Sarah Palin, feeling unprepared, pulled out of a Univision interview that John McCain wound up doing by himself.

Jonathan Martin
Politico

From MEDIA MATTERS:

Joseph Curl and Matthew Mosk at the Washington Times came up with a heck of a non-story story today for the reportedly troubled newspaper, titled, “Top Republican lawmakers not invited to State Dinner [for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh].”

…snip…

The print article ran on the Times‘ front page with the headline, “Obama’s big tent leaves out GOP bigwigs; Dinner to honor India’s leader.” Slightly different, but it gets the same point across. From the headlines, one would think that Curl and Mosk had exposed President Obama as a biting partisan, who ran Republicans’ invitations to the White House’s first state dinner through the shredder while they eagerly awaited them at home. But one would have to read on.

As it turns out, Obama did invite “top Republican lawmakers.” They just aren’t attending.

Original DVD cover

The print article ran on the Times‘ front page with the headline, “Obama’s big tent leaves out GOP bigwigs; Dinner to honor India’s leader.” Slightly different, but it gets the same point across. From the headlines, one would think that Curl and Mosk had exposed President Obama as a biting partisan, who ran Republicans’ invitations to the White House’s first state dinner through the shredder while they eagerly awaited them at home. But one would have to read on.

As it turns out, Obama did invite “top Republican lawmakers.” They just aren’t attending. Let’s run through the list of Republicans the Times names in its story, despite its headline:

House Minority Leader John Boehner: He certainly counts as a “top Republican lawmaker.” Curl and Mosk write that “Boehner won’t be there; he’s on Thanksgiving break and home in Ohio.” Left out of their story? That Boehner was reportedly invited.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Also a “top Republican” who “received an invitation” but “decided to skip the dinner.”

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: He was invited, according to the Times, because he is a “prominent Indian-American.” You could make a pretty solid argument that Jindal rose quickly in the GOP’s ranks after they chose him to give a rebuttal to Obama’s first address to Congress. At the time, the Times even decided that Jindal sounded pretty presidential.

Sen. John McCain: Not invited. The Times writes that this is despite the fact that “Obama the candidate pledged a post-partisan presidency.”

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor: Not invited.

So let’s recap: Mosk and Curl named five Republicans in their story who are “not on the A-list” for the White House’s state dinner, two of which were apparently not invited. But they frame their story as “Top Republican lawmakers not invited to State Dinner.”

(Video at MEDIA MATTERS link)

The non-story, of course, was picked up by Fox News and the Drudge Report. They didn’t mention this (from From TALKING POINTS MEMO:

Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) will be attending, and he’s not the only Republican.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is attending, as is Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN).

The full guest list is at the TPM link.

From rediffNEWS:

The current and former co-chairs of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans in the House of Representatives like Democratic Representatives Gary Ackerman of New York, Jim McDermott of Washington state, Republican Ed Royce and their spouses were also in attendance, although erstwhile Caucus GOP co-chair Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina who screamed “You lie,” at President Obama as he was delivering an address to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care some months ago, was not among those invited.

On the Senate side, besides Kerry, Senator Richard Lugar, ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee came with his wide, as did US Senate India Caucus co-chair Senator Christopher Dodd.

John Bitney

Former Gov. Sarah Palin’s book, “Going Rogue,” blames her first legislative director for moves early in her term that helped poison her relationship with state lawmakers. But the ex-aide, John Bitney, calls Palin’s account a fabrication and said he wishes his former boss would leave him alone.

“I’m just pilloried right and left and turned into the big bad wolf here for stuff I didn’t do,” said Bitney, who is now an aide to Valdez Republican Rep. John Harris. “It’s like I’m this fictional character that she’s decided to make me out to be this sort of incompetent slob.”

Palin’s lawyer, Tom Van Flein, responded in an e-mail that Bitney and others have been talking about “their perceptions of, and distortions about” Palin for more than a year, since after she was chosen as Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.

” ‘Going Rogue‘ is Sarah Palin’s book to set the record straight. It is her right to speak about the events that occurred in her administration and neither Mr. Bitney nor anyone else has the right to stifle that speech,” Van Flein said. “The statements in ‘Going Rogue’ speak for themselves, and it is Sarah Palin’s turn to get the truth out there after a year of misrepresentations, half-truths and dissembling by her critics.”

Palin’s writing about Bitney is her most detailed description yet of incidents that helped shape her relationship with legislators. Her bad blood with top legislators of both parties began not long after she took office. By last spring, relationships with many lawmakers from both parties had soured to the point that feuds with the governor overshadowed much of the other legislative business.

Bitney joins a list of people slammed in the book who are calling it fiction, including McCain’s former campaign manager, Steve Schmidt. Bitney, though, has a far deeper relationship with Palin than the others. He was a high school classmate of Palin’s from Wasilla who played a key role as an adviser in her successful 2006 campaign for governor.

Palin’s dealings with Bitney are described on several pages of her memoir, although he is never named and there are no details of his work on her 2006 campaign. Palin refers to him as “my first legislative director” and he comes in for some of the harshest criticism of anyone in the book. That includes observations on his personal grooming, such as, “He turned out to be a BlackBerry games addict who couldn’t seem to keep his lunch off his tie.” Later, in describing one encounter to discuss the budget, Palin writes, “The fact that his shirt was buttoned one button off and his shirt tail was poking through his open fly didn’t exactly inspire confidence.” But Palin’s larger point is that Bitney bungled her relationship with legislators.

Bitney is now swinging back hard at Palin, agreeing to appear over the weekend on a television show hosted by one of the former governor’s most vocal critics in Alaska, blogger Shannyn Moore. Bitney was on a panel of others slammed in “Going Rogue” that included Palin nemesis Andrew Halcro and Anne Kilkenney, who wrote a long e-mail critical of Palin’s leadership in Wasilla that was forwarded around the country during the presidential campaign last year.

Moore asked Bitney if Palin is sane. Bitney’s response: “Is a sociopath sane?”

‘ADULT IN THE HOUSE’

One turning point between Palin and Alaska lawmakers came in 2007 after her first legislative session. Legislators complained that Palin blindsided them with the scope of her budget vetoes and she rubbed it in by saying there had to be an “adult in the house.” Legislators saw it as a slap in the face and the remark was not forgotten.

Palin writes that it was Bitney who advised her to tell lawmakers that they were in need of adult supervision. In fact, she writes, he told her, “Trust me, I know this stuff, they want to hear it.”

Palin writes that she followed his advice and had a “come-to-Jesus meeting” with legislators. But, as it turned out, that’s not what they wanted to hear. She writes that “when the fallout began after that meeting, I looked at the legislative director. He looked at the ground and shrugged as if to say ‘Wasn’t me.’ “

Bitney said in an interview that he joked with Palin in her office about how there needs to be an adult in the room when it comes to the state budget, but he said he never advised the then-governor to say it to anyone. He said Palin then made the comment in an interview with the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner editorial board — not in a “come-to-Jesus” meeting with legislators as she recounts in her book.

Bitney left the governor’s office in July 2007 in what Palin’s spokeswoman initially said was an “amicable” termination in which it was mutually agreed that he would leave his post for personal reasons. When reporters raised questions about it during the presidential campaign, the reason given by Palin’s office was “poor job performance.”

Bitney has told reporters he was fired after Palin was informed he was having an affair with the wife of a friend of Palin and her husband, Todd. Bitney, who has since married the woman, has said he was not forthcoming with Palin about it and understands why he had to go.

Palin’s only reference to that in her book is that “later we learned the legislative director had been too busy with his personal affairs to attend to much state business.”

‘LEAVE ME ALONE’

Bitney has influential defenders in the Legislature, including Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman, who has been critical of Palin and said he won’t read her book because she is “entertainment and not news.” Stedman said Bitney is qualified and that he did a good job dealing with the Legislature for Palin. He said he told Bitney at one point to let him know if he was ever looking for a job.

Palin writes that she told Bitney to send a letter to legislators about what sort of spending she would approve but that he didn’t do it. She said he indicated lawmakers were fine with budget vetoes that were coming but it became clear otherwise when they howled about being blindsided. “It soon became obvious just how little the legislative director had done to inform the legislature this was coming,” she writes.

Bitney said it was another staffer in the governor’s office, not him, who was requested to send the letter. The letter asked legislators for suggestions on which of their projects to cut, Bitney said, and not surprisingly they did not rush to answer Palin.

Bitney said he did meet with the four co-chairs of the state House and Senate finance committees to tell them about the coming vetoes, and reported back to Palin that three of them felt that was her prerogative and only one became angry.

But Palin staffers had only identified about $100 million worth of cuts by that point, about half of the final total. Bitney said the following day was when his “troubles” with Palin began. He said he was pulled from the governor’s budget work, and fired soon after. In the meantime, he said, Palin staffers kept cutting beyond what he had told legislators but he didn’t have authority to talk to them about it.

Palin uses Bitney in the book to illustrate a point about government. Bitney had years of experience as a legislative staffer and lobbyist before joining her team. “So much for my idea that I needed to hire an ‘insider.’ Lesson learned,” she writes.

Bitney said he tried to be fair to Palin when national media kept “crawling up my backside” over the past year to interview him about her. But the book is too much, he said.

“I’ve had it. Enough. Just enough; leave me alone,” he said.

Sean Cockerham
Anchorage Daily News

Check it out!

The US vice-presidential candidate’s memoir mocks the truth, but she remains a possible future American leader

"Going Rogue" features the lies and half-truths of Sarah Palin.

What can one say about one of the most compelling and bizarre works of “non-fiction” on the market, Going Rogue by Sarah Palin?

I have to say it stymies me somewhat. Treating it as some kind of factual narrative to check (as I began to), or comparing its version of events with her previous versions of the same events (as I have), and comparing all those versions with what we know is empirical reality, is a dizzying task. The lies and truths and half-truths and the facts and non-facts are all blurred together in a pious purée of such ghastly self-serving prose that, in the end, the book can really be read only as some kind of chapter in a cheap 19th-century edition of Lives of the Saints.

It is a religious book, full of myths and parables. And Sarah is fast becoming a religious icon of sorts for what is now the Republican base. On the first day of her tour, she dragged her infant with Down’s syndrome everywhere she went, even waving his hand to the crowds at one point as his little head swung back and forth. Here is the Madonna with child and a child that is an emblem of everything those who oppose abortion believe in.

Yet the book is also crafted politically, with every single detail of the narrative honed carefully for specific constituencies. The pro-life base is nurtured; various Republican allies are flattered; former sparring partners in the McCain campaign are lacerated; the evil liberal media are portrayed as a pack of ravenous hounds (even though they were unable to get an open press conference from her in the entire campaign, a fact unique in modern American political history).

It is also some kind of manifesto — but not in the usual sense of a collection of policy proposals. It is a manifesto for a certain identity — the heartland religious fundamentalist who is bewildered and angry at the world America no longer controls, at the debt and government that now dominate and at the liberal elites they hold responsible (even though the Republicans have been in power for a generation). This image is not, of course, made up out of whole cloth. Palin is indeed a feisty Alaskan and a genuine triumph of red-state feminism. But her narrative is embellished and embroidered to such an extent, it resembles not so much a memoir as a work of magical realism.

If you treat it as a factual narrative you will soon falter. Among the few early reactions were those of Nicolle Wallace — a McCain campaign staffer — who said of one passage: “It is pure fiction. No such discussion took place.” A reporter Palin says targeted her daughter Piper after a press conference was never at the press conference cited. Palin’s claim that she was personally billed $50,000 for vetting is point blank denied by the McCain campaign. Palin’s account of her record in the Exxon Valdez lawsuit was described last week by the chief lawyer for the case as “the most cockamamie bullshit”. I could go on. None of this is particularly surprising. Palin has a long and documented record of saying things that are empirically untrue but asserting them as if her own imagination is the only source of objective reality.

So you simply read the book as if it is fiction and enjoy it. Or you read it as non-fiction and believe that Palin is a magical mythical figure who defies the laws of time and space and normal human nature.

Take one story that every mother will relate to: the drama of her delivery of her fifth child, Trig. She tells us that at eight months pregnant with a child she knew had Down’s syndrome and would need special care at birth, she got on a plane from Alaska to Dallas, Texas, to attend an energy conference. Most airlines won’t allow this but Alaska Airlines did. Palin then tells us that at 4am on her first night in Dallas, “a strange sensation low in my belly woke me and I sat up straight in bed”. In an interview she gave with the Anchorage Daily News just after Trig’s birth, she confirmed that she had amniotic fluid leaking at that point.

So she was a mother eight months pregnant with a special-needs child thousands of miles from home. She wakes up in the middle of the night with contractions and amniotic leakage and she tells her husband she doesn’t want to call her doctor because it would wake her up at 1am. And she is the sitting governor of a state and her doctor is a close personal friend. Not only that, but she gives the speech as planned in the afternoon, during which she makes a rather good joke. She then tells us what happens next: “Big laughs. More contractions.”

After the speech, does she then go to a local hospital to get checked out? Nah. She gets on two separate aeroplanes all the way back to Alaska, with a stopover in Seattle, because she is determined to have the child in her home town and she just knows that the contractions and amniotic leakage are not signs of imminent delivery. She has had four previous kids so she has experience. “I still had plenty of time … It was a calm, relatively restful flight home,” she explains of the next 15 hours.

You might imagine that an airline would have some qualms about letting a woman in some sort of labour at eight months, and pregnant with a Down’s syndrome child, get on a long transcontinental flight. What if the baby were born in mid-flight? The plane would have to be diverted. What if something happened to the baby? The airline could be liable. Palin never told the flight attendants. Couldn’t they tell, one might innocently ask. In the Anchorage Daily News story about the birth, Alaska Airlines said: “The stage of her pregnancy was not apparent by observation. She did not show any signs of distress.” Palin makes Xena, the warrior princess, seem fragile.

It is this image of a frontierswoman, capable of almost anything, fiercely independent, fathomlessly brave, totally unflappable, driven and blessed by faith in God, resisting the evil cynicism and hatred of the eastern elites, ambushed by hostile interviewers, persecuted by her godless enemies and carrying on as an “iron lady” of Alaskan dimensions, that makes her such a powerful cultural and political icon. Her physical beauty doesn’t hurt either.

That is why, despite the fact that she quit the only key political office she had held in her first term for no good reason, she remains a viable candidate for the next presidential election. In a steep recession, with intractable wars abroad, with unemployment rising and paranoia deepening, Palin knows America wants a spiritual and cultural saviour. And God has chosen her.

Andrew Sullivan
Times Online

Name / Title / State / Famous quote

Alexander, Lamar / Senator / TN / “No.”

Barrasso, John / Senator / WY / “No.”

Bennett, Robert / Senator / UT / “No.”

Bond, Christopher / Senator / MO / “No.”

Brownback, Sam / Senator / KS / “No.”

Bunning, Jim / Senator / KY / “No.”

Burr, Richard / Senator / NC / “No.”

Chambliss, Saxby / Senator / GA /  “No.”

Coburn, Tom / Senator / OK / “No.”

Cochran, Thad / Senator / MS / “No.”

Collins, Susan / Senator / ME / “No.”

Corker, Bob / Senator / TN / “No.”

Cornyn, John / Senator / TX / “No.”

Crapo, Mike / Senator / ID / “No.”

DeMint, Jim / Senator / SC / “No.”

Ensign, John / Senator / NV / “No.”

Enzi, Michael / Senator / WY / “No.”

Graham, Lindsey / Senator / SC / “No.”

Grassley, Chuck / Senator / IA / “No.”

Judd, Greg / Senator / NH / “No.”

Hagan, Kay / Senator / NC / “No.”

Hatch, Orrin / Senator / UT / “No.”

Hutchison, Kay Bailey / Senator / TX / “No.”

Imhofe, James / Senator / OK / “No.”

Isakson, Johnny / Senator /  GA / “No.”

Johanns, Mike / Senator / NE / “No.”

Kyl, Jon / Senator / AZ / “No.”

LeMieux, George / Senator / FL / “No.”

Lugar, Richard / Senator / IN / “No.”

McCain, John / Senator / AZ / “No.”

McConnell, Mitch / Senator / KY / “No.”

Murkowski, Lisa / Senator / AK / “No.”

Risch, James / Senator / ID / “No.”

Roberts, Pat / Senator / KS / “No.”

Sessions, Jeff / Senator / AL / “No.”

Shelby, Richard / Senator / AL / “No.”

Snowe, Olympia / Senator / ME / “No.”

Thune, John / Senator / SD / “No.”

Vitter, David / Senator / LA / “No.”

Voinovich, George / Senator / OH / “No.”

Wicker, Roger / Senator / MS / “No.”

Warren Langer

http://warrenlanger.wordpress.com

Name                Title    State     Famous  Quote

Alexander, Lamar / Senator/ TN / “No.”

Barrasso, John / Senator / WY / “No.”

Bennett, Robert /Senator / UT / “No.”

Bond, Christopher / Senator / MO / “No.”

Brownback, Sam / Senator / KS / “No.”

Bunning, Jim/ Senator / KY / “No.”

Burr, Richard / Senator / NC / “No.”

Chambliss, Saxby / Senator /GA / “No.”

Coburn, Tom / Senator / OK  / “No.”

Cochran, Thad  / Senator / MS / “No.”

Collins, Susan  / Senator /  ME /  “No.”

Corker, Bob  / Senator / TN /  “No.”

Cornyn, John / Senator / TX / “No.”

Crapo, Mike   / Senator / ID /   “No.”

DeMint, Jim /  Senator / SC / “No.”

Ensign, John / Senator / NV / “No.”

Enzi, Michael / Senator /  WY /  “No.”

Graham, Lindsey  /Senator / SC / “No.”

Grassley, Chuck  /Senator / IA /  “No.”

Judd, Gregg  / Senator / NH / “No.”

Hagan, Kay / Senator / NC /  “No.”

Hatch, Orrin / Senator / UT /  “No.”

Hutchison, Kay Bailey / Senator / TX / “No.”

Imhofe, James / Senator / OK  / “No.”

Isakson, Johnny / Senator /  GA /  “No.”

Johanns, Mike  / Senator / NE / “No.”

Kyl, Jon / Senator / AZ /  “No.”

LeMieux, George / Senator / FL / “No.”

Lugar, Richard / Senator / IN /  “No.”

McCain, John / Senator / AZ / “No.”

McConnell, Mitch  / Senator / KY / “No.”

Murkowski, Lisa / Senator / AK / “No.”

Risch, James / Senator / ID / “No.”

Roberts, Pat / Senator  / KS / “No.”

Sessions, Jeff  /Senator / AL /  “No.”

Shelby, Richard / Senator / AL / “No.”

Snowe, Olympia  / Senator /  ME / “No.”

Thune, John / Senator / SD / “No.”

Vitter, David  / Senator / LA /  “No.”

Voinovich, George / Senator / OH / “No.”

Wicker, Roger  / Senator / MS / “No.”

Warren Langer

 http://warrenlanger.wordpress.com

For the Republican Party, the gap between image and reality widened again yesterday, with the RNC’s decision to promulgate a “test” for whether or not a candidate can be properly termed a “Republican,” and receive the party’s blessing. Apparently, following a bit of complex calculus derived by Pres. Reagan himself, any candidate ought to meet eight of  the ten following criteria before asking for RNC money, or thinking themselves safe from inevitable betrayal, without regard for the nuances that animate American regional politics (“Scozzafava-ing”). Without further ado, the requirements:

1. Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill
2. Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare
3. Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation<!–
4. Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check
5. Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants
6. Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges
7. Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
8. Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act
9. Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion
10. The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

Well, let’s see how recent leaders stack up!

• Pres. Ronald Reagan (FAIL): loses 1 (increased deficit); 7 (met with Soviet leaders without preconditions, funded terrorists); 9 (did little but talk on abortion).
• Pres. George W. Bush (FAIL): loses 1 (increased deficit); 5 (pushed for “amnesty”); 6 (stalled on “the surge” until McCain pushed him into it).
• Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (PASS): loses 1 (voted for the bailout); 5 (pushed for “amnesty”).

This is easy, because almost every Republican in the last 20 years will fail #1, at least. Remember, contrary magazine-style “purity quizzes” notwithstanding, Republicans treat McCain as the emblematic “RINO,” and Reagan as God himself. Please, add your own!

The last couple of weeks there has been a huge debate on Eric Holders decision to prosecute the 9/11 conspirators in civilian criminal court instead of a military tribunal. I’m not sure why the decision was made, I believe it probably has more to do with National Security than anything political. I believe in civilian court if things get to close to revealing something of a confidential nature prosecutors can site  “ it’s a matter of National security” to keep things from coming out. If they’re tried in a Military Tribunal which is not a public hearing everything must be put on the table, prosecutors can’t site “a matter of National Security” because theoretically everything that would be in a military tribunal would fall in that category so that can’t be used and tactics or secrets could come out and you know as well as I do even though it’s not a public hearing it doesn’t mean it’s a private one.

But that’s not what gave me the clue that he (Holder) made the right decision. What did it was last night Former Bush Administration Vice President Dickhd Cheney was on some radio show and said Holder was wrong and the Bush Admin. probably wouldn’t have made that decision. They would have PROBABLY tried them in a military tribunal. Well that did it because the Bush admin. DID NOT make one right decision during there two terms in office.

Andree McLeod sits during opening arguments in an Anchorage, Alaska court room Tuesday Aug. 4, 2009, in a lawsuit brought by McLeod challenging former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's use of private e-mail accounts for official business.

It’s tough getting up to the front of the line of those wanting to call Sarah Palin for the truckload of lies spewed in Going Rogue. Even John McCain has gotten into the act by charging Palin with fabricating a $50,000 bill she claimed she got stuck with for her “vetting” and by praising the two aides targeted by Palin, Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace.

Up in Alaska, the line is just as contentious. Everyone from Palin’s first years on the Wasilla City Council to her gubernatorial aides have challenged Palin’s rendition of her political career in the Last Frontier.

But perhaps the nastiest and most duplicitous passages of all in Going Rogue are those directed at Andree McLeod, the longtime Republican watchdog out of Anchorage who filed many of the Alaska Ethics Act complaints that, by Palin’s own admission, hounded her from office.

Palin’s venom directed at McLeod is both racist and viciously inaccurate. Perhaps a court will one day determine if it’s also libelous.

McLeod, now in her mid-50s and who is of Armenian descent by way of Lebanon, is referred to as the “falafel lady” repeatedly by Palin throughout her book. It’s an intended slur of ethnic derision, loaded with all of Palin’s adolescent fury. It’s also reminiscent of those members of Palin’s “Team Sarah” who referred to Barack and Michelle Obama’s Inaugural Dance as the “Watermelon Roll.” The phrase is as appalling as it is infantile.

Perhaps most importantly–and this is the one issue that astonishes those in the Lower 48 when I talk to them about Palin and Alaska politics–McLeod is a tried and true Republican. So are most of Palin’s staunchest critics in Alaska, from Lyda Green to Rick Rydell to Andrew Halcro.

Never one to let facts get in the way of a good story–especially when it’s her story–Palin identifies McLeod as part of a left-wing conspiracy loaded for bear against her. This is a howler. McLeod actually ran as recently as 2004 for the Alaska House of Representatives as a Republican. McLeod, like many other Palin critics who filed ethics complaints, is a fiscal conservative. Palin continues to lie about the nature of her opposition to those in the Lower 48 because there’s an information disconnect between those who live in the Last Frontier and those who live “Outside.”

McLeod had made friends with Palin after she lost her bid for Lt. Governor in 2002 and before Palin served as the chair and ethics officer of the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. They worked together during Palin’s highly publicized battle with Republican Party Chair Randy Ruedrich. None of that is included in Going Rogue. It’s a lie of omission–one of truly grand proportions.

And guess what else you won’t read in Going Rogue? Sarah Palin actually supported McLeod politically during her runs for the Alaska state house. Prominently displayed on McLeod’s campaign brochure was a supportive quote from the former Mayor of Wasilla:

Like many of us, Andree wants good government. She’s not afraid to stand up for what’s right. Though she ruffles a feather or two now and then, this intelligent Alaskan is exactly what we need during these times.– Sarah Palin

Of course, Palin is possessed of neither the decency nor the integrity to acknowledge any of this history or the depth of her relationship with McLeod in Going Rogue.

There’s a lengthy email correspondence between these two political allies dating back nearly seven years. Palin is often full of praise.

That was a great letter to the ed. this week Andree. I haven’t had time to call but wanted to tell you it was, again, insightful & educational & good writing. I’m still disenchanted with the whole issue of RR and state politics and am not even very optimistic about the call for an independent investigation. We’ll see. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. Hope you’re doing well, staying warm & staying on top of all these state issues I’m hearing about on the news! Love, SP

Other Palin emails to McLeod refer to her as “intelligent,” “bold,” “powerful” and “encouraging.” In another email Palin wrote: “Ugh! I know you must get so frustrated because you’re all about accountability!”

Yet another, written in Palinese, declares:

wow! again! YOU ARE A WRITER… I’ll bet your son is, too. You will be thanked for summing up for others what many believe: that there’s nothing wrong with healthy debate and challenges to the status quo when something is wrong & it can easily be fixed!

Note Palin’s compliments about McLeod’s writing, but in Rogue she says that McLeod’s ethics complaints got “more and more sophisticated,” indicating that they weren’t being written by her. Palin also claims: “We always suspected that someone was funding and directing Andree’s efforts.”

McLeod calls this charge an “outrage.” There’s not a whisker of proof in Palin’s book (no footnotes, no bibliography, no index, and obviously no fact-check) presented for this in the text. It’s nothing less than despicable.

For the first time, McLeod has released another Palin email to her, written in August of 2003. The email not only reveals the closeness of Palin’s relationship with McLeod but also the ease with which they formerly communicated.

Hi Andree:Did you hear us talking about you on the Mike Pocaro show Monday evening?! It was a hoot! He was impressed with your efforts on the VanEten issue & I called in to say “Kudos to Andree… she’s obviously got tireless energy and desire to keep government and government officials accountable to Alaskans… we need more “Andrees” in this state… etc…” And then that gal, “Michelle” (who calls in a lot) called right after I did to say, “Sarah Palin just needs to stay out of Anchorage politics… blah blah blah…” and the show went on with you as the highlight for callers! It was awesome. Ya’ done good again!!!

Sarah

McLeod has dozens of emails between herself and Palin. But once Palin was elected governor, McLeod was suddenly persona non grata.

In Going Rogue, Palin would like everyone to believe that all of her problems began after she was named as McCain’s running mate, what Palin has defensively dubbed the “new normal.” (Her shameful rendition of “Troopergate,” which commenced in the summer well before her nomination, is astonishingly duplicitous.) In fact, McLeod ’s concerns about Palin began in the spring of last year, when, during the State Republican Convention in March of 2008, McLeod observed two top Palin officials–Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye–closely involved in partisan gamesmanship. That’s when McLeod first became concerned that Palin’s administration was crossing the line in terms of the state’s ethics act.

There was never a “normal” in Sarah Palin’s Alaska–ever.

Perhaps most importantly, Palin’s checkered political legacy in the Last Frontier may not be over yet. McLeod says that she will be filing more complaints involving Palin and her administration.

I’ve discovered emails which prove that Palin officials worked on the campaign while on the state payroll clock. That is wrong and should not be tolerated. Also, there’s the outstanding issue of Palin not turning over the reins to the Lieutenant Governor when she left to campaign as mandated by the Alaska Constitution. We deserve to know who was responsible for leaving Alaska without a master at the helm and why.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn’s book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin’s Press in spring 2010.

Geoffrey Dunn
The Huffington Post

Top Gun is one of my all time favorite movies. Maverick and Goose, Ice Man and Charlie, Cruise and Kilmer,etc. Near the end of the movie, shortly after the climactic dog fight, Kilmer and Cruise meet on the deck of the carrier. After a brief stare down, Kilmer tells Cruise, “you are still dangerous,” adding that he could still be his wingman. Then we have the macho man  hug and action continues.

According to some well-known folks, there is  a dangerous person running amok around the country today. She has been to Ft Bragg, to Roanoke,Va, to Columbus and Cincinnati, Oh among others. Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart calls her dangerous as does well-known style arbiter Martha Stewart, presumably not related. Ms Stewart, apparently with her verbal claws sharpened also threw in the descriptive words confused  and boring. Doubtless Tina Fey had something to say also, but I don’t care.

Of course, we speak of Sarah Palin as she tours the country to promote her book which sold some 300,000 copies on day 1. I will say up front that unlike a number of my conservative brethren, I am uncertain as to whether Ms Palin would make  a good president of presidential candidate even. But I am certainly enjoying the angst that is surfacing  among those who are not fans. Is she dangerous? Dangerous to what and to whom, don’t know. I don’t really think so. It was amusing to note Martha Stewart’s comments. I  am unsure how one can be boring and dangerous simultaneously. If you are dangerous, you are certainly not boring are you? Why does Martha even care?

Anyway, the Obamacare folks should applaud her media attention. She is probably diverting some attention from all the machinations and payouts occurring in the Senate to obtain the votes of wavering Democrats. Whatever it takes, though. Sen Schumer said, we can’t not succeed. Parse that phrase, all you grammarians.

Last note. McCain has read her book and liked it. Obama says he probably will not read it.

Palin gives the kiss-off to book buying fans in Indiana.

Remember during the 2008 Presidential campaign when John McCain and Sarah Palin rolled out those commercials wherein they compared Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in an attempt to characterize the future president as a celebrity lightweight? Well, as Reverend Wright once said, “the chickens have come home to roost.” You see, Sarah Palin has now evolved into just the type of air-headed celebrity diva that she at one time criticized. Exhibit 1; she has no meaningful employment (like Paris Hilton) and is famous in the eyes of her fans for nothing other than her personality and for being famous. Exhibit 2; her personal and family life is a mess (like Britney Spears) filled with a single mother teen daughter, an unemployed husband, a criminal sister-in-law, an estranged brother-in-law and an estranged once and future son-in-law that also happens to be the father of her grandson. Exhibit 3; Sarah Palin is now on a rock star like national book-tour to promote a book that she could not even write on her own.

The book-tour itself has not gone without the type of controversy that so often surrounds celebrity divas. Take for example yesterday’s appearance at Fort Bragg where Palin was ordered by Army command to essentially “sit down and shut up”. Although the former ex-quitting governor of Alaska so often drapes herself in the flag and presents herself as an icon of and the primary supporter of our military forces, the military does not return the favor. The brass at Fort Bragg was not about to allow Palin to publicly attack their Commander in Chief, Barack Obama by means of politically grandstanding before the troops during her book signing. Consequently, she was restricted from giving a speech, taking photos and personalizing notes in the books that she signed. Also too, just thinking aloud here, but why did the patriotic, physically fit basketball player, beauty contestant never demonstrate her unfaltering support for the military by enlisting therein?

Even more entertaining however was the fiasco known as the Noblesville, Indiana Borders Books appearance. Throngs of Palin supporters endured the chillingly cold and wet weather waiting in line for up to 9 hours to buy her book and obtain a wristband which would entitle them to meet Palin and get their book signed in person on November 19th. That of course was of no concern to Sarah Palin who simply up and quit signing (sound familiar?)  in the middle of the event and promptly boarded her luxury coach to depart for places unknown. It was of no consequence to Sarah Palin that these people paid good money for her book (which enriched the former governor), skipped work (which decreased their fortunes) and suffered for hours waiting outside in the elements. Needless to say, many of those people were outraged by Palin’s callous action and vowed to return their books and cease their support for the former vice presidential candidate. Thereafter in a feeble attempt to quell the backlash against her, Palin issued this statement via Facebook,

I’ve been told that yesterday there were supporters in Noblesville who stood in long lines for hours in the cold and rain, and the book signing event ended without a chance to say hello to everyone who showed up. I am so sorry. We are working on a solution for those who were left behind. I apologize.

The best part of the half apology is that, as usual, Palin accepts no personal blame. By saying, “I’ve been told” that the terrible thing happened, Palin implies that she personally knew nothing about it and therefore cannot be held personally responsible. Problem is, before her bus was able to leave the parking lot, it was swarmed by a mass of protesting former fans. Could Palin not see them out the windows of the bus? Could she not hear them? The answer is that she could both see and hear them and that her apology simply adds to her growing list of lies. Please watch the following clip from MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann for an overview of the book signing disaster:

In honor of the troops, please remember to click on the song link below to familiarize yourselves with the tune and to have more fun singing along with today’s very topical song parody.

Please Mr. Postman song link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cxSAh-LFAM

MRS. PALIN

(sung to the Beatles version of the song “Mr. Postman”)

Wait, oh yes wait a minute Mrs. Palin
Wait, wait Mrs. Palin

Mrs. Palin can’t you see?
We camped out overnight here in Indy?
We’ve been waiting such a long time
We froze our asses off in line

You must have something to say
Why did you blow us off today?
Please Sarah Palin honestly,
Why did you treat us so egregiously?
We’ve been standing here waiting Mrs. Palin
So patiently
Why not some word, or even better
Will you just sign this damn book for me?

Please Mrs. Palin can’t you see?
We’ve paid our SarahPAC membership fees
You left us waiting in this line
“Stick your book where the sun don’t shine!”

We won’t forget you passed us by
You can kiss our support bye-bye
You didn’t stop to make us feel better
No, you left us out in the bad weather

Sarah Palin can’t you see?
We’re gonna hang out your dirty laundry
It will hang out there on that line
You stood us up for the very last time!

You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
Now you will see, you’re our enemy

You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
Mrs. Palin
We all will remember, 19^th of November!!!

You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
You gotta wait a minute, wait a minute
(repeat to fade)

A Post-Partisan President? NOPE

Remember the promise, from president-elect Obama, about being a post-partisan President? Well, like most things Obama said as a candidate, it was all lies. Obama is passing out tickets to his first White House dinner and he is inviting Hollywood, big donors and anyone else that helped get him elected. Who isn’t Obama inviting?

Top Republican lawmakers are not on Obama’s invitation list. Not even his rival during the 2008 election, John McCain, received an invite. Obama even left out a few democrats who have helped with crafting ObamaCare. Max Baucus (D-Mont) and Ben Nelson (D-FL) were both left off the invited. However, Oprah, and a slew of Hollywood movie producers like Steven Speilberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, got to nod.

I noticed that Gen. Stanley McChrystal was not on the invite list. This might have been a great time for the ditherer-in-chief to have another talk with the general he hand-picked to win the Afghanistan War. I’m just projecting, of course.

The coverage that Sarah Palin has received in recent weeks is remarkable for a private citizen who holds no office.  While much of this publicity is due to her book tour for “Going Rogue“, a lot of the noise is being made by those who have a profound dislike for the woman.  Understanding what is behind this irrational reaction helps show insight into the American Left.

Let’s start with history.  Senator John McCain took a gamble when he chose newcomer Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running-mate.  While Palin was an instant success with conservatives, she just as quickly became the bane of liberals.  During the campaign Palin showed a lack of experience that presented itself in a few weak interviews with the press.

McCain lost the election and those on the left were almost gleeful at placing the blame at the feet of Palin.  That was undeserved.  With the economy heading rapidly south and a strong dislike of the Republican president, a Cocker Spaniel could have defeated any Republican ticket.

Two examples show a gross double standard that the Leftist media has taken with Sarah Palin involving experience and fact check.

Experience

As soon as Palin was nominated for the vice presidency, the main talking point from the Democrats was her lack of experience.  At the time I thought the approach was ill-conceived since it should have also pointed to a similar weakness in Obama, especially compared to McCain.  Here we had Sarah Palin who was the mayor in Alaska and then became its governor.  While light on experience, it was no lighter than Obama’s whose resume included a Community Organizer, a state senator with little voting record, and a US Senator for less than a year when he began running for the presidency.  If experience was important, then too Obama was a lightweight.  But the press didn’t even raise this Obama weakness while brutalizing Palin on it.

Fact Check

A more current issue revolves around fact check.  The Associate Press obtained a copy of Palin’s book, Going Rogue, prior to its official release.  According to AP’s spokesman Paul Colford, they dedicated 11 employees to read this 432 page book to do fact checks.  While the independent press should check the accuracy of published material by public figures, they have not held other politicians to the standard they hold Palin.  Where was the fact checking on Joe Biden’s or Ted Kennedy’s books?  Where was it for Obama’s book?  Don’t look too hard; you won’t find it in the mainstream media.

********

While the Left and their friends in the press continue to the attack Palin, they sing the same tune about her lack of political skills and intellect.  However, as Darth Vader so ably put it: “Their thoughts betray them.”  They fear a populist who is likable by middle America.  They fear that Palin may gain traction and become Ronald Reagan-like to the public.  They were right to fear Reagan’s potential to reinvigorate middle America.  It’s too early to tell whether this fear is justified with Palin.

The attack on Palin comes three main power groups:

Radical Left – The Radical Left’s agenda is to bring Euro-style socialism to America.  With the Liberal Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress as well as the White House, for the first time in modern history the Radical Left has a chance realize its goal.  A populist conservative would endanger that journey.

Fake Feminists – There is nothing that angers Fake Feminists more than a woman with middle America values.  And if she happens to be attractive, that send them into orbit.  Here we have Sarah Palin who has done it all.  She raised a family, became the most powerful person in her family and for that matter in all Alaska, only to be shunned by the so-called women’s movement.  They have they fallen a long way baby!

Elitist Intelligencia – The elites from the Blue-Blood colleges have a superiority complex that clouds good judgment.  To these folks the name on a diploma trumps all, including integrity.  While a high IQ can be an attribute, let us not forget that a good percentage of those in Washington and on Wall Street that helped create the current economic mess come from this group.  A bit more morality would have served the country better than the pedigree of these folks’ education.

It is too early to judge Sarah Palin’s skills on the national level.  Over the coming months the test of time will show whether or not she has substance to match her great personal skills.  Like Ronald Reagan, if she is to be successful at this level she will need to connect with middle American in both parties.  In the meantime it would serve the country better if the “independent media” would chill out on Ms. Palin and focus on those that are now in power.  Some fact checks on this groupould be more productive than a witch hunt on a private citizen who holds no public office.

Oh, Sarah Palin.  I just absolutely adore you. </sarcasm>

In fairness, to some degree, I do adore Sarah Palin.  She gives me material for thought and conversation.  She lassoes people into large collectives which are easily recognizable at a distance, making it easier for me to avoid them altogether.  She provides me with an easy example to help define ‘irony’ and ‘hypocrisy’ to children and, in some cases, adults.  Overall, she is kinda great.

Sarah Palin

But it isn’t what’s great about her that has me indoors on a Friday night writing a 20 paragraph blog.  It’s what I find disturbing about her that has me here.  What do I find so dangerous about a soccer mom?  Her political ideology and her followers.

John McCain plucked her out of relative obscurity to serve his own selfish purpose.  When the Senator was running for President and Hillary finally exited stage left, he realized he might win some of her former supporters by finding another charming lady to put on his arm– er, ticket.  Palin was as unknown to John McCain as she was to you and I prior to campaign season.  It was a risk, be he had to take it.  Fast forward two years and the regret for having brought her on to the world stage is as plain in his television appearances as is the nose on his face.  Who wouldn’t regret working with someone they rarely got along with?  Someone who pushed the blame for every misstep solely on your shoulders.  I’d regret it to.

John McCain isn’t the only one finding that decision regrettable.  The vast majority of Americans do too.  Even with the knowledge that 72% of Americans would not support her as a Presidential candidate – I am cautious.  I’m cautious because of the blind devotion she has from many people.  First, when she was introduced to the world and now after the release of her book.  Despite the fact that Sarah Palin continues to campaign for policies and ideologies that seem to have stepped straight out of the 19th century; She still has the complete, unwavering, support of millions.

Mrs. Palin doesn’t believe global climate change is man-made.  During an interview with the far-right Newsmax publication she stated, “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.”  Despite the mountains of scientific data and evidence, she continues to speak out against actions and legislation that would move our nation toward domestic clean and renewable energy.  In July of this year she published an op-ed in The Washington Post entitled “The ‘Cap and Tax’ Dead End.”  In it she suggests that our new energy policy should include building oil rigs and drilling in the American National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR), building more coal-burning plants to utilize the mountains of coal we have stored domestically (which is the most pollutant fuel on the planet), and the construction of nuclear power plants in each state (despite the abhorrent risks associated with nuclear energy.)  She then asks, “Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter.”  I find this to be an incredibly irresponsible statement.  The entire purpose behind the Cap-and-Trade plan is to promote the construction of renewable energy sources in America, to create jobs that can not be outsourced; utilizing hydroelectric, wind, and solar energy.  I’m not sure how Mrs. Palin came to the conclusion that building clean energy solutions domestically would result in the outsourcing of jobs.  Perhaps it has something to do with, under Cap-and-Trade, Alaska not being given the opportunity to increase its profit margin twelve-fold.

Sarah Palin is anti-choice.  She has made many statements in the past regarding her desire for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw all abortions, save pregnancy resulting from incest or in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger.  She has been quoted as saying, “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents.” which, to me, says that she doesn’t understand the issue of abortion all-that-well.  If she is proud of her daughters choice, perhaps she should also be grateful that her daughter had a choice at all.  Under a McCain/Palin administration, she wouldn’t have.

Sarah Palin and stem Cells make the cover of The Economist

Sarah would like to see another constitutional amendment banning stem cell research.  Research that has literally led to the regeneration of limbs, the curing of debilitating diseases within animals, and could potentially cure diseases such as cancer and HIV/AIDS.

Perhaps to better understand Sarah Palin we should look at the historical record of her leadership and decision making abilities.

She was mayor of Wasilla, AK from 1996 to 2002.  In that time she managed destroy the small town financially with the construction of a sports arena.  The 15 million dollar multi-use indoor ice arena was supposed to be her legacy as the mayor. The price tag was a big deal for a city that had an annual budget of only $3.9 million in 1996 (increased to $5.8 million in 2002). Although the city subsidy has gone down from the initial $600k per year to about $125k per year, the sports complex still does not break even.  In addition, the complex was built on someone else’s land without regard for their rights as a land owner.  This led to a long and costly lawsuit which was, in turn, paid for by the residents of Wasilla.  In the end she raised sales tax and managed to break laws in order to bankrupt a city of less than 10,000 people for a sports complex that was entirely unnecessary– but, as those close to her at the time are quick to remind us, the complex was supposed to be Mrs. Palin’s legacy.  Ironically, it seems to be a legacy of incompetence.

Also, when Mrs. Palin was mayor of Wasilla, she supported local legislation requiring rape victims to pay for the law enforcement procedures necessary for solving the crime.  In other words, rape victims had to pay for a rape kit before law enforcement would work on the victim’s behalf.  A rape examination can cost anywhere between $300 and $1,200.  If a victim could not afford the procedure, no criminal investigation began.  Maria Comella, a McCain/Palin advisor, said that this requirement is a “misrepresentation of her [Palin's] commitment to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice.”  Yet, in her six years of being mayor, she made no effort to repeal the legislation.

Palin is also admittedly anti-equal rights.  She has stated time and again that she does not support same-sex marriage.  In 2006, while running for governor, she said she would support a ballot initiative that denied benefits to same-sex couples, but her first veto as governor shot down such a bill. (Palin said she vetoed it because the Alaska Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional, not because she supports gay-marriage or same-sex couple’s rights.)

Palin has been confronted with 19 separate ethics complaints by her former constituents.  These accusations range from her using her power as governor to have a dis-liked family member dismissed from his job to, the most recent allegation, her abuse of ‘per diem’ payments from state revenue.  Though she has been cleared of 14 of these 19 charges (by groups that could be arguably biased), 5 charges still remain.

Photo of Sarah Palin and friends proudly wearing their kills.

Mrs. Palin is no friend to wildlife.  As governor she openly endorsed a program that rewarded the slaughter of wolves with a $150 bounty.  This policy is compounded by the fact that she sued, using state revenue, the Department of the Interior over the listing of Polar Bears and the Beluga whale on the endangered species list.  Again, despite all evidence, she insists that she knows more about the welfare of bears and whales than the experts who have devoted their lives to the study.  Also, Palin supports aerial hunting (the video in this link has some disturbing footage) and spent $400,000 of state money to print and disseminate propaganda supporting it.

The proposed location for MRs. Palin's "bridge to no where"

Let’s not forget the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” or it’s more proper name, the “Gravina Island Bridge.”  The bridge was intended to replace the ferry system being used to connect the mainland to the small island village of Ketchikan which boasts the second largest airport in south-east Alaska and approximately 50 residents.  In addition to the bridge, a road needed to be built.  In Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, she claimed that  a bridge was essential to the prosperity of Ketchikan and even wore a shirt that read “Nowhere Alaska 99901″ – referencing “the bridge to nowhere” and the zip code for the village.  This pro-bridge attitude made a hasty departure during the 2008 Presidential campaign, much to the dismay of the people of Alaska who had spent two years working with her on getting the bridge built.  The estimated cost of the bridge was 398 million dollars.  However, in the two years following, she failed to receive full funding from the federal government and fell 329 million short.  The funding her state did receive from the federal government was never returned after the plans were canceled.  In short, “Thanks but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere.” should have been followed by “but thanks for all the free money.”  Also, I doubt it was coincidence that the “road to nowhere” was all but present during the national conversation.  The road to which I refer is an 8-mile long stretch of pavement that sits isolated in the forest.  Traffic has no access to the road as it was intended for use with the bridge; Since the bridge was never built, the road sits as useless asphalt…  a 25 million dollar reminder of frivolous spending.  When Palin was asked why the road was built even after it was decided the bridge would not be, she said that otherwise the money would have had to be returned.

Lastly, and perhaps most irresponsibly, is the release of her book Going Rogue. In the book she takes liberty with the facts and cleverly reinvents them as needed.  A few of my favorite out-and-out lies in her book are as follows:  First, the by-line.  Sarah Palin did not write Going Rogue, a ghost writer by the name of Lynn Vincent did.  Second, she claims she was left with $50,000 in legal fees regarding her Vice-Presidential vetting despite the fact that she was not vetted and McCain campaign advisors stating that it is simply “untrue.”  Third, Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a “pipe dream” into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention in 2008, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.  Also, Palin complains that McCain advisors were adamant about keeping her “on the script.”  McCain advisor Steve Schmidt says they were regularly tasked with keeping Palin from lying or misleading the public during the campaign as she had with the campaign staffers.  Finally, my favorite out-right lie in her book – by far – is when she criticizes President Obama for bailing out the private sector.  She seems to have conveniently forgotten that former President George W. Bush’s signature is at the bottom of those bailouts and she has also neglected to mention that at the time Bush signed it, she supported it.  …and that is just the beginning.  She also didn’t know if Africa was a country or continent, she didn’t understand the difference between Great Brittain and England, she once stated that “God put dinosaurs here 4,000 years ago so we can fuel our pickup trucks,” and she regularly attempted to usurp the spotlight from John McCain;  All of this comes directly from McCain campaign staffers.  Moreover, there is not one single sentence in the entire book in which she takes responsibility for her actions.  Every problem she faced, every blundered opportunity is attributed to the incompetence of someone else.

Palin's book cover

However, the largest and most worrisome aspect of Palin’s political history is that she resigned as governor citing no particular reason as to why.  She simply quit.

It seems clear that Sarah Palin isn’t fit to hold office and yet she has the blind devotion of millions.  Visit her Facebook Page for examples of the undeserved devotion.  In addition to Palin’s many lies (there are no laws regarding accuracy within social networking, allowing Palin to invent and maintain fiction such as “death panels”) you’ll find many comments left by supporters.  Comments like:

Pistol Mangino “I’d buy the book even if I couldn’t read, I just would like to drive the Main Stream Media Crazy. Sarah what do we do now to stop this madness on health car. God Bless we love the book. Reload and lets keep these people running.”

Mike Terwilliger “I heard your radio interviews with Hannity and Levin. They were great. You are the most honest politician America has. That’s why the liberal bias reporters want to smear, discredit and demean you. They are not journalist but are Obama mouthpieces.”

Clinton D. Rencher “Sarah, Our voices have not been heard loud enough!! We must band together and rid this Country of a virus that has snuck into this Country’s political system and is making this Country sick with it’s disease.”

Those are a few comments on her page.  It seems clear that her followers are as unfamiliar with fact as Palin is.

…but I digress.  Though at times her cult of followers gives me pause, I remember that she is generally considered to be a joke on the political stage.  Roughly 80% of the GOP openly discredits Palin.  The majority Americans see her for what she is, unfit to lead.  If numbers are your thing, maybe this will set your mind at ease:  Sarah Palin’s Facebook page has 1,057,544 fans at the time that I write this article.  President Obama’s Facebook page has 6,935,188 fans.  If these numbers are any indication, if Sarah Palin runs for President in 2012 and manages to come out of the primaries, Obama will mop the floor with her.

Do your part in ensuring a Palin-free Presidency in 2012.  Write the members of your party of choice and urge them not to support any would-be candidate with such little understanding of the world.  Also, tell your friends and family who may be reading her book to not simply accept her words (or rather Vincent’s words) as fact.  There are plenty of sources who’s sole purpose is to check facts.  Additionally, you can join groups on Facebook (or this one) meant to take away the pedestal on which some have placed her.

Below are a few select video clips of Sarah Palin proving how uneducated she is:

Yes, that’s right — we need to get tougher on Iraq to stop Iran.

An angry crowd of people begins shouting after Palin quits signing books abruptly — much like she quit her job as governor.

Sarah asks “What does a VP do?”

More evidence that she didn’t know much about the job she was campaigning for.

Over the weekend I read an article that said John McCain might have to run against a member of the Tea bag movement. In a hypothetical Rasmussen poll John McCain has 45% support compared to former Congressman, conservative radio talk show host J.D. Hayworth’s 43%. Two per cent separates the two. “On his radio show Friday, Hayworth discussed the results of the Rasmussen poll at length. Hayworth said discussions with his immediate family are “more than a topic of casual conversation.” He indicated a desire to run, saying that he is in the “due diligence” phase and that the primary roadblock would be fundraising, specifically to pay off some debt.” Hayworth is a beneficiary of the 2008 election and he has mastered the mobs. He has successfully tapped into the anger that the McCain/Palin ticket unleashed. They waged an us against them campaign. In that case the them was President Obama and his supporters, but now in a twist McCain is seen as part of the them. Prior to the election McCain was viewed as a moderate Republican who would reach across the aisle to get results, but this crowd is hardline. Their motto seems to be our way or the highway. There is no longer any room for statesmen who have the word compromise in their vocabulary. Last November an angry monster was released. They tapped into visceral anger, but they thought they could control it. What John McCain did not know then was that he too might be eaten by the monster he helped create.

Der amerikanische Senator John McCain kritisiert im Interview mit der Süddeutschen Zeitung Barack Obamas Afghanistan-Politik, bzw. konkret: das Ausbleiben der verbindlichen Verkündung einer Truppenerhöhung. So weit, so wenig überraschend. Immerhin war John McCain ein früher Unterstützer der erfolgreichen Truppenerhöhung im Irak und hatte sich bereits während seines Wahlkampfes als Präsidentschaftskandidat der Republikaner 2008 für eine ähnliche Strategie in Afghanistan ausgesprochen.

Interessanter finde ich, wie Vietnamenveteran John McCain auf eine Frage nach der Vergleichbarkeit des Afghanistan- und des Vietnamkrieges reagiert. Nicht ablehnend, was ja denkbar wäre, so beliebig wie dieser Vergleich bisweilen angewendet wird (erst war Afghanistan das neue Vietnam, dann der Irak, jetzt wieder Afghanistan), sondern wie folgt:

Vergleiche mit früheren Kriegen sind immer relevant. Aber Fakt ist doch dies: Als die Nordvietnamesen am Ende in Südvietnam einmarschierten, da gabe es im ganzen Land keine amerikanischen Soldaten mehr. Wir waren längst abgezogen, aber das verschweigt die Linke gern.

Merke: Vietnam wurde an der Heimatfront verloren. Und dort ist man aktuell wohl mit anderen Dingen beschäftigt. Apropos: Der Guardian berichtet aktuell von einer Afghanisierung des Afghanistankrieges.

John McCain beim World Economic Forum 2007

Die US-Presse und ich hatten mal gemeinsam, dass wir John McCain dafür mochten, dass er unkonventionell und aufrichtig ist (oder zumindest so auftrat). Ohne Sarah Palin hätte ich ihn vielleicht sogar als Präsidenten gut gefunden. Wobei es natürlich ohne Sarah Palin noch unwahrscheinlicher gewesen wäre, dass er eine Chance gehabt hätte. Was wiederum verschmerzbar gewesen wäre, vor allem wegen Palin.

Im Zeit-Interview antwortet John McCain auf die Fragen, ob Obama eine Politik der Härte gegen Russland verfolgen sollte, statt Kompromisse zu suchen:

Nein, nein. Wir können sehr wohl gleichzeitig mit den Russen verhandeln. Wir sprechen mit ihnen gerade über eine Reduzierung der strategischen Atomwaffen. Aber wichtig ist, dass wir zugleich für Menschenrechte eintreten. Soeben haben wir das 20-jährige Jubiläum des Falls der Berliner Mauer gefeiert. Wie war das möglich? Weil Ronald Reagan dies von Gorbatschow verlangte: ‚Reißen Sie diese Mauer nieder!’ Wir haben immer unsere Grundsätze verteidigt und die unveräußerlichen Menschenrechte, ob man in Odessa lebt oder in Ohio. Russland ist auf dem Weg zu Autokratie und Repression. Das muss man aussprechen. Das bedeutet nicht, dass wir ihnen den Krieg erklären.

Die New York Times erinnerte am Wochenende in einem langen Artikel über Michail Chodorkowski daran, dass Russlands ein demokratisches Entwicklungsland ist. Nicht einmal der russische Präsident behauptet ja, sein Land sei eine lupenreine Demokratie (er ist, außer rhetorisch, allerdings auch nicht als Vorkämpfer für Verbesserungen aufgefallen). John McCain macht allerdings keine Vorschläge, wie man mit Russland fair ins Gericht gehen und sich anschließend an den Verhandlungstisch setzen könnte. Er klammert sich stattdessen weiter an einen Kurs der bedingungslosen Unterstützung für den georgischen Präsidenten Micheil Saakaschwili und hält an dessen umstrittenener Behauptung fest, Russland habe den Krieg gegen Georgien begonnen.

An einer anderen Stelle des Interviews, zum Nahost-Konflikt, sagt McCain etwas sehr Vernünftiges:

Ich hätten den Israelis niemals einen Siedlungsstopp abverlangt, wenn ich nicht sicher bin, dass ich das auch wirklich durchsetzen kann.

Warum glaubt er dann, man könne die Einhaltung der Menschenrechte zur Vorbedingung für Gespräche mit Russland machen? Er wird wissen, dass weder er selbst noch Barack Obama noch Catherine Ashton das durchsetzen könnten.

Sarah Palin vs. Pit Bull

At last the American right and left have one issue they unequivocally agree on: You don’t actually have to read Sarah Palin’s book to have an opinion about it. Last Sunday Liz Cheney praised “Going Rogue” as “well-written” on Fox News even though, by her own account, she had sampled only “parts” of it. On Tuesday, Ana Marie Cox, a correspondent for Air America, belittled the book in The Washington Post while confessing that she couldn’t claim to have “completely” read it.

“Going Rogue” will hardly be the first best seller embraced by millions for talismanic rather than literary ends. And I am not recommending that others follow my example and slog through its 400-plus pages, especially since its supposed revelations have been picked through 24/7 for a week. But sometimes I wonder if anyone has read all of what Palin would call the “dang” thing. Some of the book’s most illuminating tics have been mentioned barely — if at all — by either its fans or foes. Palin is far and away the most important brand in American politics after Barack Obama, and attention must be paid. Those who wishfully think her 15 minutes are up are deluding themselves.

The book’s biggest surprise is Palin’s wide-eyed infatuation with show-business celebrities. You get nearly as much face time with Tina Fey and the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in “Going Rogue” as you do with John McCain. We learn how happy Palin was to receive calls from Bono and Warren Beatty “to share ideas and insights.” We wade through star-struck lists of campaign cameos by Robert Duvall, Jon Voight (who “blew us away”), Naomi Judd, Gary Sinise and Kelsey Grammer, among many others. Then there are the acknowledgments at the book’s end, where Palin reveals that her intimacy with media stars is such that she can air-kiss them on a first-name basis, from Greta to Laura to Rush.

Equally revealing is the one boldfaced name conspicuously left unmentioned in the book: Levi Johnston, the father of Palin’s grandchild. Though Palin and McCain milked him for photo ops at the , he is persona non grata now that he’s taking off his campaign wardrobe. Is Johnston’s fledgling porn career the problem, or is it his public threats to strip bare Palin family secrets as well? “She knows what I got on her” is how he put it. In Palin’s interview with Oprah last week, it was questioning about Johnston, not Katie Couric, that made her nervous.

The book’s most frequently dropped names, predictably enough, are the Lord and Ronald Reagan (though not necessarily in that order). Easily the most startling passage in “Going Rogue,” running more than two pages, collates extended excerpts from a prayerful letter Palin wrote to mark the birth of Trig, her child with Down syndrome. This missive’s understandable goal was to reassert Palin’s faith and trust in God. But Palin did not write her letter to God; she wrote the letter from God, assuming His role and voice herself and signing it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.” If I may say so — Oy!

Even by the standard of politicians, this is a woman with an outsized ego. Combine that with her performance skills and an insatiable hunger for the limelight, and you can see why she will not stay in Wasilla now that she’s seen 30 Rock. The question journalists repeatedly asked last week — What are Palin’s plans for 2012? — is a red herring. Palin has no obligation to answer it. She is the pit bull in the china shop of American politics, and she can do what she wants, on her own timeline, all the while raking in the big bucks she couldn’t as a sitting governor. No one, least of all her own political party, can control her.

The fact-checking siege of “Going Rogue” — by the media, Democrats and aggrieved McCain campaign operatives alike — is another fruitless sideshow. Palin’s political appeal has never had anything to do with facts — or coherent policy positions. The more she is attacked for not being in possession of pointy-headed erudition, the more powerful she becomes as an avatar of the anti-elite cause. As Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, has correctly observed, “She represents less a philosophical strain on the right than an affect and a demographic.”

That demographic is white and non-urban: Just look at the stops and the faces on her carefully calibrated book tour. The affect is emotional — the angry air of grievance that emerged first at her campaign rallies in 2008, with their shrieked threats to Obama, and that has since resurfaced in the Hitler-fixated “tea party” movement (which she endorses in her book). It’s a politics of victimization and sloganeering with no policy solutions required beyond the conservative mantra of No Taxes. Its standard-bearer can make stuff up with impunity: “Thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere”; Obama’s “palling around with terrorists”; health care “death panels.”

After the Palin-McCain ticket lost, conservative pundits admonished her to start studying the issues. If “Going Rogue” and its promotional interviews are any indication, she has ignored their entreaties during her months at liberty. Last week, Greta Van Susteren chastised Oprah for not asking Palin “one policy question,” but when Barbara Walters did ask some, Palin either recycled Dick Cheney verbatim (Obama is “dithering”) or ran aground. Her argument for why “Jewish settlements” should be expanded on the West Bank was that “more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead.” It was unclear what she was talking about — unless it was the “rapture” theology that requires the mass return of Jews to settle the Holy Land as a precondition for the return of Christ.

The discredited neocon hacks who have latched on to Palin as a potential ticket back into power have their work cut out for them. But it’s better for Palin’s purposes to remain as blank a slate as possible anyway. Some of her most ardent supporters realize that she’ll drive still more independent voters away if she fills in too many details. And so Matthew Continetti, the author of the just-published “Persecution of Sarah Palin” and her most persistent cheerleader after William Kristol, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that her role model for 2012 should be Bob McDonnell, the new Republican governor-elect of Virginia, who won on “a bipartisan, center-right approach.”

What Continetti means is that Palin could still somehow fudge her history as McDonnell did; his campaign kept his career-long history as a political acolyte and financial beneficiary of Pat Robertson on the down-low. Even the far right has figured out that homophobia is a turnoff to swing voters, which is why Palin goes out of her way in “Going Rogue” to remind us she has her very own lesbian friend. (What’s left unsaid is that the book’s credited ghost writer, Lynn Vincent, labeled homosexuality as “deviance” in her own writings for World, the evangelical magazine.)

But no matter how much Palin tries to pass for “center-right,” she’s unlikely to fool that vast pool of voters left, right and center who have already written her off as unqualified for the White House. The G.O.P. establishment knows this, and is frightened. The demographic that Palin attracts is in decline; there’s no way the math of her fan base adds up to an Electoral College victory.

Yet among Republicans she still ties Mitt Romney in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with 65 percent giving her serious presidential consideration, just behind the 71 for her evangelical rival, Mike Huckabee. The crowds lining up in the cold for her book tour are likely to be the most motivated to line up at the polls in G.O.P. primaries. They don’t speak the same language as Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or, for that matter, McCain. They are more likely to heed Palin salesmen like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh than baffled Bush administration grandees like Peter Wehner, who last week called Palin “a cultural figure much more than a political one” on the Web site of the establishment conservative organ Commentary.

Culture is politics. Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president and from the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven’t benefited from bailouts. As Palin thrives on the ire of the left, so she does from the disdain of Republican leaders who, with a condescension rivaling the sexism they decry in liberals, belittle her as a lightweight or instruct her to eat think-tank spinach.

The only person who can derail Palin is Palin herself. Should she not self-destruct, she will doom G.O.P. hopes of a 2012 comeback. But the rest of the country cannot rest easy. The rage out there is larger than Palin and defies partisan labeling. Her ever-present booster Continetti, writing in The Weekly Standard, suggested that she recast the century-old populist outrage of William Jennings Bryan by adopting the message “You shall not crucify mankind upon the cross of Goldman Sachs.” If Obama can’t tamp down that rage across the political map, Palin will at the very least pave the way for a demagogue with less baggage to pick up her torch.

Frank Rich
The New York Times

IF YOU COULD VOTE FOR PRESIDENT AGAIN.. WOULD YOU???! <————— 1ST POLL *************************************************************************************** *****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

*^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^* THAT IS MY 1ST POLL AND ITS AN INTERESTING DEBATE = PLEASE HUMOR ME AND TAKE 2 SECONDS & VOTE  = IT’S CONFIDENTIAL

(polls)

THIS IS KIND OF F#CKED UP~ I CAN’T FIND ANY REGULAR PICTURES OF JOHN MCCAIN~ THERE IS A 42 PAGE GALLERY AND THEY ALL CONSIST OF PICTURES LIKE THESE~

SORRY MY FRIENDS

PHEW! FOR A MINUTE THERE.. I LOST MYSELF..

Senator John McCain’s future in the U.S. Senate may be a little less assured than previously thought.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely 2010 Republican Primary voters in Arizona finds the longtime incumbent in a virtual tie with potential challenger J.D. Hayworth. McCain earns 45% of the vote, while Hayworth picks up 43%.

Former Minuteman leader Chris Simcox gets four percent (4%) support, while two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate and seven percent (7%) are undecided.