even talked to Monegan himself in Palin’s office while she was away. Bailey is now on paid administrative leave.
As if this weren’t enough, Monegan’s appointed replacement Chuck Kopp, turns out to have been the center of his own little scandal. He received a letter of reprimand and was reassigned after sexual harassment allegations by a former coworker who didn’t like all the unwanted kissing and hugging in the office. Was he vetted? Obviously not. When he was questioned about all this, his comment was that no one had asked him and he thought they all knew. Kopp, defiant, still claimed to have done nothing wrong and said to the press that there was no way he was stepping down from his new position. Twenty four hours later, he stepped down. Later it was uncovered that he received a $10,000 severance package for his two weeks on the job from Palin. Monegan got nothing.
After extensive news coverage about all this nasty behind-the-scenes scandal, which is definitely NOT squeaky clean, Palin’s approval ratings fell to 67%, still high, but a far cry from the 90% number that’s being thrown around so glibly by the Republicans today.”
So, not only did she first illegally pressure the head of the state troopers to illegally fire her ex-brother-in-law, she then spent state funds to investigate herself to see how bad the case against her was.
While Troopergate is fresh in your mind, might I also mention that this is not the first time Palin has fired employees for, shall we say, non work related circumstances?
According to this site, which links to other news stories, Palin fired both the police chief and head librarian of Wasilla - apparently because they campaigned for ‘the other guy’ during the election. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/another-dubious.html
She sounds like one gem of a Vice President, doesn’t she?
On a side note:
John McCain has some of the most awesome Bushisms I’ve ever seen.
When asked “How many houses do you you and Mrs. McCain own?”
“"I think," said McCain, "uh, I'll have my staff get to you. I'll try to tell you about that."”
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/08/21/politics/fromtheroad/entry4372200.shtml
(His staff did get back to the reporter - the number is “at least four”. At least four houses, at a time when many American are struggling with their ONE. Other websites say eight properties. One of these properties has (per John McCain) six houses. This brings McCain’s count to THIRTEEN HOUSES. This from the man whose campaign rests primarily upon attacking the other guy for ELITISM. )