GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at a campaign stop

Once again, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin demonstrates how she can contradict herself as well as fundamentally disagree with the political platform of John McCain, adding to the lack of cohesion in the GOP campaign.  On one hand she is not going to sit in judgment of gays in terms of what they can and cannot do, BUT she wants to impose her narrow, limited views on gays by supporting a constitutional ban on gay marriage, thereby passing a federal law which discriminates against an estimated 10% of the American population … approximately 25 million citizens.  In 2004 John McCain clearly denounced the Federal Marriage Amendment as “antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.”

In an interview with Christian Brodcasting News senior correspondent David Brody, Sarah Palin signaled her support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, a position that John McCain once described as “antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans.”

“I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that’s where we would go because I don’t support gay marriage,” Palin said.

“I’m not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can’t do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that’s casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it’s the foundation of our society is that strong family and that’s based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support that.”

When the federal marriage amendment was being debated in 2004, John McCain broke from his party’s leadership and took to the Senate floor to denounce it in notably stark language.

“The constitutional amendment we’re debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans,” McCain said. “It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them.”

Gay marriage isn’t the only issue on which Palin and McCain have expressed differences of opinion. They have also diverged on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, global warming, cross-border raids into Pakistan, and whether abortion should be permitted in cases of rape and incest.

In a joint interview with CBS News’ Katie Couric, McCain portrayed their differences of opinion on ANWR in a positive light.

“Did you expect two mavericks to agree on-to agree on everything?” he asked.

Palin Breaks With McCain On Gay Marriage Ban

Rev. Alonzo Patterson pastor of Shiloh Missionary Church, stands outside of the church in Anchorage, Alaska Monday, Oct. 13, 2008. Patterson is among Alaska's black ministers and business leaders who have urged Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to hire more minorities to senior government positions.

Rachel D’Oro, writing for the Associated Press, examines the continued tensions between Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s administration and African American community leaders in Alaska.

Alaska’s black leaders say they’re not surprised to see Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of the controversy over injecting the race issue into the presidential campaign.

Palin, Republican John McCain’s running mate, has repeatedly insisted that Barack Obama’s former preacher, the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a legitimate issue even though McCain himself has said it’s out of bounds.

“She has no sensitivity to minorities,” said the Rev. Alonzo Patterson, a Baptist minister and president of the Alaska Black Leadership Conference. “She’s really inciting a lot of African-Americans to get out and vote.”

Since taking office in December 2006, Palin has had a sometimes tense relationship with black leaders, who say they’ve been ignored in their efforts to get more minorities hired in her administration.

In Alaska, blacks chafed when Palin failed to issue a proclamation last year endorsing a festival that marks the freeing of slaves, though she did issue one this year. On the campaign trail, her events sometimes have attracted fringe groups hostile to minorities. At one rally attended by Palin, a supporter told a black cameraman to “sit down, boy.”

This week, in the final debate of the campaign, Obama himself noted the hateful tone of some the McCain-Palin crowds, singling out Palin herself for not doing enough to ease the friction.

Many of Palin’s black constituents say they are disgusted with the campaign’s racial overtones.

“It’s really been like you’re going to a Ku Klux Klan rally,” said Javis Odom, an Anchorage minister. “Gov. Palin is really showing her true colors on the national stage.”

In Alaska, the issue of race relations usually focuses on Alaska Natives, who make up 18 percent of the population. Blacks, in contrast, make up 4 percent.

Patterson and Odom say that when they’ve pressed Palin about diversity in hiring, she gets defensive and even testy.

“If you’re going to embrace the entire country, you need to address the issues here,” said Marilyn Stewart, president of the Alaska Black Chamber of Commerce and a volunteer on Palin’s gubernatorial campaign who has served Republican and Democratic governors. “Most certainly there are qualified minorities who would love to be part her administration. People aren’t asking for her selections to be based on color, but because of qualifications.”

Among Palin’s 417 appointments or reappointments to boards and commissions since taking office in December 2006, 240 have voluntarily identified their ethnicity. Eight are black, 49 Alaska Native, six Asian or Pacific Islander and one is Hispanic.

The Palin administration says her appointments and chief advisers reflect the state’s diversity. For example, her communications director, Bill McAllister, is part black. However, her rural affairs coordinator, who is part Japanese, announced her resignation this week, saying an Alaska Native would be a better fit for the position.

McAllister, who was hired in July, said he and others on the governor’s personal staff are evidence that she is committed to diversity.

“She’s just a warm human being who I think communicates on a deep level, both from a mass media perspective and just a one-on-one perspective,” McAllister said. “So it’s shocking to me that anyone would imply that she’s racist or, you know, neglectful of people of color. I think she’s an extraordinary woman and it’s disappointing to me that folks would make these charges.”

In Palin’s only face-to-face meeting with black leaders in 21 months in office, words became terse when the issue of diversity arose, according to several who attended the March 2007 gathering in Anchorage. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell also attended the 45-minute meeting.

Participants say Palin refused to reconsider her decision not to reappoint two black officials – including Stewart – from her predecessor’s administration.

The implication from Palin was “you can’t tell me how to do my job,” said Anchorage businessman Mayfield Evans. “Her top lip got really tight. You could tell she was upset, that something was not right.”

At one point, Parnell broke in and asked the group if they were accusing Palin of being racist, participants said. Parnell said the group was making “outlandish claims” and added, “I’m not going to let somebody say that about her or me.” He said the meeting ended on a positive note with Palin’s assurances that minorities have an equal shot at appointments and state contracts.

“In my view, the governor has gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that all Alaskans are treated with equal opportunity,” Parnell said.

A few weeks after that meeting, Patterson sent a letter to the governor to reiterate the group’s concerns and invite her to attend a town hall meeting with black constituents. Patterson said no one from the governor’s office has responded.

Alaska’s Minorities Feel Ignored by Gov. Palin

WABC radio host Bob Grant

Radio host Bob Grant asserted that Sen. Barack Obama “is not content with just having several American flags, plain old American flags with the 50 states represented by 50 stars[.] He has the ‘O’ flag.” However, the flag to which Grant apparently referred, when Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama stood in front of a row of flags at a Toledo, Ohio campaign stop, was actually the Ohio state flag.

On the October 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bob Grant said: “[W]hat is that flag that Obama’s been standing in front of that looks like an American flag, but instead of having the field of 50 stars representing the 50 states, there’s a circle?” He then said: “Is the circle the ‘O’ for Obama? Is that what it is?” Grant later said: “[D]id you notice Obama is not content with just having several American flags, plain old American flags with the 50 states represented by 50 stars? He has the ‘O’ flag. And that’s what that ‘O’ is. That’s what that ‘O’ is. Just like he did with the plane he was using. He had the flag painted over, and the ‘O’ for Obama. Now, these are symptom — these things are symptomatic of a person who would like to be a potentate — a dictator.” ‘

Grant did not further elaborate on what he meant by the ” ‘O’ flag.” However, conservative blogger Michelle Malkin stated on October 13 that she had “received several e-mails today from readers complaining about Barack Obama’s backdrop in Toledo today. Apparently, some talk show hosts have also gone ballistic over what they think is an ‘Obama flag.’ ” But, as Malkin noted, the flag appearing behind Obama during his October 13 speech was actually the Ohio state flag.

From Malkin’s blog post:

I received several e-mails today from readers complaining about Barack Obama’s backdrop in Toledo today. Apparently, some talk show hosts have also gone ballistic over what they think is an “Obama flag:”

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama speaking in front of US and Ohio flags

Relax, folks.

That’s not an “Obama flag.”

It’s the state flag of Ohio:

Ohio state flag

Additionally, as the blog Sadly, No! noted, a commenter on Townhall.com claimed that Obama had spoken in front of a flag in which “[t]he blue field has been changed to show an Obama seal”:

"Sadly No" blog regarding presidential candidate Barack Obama and the Ohio state flag.

From the October 15 edition of WABC Radio’s Bob Grant Show:

GRANT: Let me ask you this question, since you are aware of patriotic symbols. Maybe you don’t know the answer. I’ll be frank. I don’t know the answer to this one, but what is that flag that Obama’s been standing in front of that looks like an American flag, but instead of having the field of 50 stars representing the 50 states, there’s a circle? Would someone please tell me what that is? Is the circle –

CALLER: Well, I thought it was our new flag.

GRANT: — the “O” for Obama? Is that what it is?

CALLER: I thought it was our new flag. I thought we now instituted a new one under Obama, because we’re going to change everything, and none of it is gonna be positive. And do people’s mindset that Palin would be any kind of an adverse person around nuclear weapons, when you have somebody who has absolute deceived everybody from his onset of his life –

GRANT: All right, Sue. I want to thank you very much for your call. It’s a pleasure to hear from someone who’s paying attention to what’s going on out there.

But really folks, did you notice Obama is not content with just having several American flags, plain old American flags with the 50 states represented by 50 stars? He has the “O” flag. And that’s what that “O” is. That’s what that “O” is. Just like he did with the plane he was using. He had the flag painted over, and the “O” for Obama. Now, these are symptom — these things are symptomatic of a person who would like to be a potentate — a dictator. And I really see this in this man.

Hey, I could be wrong. But I wouldn’t say this on this great radio station if I didn’t think there was some merit in this conjecture. And I stress conjecture. And so much of what we talk about is conjecture, is theory, is opinion based on intuition, based on some facts, based on some history.

I don’t want to overdramatize this. Being dramatic, I must confess, does come easy to some of us, because, maybe that’s why we’re in this business. It is show business, is it not? I know some of my colleagues don’t want to admit that, but they are the greatest showmen in the world. And I tell you this. I tell you this quite seriously. I am alarmed at the prospect of his election. I — I would hope that if he is elected, that I could come before you one day and say, “Hey, there was no need to be alarmed, I was wrong.”

Because I care about the United States of America and what future we may have much more than I care about being right or being wrong, having my candidate win or having my candidate lose. I want to know how many of you people think about the significance of the election.

Screenshot of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's emails which were hacked into last month.

Well, it now couldn’t be more clear that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the McCain presidential campaign will do ANYTHING to restrict access to her emails before the November 4th election.  Example: The Associated Press requests copies of emails pertaining to governmental business conducted through Gov. Palin’s husband and is quoted a cost of $15,364,960??

Sarah Palin’s office has discovered a renewable resource to bring millions of dollars into Alaska’s economy: the governor’s e-mails.

The office of the Republican vice-presidential nominee has quoted prices as high as $15 million for copies of state e-mails requested by news organizations and citizens. No matter what the price, most of the e-mails of Palin, her senior staff and other state employees won’t be made public until at least several weeks after the Nov. 4 presidential election, her office told msnbc.com on Thursday.

How did the cost reach $15 million? Let’s look at a typical request. When the Associated Press asked for all state e-mails sent to the governor’s husband, Todd Palin, her office said it would take up to six hours of a programmer’s time to assemble the e-mail of just a single state employee, then another two hours for “security” checks, and finally five hours to search the e-mail for whatever word or topic the requestor is seeking. At $73.87 an hour, that’s $960.31 for a single e-mail account. And there are 16,000 full-time state employees. The cost quoted to the AP: $15,364,960.

And that’s not including the copying costs. Although the e-mails are stored electronically in Microsoft Outlook and on backup servers, and although a blank CD-ROM costs only 41 cents at Capital Office Supply in Juneau, the governor’s office says it can provide copies only on paper.

Why? Because lawyers need printouts so they can black out, or “redact,” private or exempted information. That task is more difficult because Palin and her senior staff have used government e-mail accounts for some personal correspondence, and personal e-mail accounts for much of their government correspondence. The photocopies of those printouts will be a relative bargain, only 10 cents a page. A state administrator said he understood that such redaction could be done electronically, but that state offices weren’t set up to do that.

That process of deleting information is likely to be so lengthy that most requestors won’t be able to see the records until well after the next president and vice president are chosen, Palin’s office said.

E-mail sent between the governor’s staff and their private Yahoo e-mail accounts won’t be collected until Oct. 31. Searches will take an additional two weeks, until Nov. 14. And then the legal review of each e-mail will begin. There’s no telling how long that will take, because no one knows how many e-mails there are, wrote Linda J. Perez, administrative director for the governor, in a letter she sent to the state attorney general seeking approval for a delay.

A small victory: Copies of the requests themselves
Msnbc.com did receive from Palin’s office copies of all the public records requests filed since she was inaugurated, and the replies from the governor’s office. Palin took office in December 2006, after seeking office on a platform of clean and transparent government.

The price quotes reveal that Palin’s office has repeatedly tried to charge different news organizations the cost to reconstruct the same e-mail accounts of the governor, her senior staff and other employees. Each time an e-mail is requested, the office quotes the same cost of $960.31 for 13 hours to recover and search each employee’s e-mails.

NBC’s price quote for e-mails sent to Todd Palin: $15 million.

The AP’s price for e-mails between state employees and the campaign headquarters of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain: $15 million.

And the AP again, for e-mails between state employees and the National Park Service (on polar bears, wolves and other topics): $15 million.

The AP’s news editor in Anchorage, Mark Thiessen, told msnbc.com he wasn’t authorized to say whether the AP, a nonprofit cooperative owned by newspapers, planned to pay the $45 million for e-mails.

You can read all the requests for records, and the responses of Gov. Palin’s office in this PDF file.

The employees in the governor’s office have been polite and responsive in fulfilling the request by msnbc.com for all the public records requests and replies. The charge was only $37.70 for photocopies, and the administrative coordinator, Michelle Fabrello, dashed out the door to make sure the package got in the overnight mail delivery.

No free passes
Palin’s office hasn’t always interpreted state law in favor of public access. The Alaska law on public records does not require it to charge any fee for public records, although a fee is allowed if the processing would take five hours or more. The state law says all fees may be waived if the information is used for a public purpose, such as journalism or academic research.

But the governor and the Law Department have been waiving fees only when they are just a few dollars. The state has not been granting requests to waive the fees in the public interest, because it has not been considering those requests.

The records released to msnbc.com show that the state is charging for e-mails at the same hourly rate that it charged before Palin was chosen by McCain on Aug. 29. Only the scale of the requests has changed, and now most requests come from out of state. (State law does not require requestors to be residents.) There are some in-state requests, including the local news organizations, the Democratic party and several citizens. The state employees union, which had filed an ethics complaint against Palin in the inquiry known as Troopergate, was told it would have to pay $88,000 to see e-mails for a list of employees in the governor’s office.

Even before interest in Palin went national, large and small news organizations in Alaska have been dissuaded from seeking public records from her administration, because of the cost. Voice of the Times, a conservative online news site, was quoted a price of $1,250 in May to retrieve e-mails from the accounts of two top aides to the governor, Ivy Frye and Frank Bailey. “Please cancel my request for public records,” editor Paul Jenkins wrote to the governor’s administrator. “We have a limited budget here and paying $1,250 in fees for people who already are on the state payroll is ridiculous.” The newspaper announced this week it will shut down at the end of October for lack of money.

The office of Gov. Sarah Palin has given duplicative cost estimates to many different news organizations to "recover" the same e-mail accounts.

A weekly paper, the Anchorage Press, was told it would have to pay $6,500 for e-mails of Palin and three aides relating to the lieutenant governor. The request was withdrawn, with the newspaper offering the apology. “”Hi Linda – wow, that’s an expensive request I made,” reporter Brendan Joel Kelley wrote to state administrator Linda Perez. “In that case, I definitely don’t want to waste 60 hours of the state’s resources, whether we had the fee waived or not. Consider the request withdrawn. I had supposed/hoped that an electronic records request would be fairly simple.”

A similar situation was settled in Missouri this week. Gov. Matt Blunt agreed to turn over e-mails, at no cost, a year after three news organizations sued for the records. Blunt’s office at first had quoted thousands of dollars in fees for the e-mails about his firing of a deputy general counsel. And in New Jersey earlier this year, a state judge ruled against Gov. Jon Corzine, who wanted to keep private his e-mails with a union leader, his ex-girlfriend. Blunt is a Republican, Corzine a Democrat.

State employees overwhelmed
Since Palin was chosen by McCain, state employees have been overwhelmed by hundreds of public records requests sent to the governor’s office and other agencies, said Kevin Brooks, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Administration. There’s been no attempt to delay release of public records about the governor until after the election, he said. Many records requests have been fulfilled, forming the basis of news stories and online archives such as the one growing at governmentattic.org.

But e-mails have been much slower to emerge through the tight window of nine weeks from Palin’s selection until the election.

“I’ve had my information technology folks working nights and weekends. These people are not doing their regular jobs anymore,” Brooks said. “We used to get several records requests for e-mail in a week, or a month. Now it’s literally hundreds and hundreds. It’s gone exponentially off the charts.”

After msnbc.com challenged apparent double billing, Brooks said he was going to try a new approach: assembling the e-mail files a single time, without charging requestors for that time. But that still leaves the search and copying costs.

“Hindsight is 20-20,” Brooks said. “If we could do it over again, we would have loaded it all up and done these requests.” Still today, he said he was not considering taking a more active approach, posting online for the public all of the governor’s e-mails.

Brooks said he was also rethinking that rate of $73.87 an hour. That cost is not the actual salary of any particular employee. At that rate, an employee would be making about $144,000 a year. Instead, the state has been charging the public and news organizations the same rate that the state Enterprise Technology Services group charges other state departments, as a cost-shifting mechanism on state budget forms.

Alaska law does allow the state to charge for an employee’s time for recovery of records. Brooks said he thought the actual cost would be between $50 and $60 an hour, including benefits and a share of the department’s overhead costs.

As for the estimate of up to five hours to search e-mail for a single word or phrase, Brooks said he was just passing along the estimate from the technical staff.

‘A heckuva lot’ of data
“Why five hours? I’ve asked repeatedly, and that’s what they say it will take,” Brooks said. “We’re talking about 5 terabytes of compressed data. I don’t know what a terabyte is. I just know it’s a heckuva lot.”

Brooks said the state has Outlook on the desktop computers of employees, and that a search of those e-mails would take only a few seconds. But he said most e-mails are on journal servers, which hold e-mail for many employees, and that older or deleted messages might be on archival servers. “The point is we have three sources. We pull from those three and download to a storage device we can search. The process is not simple.”

The courts have given the Palin administration a nudge toward open records. A state judge ruled this week that the state must retrieve public e-mails sent between state accounts and the private e-mail accounts used by the governor and other state employees.

Having a private e-mail account, by itself, is not unusual or unethical, because state employees are forbidden to carry out political activities on government accounts. That’s the reason given for Palin’s habit of punching away on two separate Blackberry devices. But a citizen request earlier this year yielded hundreds of heavily redacted e-mails from the governor’s office, which suggested that Palin and her staff had chosen to move most of their government conversations off the radar, to their Yahoo accounts. News reports then led to public curiosity and the hacking of one of Palin’s Yahoo accounts, for which a college student in Tennessee, the son of a Democratic legislator, has been indicted.

Brooks said the state doesn’t know yet how much e-mail it can recover from Yahoo, in cases where one state employee on a personal account e-mailed another on a personal account.

But the state probably can recover e-mails sent between government and personal e-mail accounts, he said. At least 18 public records requests have been filed for some or all of those e-mails. The requestors include Mother Jones magazine, the AP, NBC, the Anchorage Daily News, the Juneau Empire, msnbc.com, CNN, the Alaska Democratic Party, and several citizens, including Andree McLeod, whose request for the Yahoo e-mails was upheld by the court. Msnbc.com, for example, sought all e-mails sent or received by the governor and a dozen top aides between their state accounts and the personal e-mail accounts of themselves and others. The request included e-mail sent to Palin’s husband, Todd, who has been active in policy and political discussions. The state quoted a price of $11,000 for all the e-mails sought by msnbc.com, which apparently won’t be available until after the election.

To respond to those requests, the state is pulling together all the e-mails sent or received by  51 employees, including Palin, her senior staff, members of the Cabinet, the governor’s assistants and schedulers, and key staff involved with the pipeline proposed to bring natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope, the governor’s office said Thursday. It sought the attorney general’s approval to delay the search of the e-mails until mid-November. Later Thursday, the attorney general, Talis J. Colberg, sent the requestors a letter offering them a chance to be heard before he rules on that request.

‘The hottest thing right now’
Many states have had battles with news organizations and citizens over the fees charged for access to the public’s records, particularly for electronic records such as e-mails.

News organizations have often claimed that the fees are used as a tollbooth to discourage requests, and that requests are delayed until interest in a public issue or candidate has long passed.

Federal law is more favorable. The federal Freedom of Information Act will change in January to penalize agencies for delay. After January, if an agency takes more than 20 days to respond to a request, it can’t charge any duplication fees to individual requestors.

Nationally, access to e-mails of government employees “is the hottest thing right now in open government,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit that helps journalists obtain public records. “Most judges are interpreting the laws that if you use your private e-mail for state business, that’s a public record.

“Many public officials thought e-mail was more like a phone call, but it’s more like a letter. You type those words, those are like documents. It doesn’t matter if you used a piece of paper from your home or stationery from your office. The form doesn’t matter.”

Gov. Palin’s Office Wants $15 Million For Emails

Graves of American soldiers killed while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

Update: John McCain’s campaign attempts to explain Gov. Sarah Palin’s statement about how much she loves to visit the “pro-America” parts of the country, but the clarification only further insults the suburbs and cities of America.  Guess she believes that the rest of the country outside of small towns don’t work in factories, teach children, contribute to food production or fight and die in America’s wars?

The McCain campaign is seeking to clarify a remark reported from a Sarah Palin fundraiser in North Carolina yesterday in which the Alaska Governor declared that she loved to visit the “pro-America” areas of the country — implying, implicitly, that there were some parts of the United States she viewed as not pro-America.

The reporter who broke the story, the Washington Post‘s Juliet Eilperin, sends over the following, extended quote from a more detailed version of the pool report.

“We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe” — here the audience interrupted Palin with applause and cheers — “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans. Those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us. Those who are protecting us in uniform. Those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.”

Not sure how much this helps Palin out. Is the VP candidate saying that small towns are more authentically American than, say, suburbia or cities?

As Eilperin writes: “The upshot? Washington D.C. is neither ‘real America’ or ‘pro-America.’ Other parts of the nation? It’s unclear, but if you live in a small town, you’re probably patriotic from Palin’s point of view.”

Palin Explains What Parts Of Country Not “Pro-America”

Over the weekend, a perfectly good PR opportunity was ruined for Sarah Palin when the audience at a Philadelphia hockey game booed the Alaska governor during the ceremonial dropping of the puck.

Philly hockey fans have not been the only ones to loudly express their disapproval of Palin in recent weeks. The VP candidate’s spiraling drop in popularity is reflected in polls, in the press and among prominent conservatives — by everyone, that is, but the die-hard fans who still eat up Palin’s forced folksiness at campaign events.

Palin’s drastic loss of support has been driven in large part by the endless revelations about her competence and character that have emerged since her nomination — revelations that can’t be glossed over with frantic winks and “you betchas.”

Last week, AlterNet compiled yet another list of stomach-turning new facts about Palin, ranging from her attempts to undermine trust in Obama with racially tinged rhetoric to her shady history as governor of Alaska.

AlterNet’s readers had a lot to say about the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency. We’ve compiled some of the best reader comments below.

Many of our commenters were especially incensed by Palin’s recent character assaults on Barack Obama. Several readers attacked the unfathomably skewed logic used by both Palin and McCain in their attempts to paint Obama as dangerous:

Bgroat makes the point that by McCain and Palin’s standards, McCain would be considered a “terrorist”:

… the fact that McCain has worked with Obama for the past four years puts him in the same boat. In other words, they can’t paint Obama as a terrorist using their logic without simultaneously painting McCain as one, as McCain, through working in the Senate with Obama, has done exactly the same thing they accuse Obama of doing (associating with former member of the Weather Underground Bill Ayers).

Waimea Witch agrees, pointing out that if we judge politicians by their “associates,” we should be deeply concerned that every Washington senator is on the verge of lobbing bombs at federal buildings:

… Senator Robert Byrd is an ex-KKK member, so, does that make every member of the Senate a domestic terrorist by association?

Purple Girl invokes yet another fine illustration of the maxim about stones and glass houses, pointing out that unlike Barack Obama, Sarah Palin actually shares the ideologies of many domestic terrorists:

Sarah has some Ideologies which are akin to some rather notorious Domestic Terrorists — McVeigh (hated U.S. Govt too), Charlie Manson (End Of Dayer, with Death Valley as the “Refuge”), and of course the “Pro Lifers” who thought nothing of Bombing Planned Parenthood Clinics, assassinating MD and Blowing a Pipe bomb Off in the middle of the Atlanta Olympics. Strike 3 Sarah, YOU ARE A BONAFIDE SOCIOPATH. Terrorist Doctrines spew out your mouth, and have been unearthed from your Recent History.

Jest2007 highlights another worrisome aspect of Palin’s history: her connection to the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical organization that calls for Alaska’s succession from the United States:

Maybe this would be a good time to examine Palin’s association with the AIP. The AIP’s creation was inspired by the rabidly violent anti-Americanism of its founding father Joe Vogler. The central purpose of the AIP is to drive Alaska’s secession from the United States. In 1992 Vogler renounced his allegiance to the United States explaining that, “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government.” He cursed the stars and stripes, promising, “I won’t be buried under their damned flag … when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.” Palin has never denounced Vogler or his detestable anti-Americanism.

dayahka optimistically argues that all the recent revelations about Palin are essentially irrelevant, since soon enough the Alaska governor will disappear from the national spotlight:

Palin will shortly return to Alaska and will probably be recalled, impeached, censured, and/or jailed. But what of the reckless fool who put this scum on the national scene?

But Truthteller is less optimistic, writing that despite Palin’s recent embarrassments, she could still help the Republican ticket pull in a last-minute win:

I’ve been saying for a long time that I believe the fix is in and McCain is going to “win” another stolen election. I just couldn’t see how they could get it close enough to steal before the Palin selection. Now, I can. All the arguments are in place to explain away the theft like they were four years ago — religious voters make last-minute turnout surge, they don’t like talking to exit pollers, or lie to them to f*** with the results.

Tom Degan agrees, pointing out that there’s nothing new about Republicans appealing to their base with incompetent candidates:

Twenty years ago, Poppy Bush nominated a man who had all the substance of a department store mannequin — and yet the GOP won that election! The Democrats have every reason to be cautious. Given the American people’s absolute genius for doing the wrong thing in the voting booth, anything can happen between now and Election Day — and probably will.

Lreal also argues that while Palin’s methods are detestable, they may turn out to be effective:

The history books of the future will show that the Republicans from 1980 to present and probably at least 10 years into the future is a party of dangerous demagoguery. Sarah Palin, and the acceptance by the majority of people in her own party shows that a demagogue mentality can get you far within this sector of the population no matter your true and obvious intellect. This also shows that if you can magnify this demagogue quality, then it can replace intelligence as a matter of accepted quality; and any opponent with a bit of intelligence is a liberal elite, no matter how much more humble they are than the subject.

Spritgirl writes that McCain and Palin are resorting to the usual Republican tactics: using Rovian character assaults to get bad candidates into office:

… the McShame/Failin ticket should not be rewarded for their efforts! These tactics of appealing thru peoples fears are straight out of the Lee Atwater/Karl Rove book, they are despicable and dangerous! Since they cannot run on the issues, they should both just sit down and shut up!!! These are extremely desperate attempts by two very unqualified individuals to get into the Oval Office! Their theory of divide (the body politic) and conquer appeals to those sheeple that want to be led around, and hopefully they will lead themselves and their sheeple off a cliff!Whether or not the McCain campaign’s tactics will be successful in swaying voters, McCain’s desperate gambit to include and keep Palin on the ticket — despite the unending stream of revelations throwing her character into question — has added a terrifying component to the election.

As John Orford writes: “AlterNet is giving me sleep problems … I keep dreaming McCain died and then I can’t get back to sleep.”

12 Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin Newsweek cover

With its outrage over Palin’s unflattering Newsweek cover photo, Fox News proves that it creates its own reality.  Senior lecturer Sarah Churchwell, writing for the Guardian.co.uk, examines from an international perspective the uproar by the conservative Republicans to the unairbrushed closeup photograph of Gov. Palin.

Last week, Newsweek ran a cover story on Sarah Palin with a close-up of Palin on its cover under the headline “She’s one of the folks (and that’s the problem)”. Republican commentators were quick to protest, but their opposition took a novel turn: they objected not to the explicitly editorialising headline, but to what they argued was an implicitly editorialising photograph. Fox News’s Megyn Kelly complained that it was “ridiculously unfair to her – not the headline, but the photograph”.

The twist was that the photo had not been altered, which, Republican pundits like Andrea Tantaros claimed, was evidence of clear bias on the part of the magazine. “This cover is a clear slap in the face of Sarah Palin,” she told Kelly. “Why? Because it’s unretouched. It highlights every imperfection that every human being has. We’re talking unwanted facial hair, pores, wrinkles.” And why is a news magazine revealing normal human imperfection suddenly objectionable, rather than, you know, normal and human? Because, according to Tantaros, “unlike movie stars and liberal media types, regular ‘folks’ have other concerns besides tweezing, waxing, moisturising, exfoliating, detoxifying and pore tightening. We’re busy.”

You have to admire the sheer effrontery of the proposition that the liberal media has time for grooming but the conservative media does not. Tantaros’s exhaustive catalogue of cosmetic procedures would seem to belie her protestations – if her appearance hadn’t already. This is a woman who is no stranger to the made-up, in every sense of the word. I was reminded of nothing so much as Claude Rains in Casablanca being shocked – shocked! – to find a casino at Rick’s at the same moment that the waiter hands him his winnings. Except that the new twist on the old hypocrisy is that the regular folks who don’t have the time or luxury to spend on superficial appearances are complaining about being confronted with unvarnished reality. Nothing is so unfair as facts in a world of spin, distortion and brazen misrepresentation.

One of my grandmothers would have called this the chickens coming home to roost – except that she was something of a diehard Republican herself. My other grandmother, a liberal elite and damn proud of it, would have said they’ve been hoist with their own petard.

There’s a reason why children learn through rote: repeat something enough, and it will become a habit of thought, and eventually a mode of perception. If you become accustomed to shaping reality to suit your own agenda, then actual reality, when it reappears, will come as an unwelcome shock. And it will always reappear. Facts don’t go away just because they’re as unwanted as facial hair. Tantaros is half right, of course: regular folks don’t object to wrinkles, facial hair or pores, and are unlikely to start disparaging Palin because of the empirical evidence of a photograph. As the article inside the magazine noted, we have far bigger empirical problems with Palin – and her imperfections are far from skin deep.

We have become so accustomed to a world of slant and partiality that Megyn Kelly, looking for reasons to object to the Newsweek cover, explicitly didn’t object to the headline, or consider it unfair. But – unlike the photograph – the headline completely lacked impartiality, announcing its “problem” with Palin from the outset.

As someone who shares that problem, I wasn’t predisposed to protest. After reading the actual article – which apparently conservative media types can’t be bothered to do, as they’re too busy worrying about appearances – I am even more disposed to agree with the article’s perspective, and its arguments. But I am deeply concerned that we’ve become so used to living in a “No Fact Zone“, to borrow Stephen Colbert’s phrase, that Kelly, Tantaros, et al could see nothing remarkable in a news magazine’s cover story announcing an interpretive judgment from the outset.

We’ve been spun for so long that we can no longer see straight – an undiluted truth, like an untouched photograph, is suspect, dishonest in its honesty, imbalanced by virtue of being insufficiently, or openly, imbalanced. We recognise distortion only in its absence. Objectivity has become objectionable, and if it’s unflattering, it must be unfair.

As an accidental expatriate living in Britain for the last decade, I have often been asked why the UK doesn’t have a version of shows like The Colbert Report, as if its absence reflects a failure of nerve on Britain’s part. But the answer seems to me obvious: it is because the BBC and the other major British news outlets still exercise the principle of journalistic impartiality, and still believe in that fusty, archaic, elitist thing called truth. They don’t always achieve it, to be sure, but as far as I can tell America’s stopped trying. Colbert only makes sense in a mediasphere dominated by the likes of Megyn Kelly, who finds objectivity unfair when it doesn’t favour her agenda. Objectivity may be an impossible ideal for humans to achieve, but that it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth striving for. There’s a reason why we call it the ugly truth.

From over here across the pond, it seems that America has been quite cavalier in its willingness to toss the principles of fact and objectivity aside in favour of a screaming subjectivity that passes for individualism and, God help us, democracy. As Colbert told President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ dinner, reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Judging Sarah Palin By The Cover

Banner of the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States. Todd Palin registered as a member on October 1995 and except for a short period of a few months in 2000 when he changed his registration to undeclared, Todd Palin remained a registered member of AIP until July 2002.

Something to consider … were Gov. Sarah Palin to be elected vice president, the influential role her husband Todd Palin has played in the Alaska governor’s administration might be greatly curtailed by his past associations with the Alaskan Independence Party.  According to author Frank Naif, a former CIA operative, Todd Palin could very well be disqualified for national security clearance.

Although Sarah Palin smack talks Barack Obama for “palling around with terrorists,” it turns out that the Palin family has its own history of palling around with Alaska’s own unique brand of America-haters. Palin’s husband Todd was once an actual member of the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP). Palin herself was not a member of AIP — but many AIP luminaries claim her as a kindred spirit and “one of their own.”

A charitable characterization of AIP might be “quirky down-home Alaska politics.” However, the security processes that govern access to our defense and national security institutions might not look so kindly on Todd Palin’s past political associations. Indeed, if Todd Palin were applying for a job in the US government or at a contractor that required access to sensitive classified information — a security clearance — he would very likely be ineligible.

What’s so bad about the AIP? The party officially renounces violence and disloyalty to the United States, even though its members often do not. The AIP has long been aligned closely with paramilitary militia groups — the kind that fear black helicopters and a United Nations takeover of the US. Indeed, under the leadership of AIP’s tough-talking founder, Joe Vogler, AIP allied itself with the Islamic dictatorship in Iran in 1993 so that Vogler could appear at the United Nations to appeal for Alaska’s freedom from US “tyranny.” A fellow AIP member murdered Vogler before he could take the UN stage. The current AIP chairwoman, Lynnette Clark, believes that Vogler’s killer was framed and all but blames the Federal government for Vogler’s “execution.”

Security clearances are a defining fact of life for the national security drones who quietly toil away in secret vaults and mean foreign streets to help protect America. Entry-level defense and intelligence employees often wait months — even years — for the results of an exhaustive background investigation and maybe even a polygraph interrogation before they are allowed to start work with a government agency or contractor. Seasoned intelligence and defense workers routinely re-submit to the security investigation process every few years, or if their work requires them to gain access to a specialized or “compartmented” program.

The criteria for security clearances have changed with the times, but some bedrock principles always apply. When I was in the Army in the ’80s for example, tattoos were actually a disqualifying factor for a clearance, as was any past drug use. Fashion and social changes forced a change to those kinds of exclusions. In the early ’90s, homosexuality was still a disqualifier — but that was overturned with Clinton-era adjustments to the clearance process. The rise of computer culture has brought new concern over illegal computer activity, which has found its way into security investigations.

However, security investigators will always be interested in particularly serious issues — criminal activity, for example, or major financial problems like a history of debt collections and bankruptcy. And of course, loyalty to the US and foreign connections are a major focus of personal security investigations. “Is the subject a foreign spy?” the investigators ask. “Would the subject ever participate in activities intended to harm the United States?”

The security clearance investigation is based on the Standard Form 86, a 21-plus page government form that gathers information on an individual’s family, friends, education, employment, residences, finances, law enforcement history, drug and computer use, foreign contacts, and associations with violent or subversive political groups. I have filled out the SF 86 dozens of times. When I was the security officer for an intelligence contractor, I routinely reviewed our employees’ SF 86 forms before asking the government to process them for security clearances, looking for obvious disqualifications. The idea here was to avoid the costs of investigating employees who were obviously not eligible for a clearance, like the guy who “experimented” with marijuana at least 100 times in the previous year.

Above all, honesty is the rule for anyone filling out an SF 86 — do you think CIA or DoD will want to hire or retain someone who lied on a security form?

Which gets us back to Todd Palin. From the security officer’s perspective, Todd Palin the hypothetical applicant should be truthful and disclose his former association with AIP on the SF 86 in Section 29, Association Record. And because AIP has been associated with the Revolutionary Government of Iran, he probably should also disclose his AIP membership on Section 20, Foreign Activities.

How would government security officials who administer the security clearance process view the facts of Todd Palin’s association with AIP? The answer is not clear cut, but his involvement in a secessionist party with foreign and violent connections would inject serious doubts about his security suitability. At best, the AIP association would raise questions that might be resolved favorably with further investigative work. However, many security officials would likely view the AIP association negatively — especially the Iranian connection — and deny Todd Palin a clearance.

Managers of the most sensitive special security programs are allowed wide latitude in denying clearances. These programs, called Special Access Programs, or SAPs, are scattered across government and are focused on specific tasks, such as weapons development or special operations or presidential transportation. A SAP program can exclude individuals based on connections to a foreign country, such as immigrant parents (often excluding vitally needed foreign language speakers), or very stringent financial criteria, such as $10,000 in unsecured debt (often excluding many recent college graduates). Many SAP managers would very likely deny Palin a clearance based on association with or membership in a secessionist party with known ties to a hostile foreign government.

So the Palin family is associated with a political party hostile to America in word and deed. That’s a matter of record that has real impact on established norms in the national security community. According to the laws and processes that help protect national security, actually joining a fringe, gun-toting, anti-government party indicates a potential risk of disloyalty, or worse.

Meanwhile, acquaintance with an aging ex-hippy who once belonged to a terrorist group famous for accidentally blowing itself up — I’m not sure if that’s relevant to presidential qualifications. Or national security.

Todd Palin’s Past Political Associations A Likely Security Clearance Disqualifier

Former United States Secretary of State General Colin L. Powell

Political analyst Lawrence O’Donnell, writing this morning on the Huffington Post, believes that former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sometime after the third and final presidential debate.  If true, this could be a decisive turning point in the presidential race for the White House.  Fox News has already reported the same story, but with a decidedly negative, racist tone to the coverage.

When Colin Powell turns off his TV after the final presidential debate, he will have learned everything he is going to learn about the candidates vying to succeed his former boss, George W. Bush. Powell has made it clear that he has been thinking about an endorsement for a long time but wanted to hear more from the candidates before making his choice. It now seems beyond doubt that Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama and thereby hammer the final nail in the coffin of the Republican campaign to hold onto the White House.

The recent ugliness of the McCain-Palin rally audiences cannot be lost on Colin Powell. And Powell is not one to ignore a 14 point lead in a New York Times poll. But most important for Powell and the press will be his explicit rejection of the Bush-McCain approach to Iraq, Iran and the rest of the world.

Powell’s endorsement will be perfectly timed to dominate a news cycle or two. It will give Obama the one thing he still needs more of–credibility as Commander-In-Chief. And Sarah Palin’s speechwriters will be hard pressed to come up with a condescending quip about it.

Colin Powell Is Ready To Endorse

Palin's image has changed, for better and worse, in the six weeks since she joined the McCain Republican presidential ticket.

Journalist Sean Cockerham, reporting for the Anchorage Daily News, looks ahead at Governor Sarah Palin’s political future after the presidential election, both in Alaska and on a national level.  Following her polarizing, negative campaign for the vice-presidency, Gov. Palin will be faced with a much more aggressive Alaska Legislature that will no longer be intimidated by her or the tactics of her financial backers.

Over the past six weeks, Sarah Palin has morphed on the national campaign trail from bipartisan small state governor to a conservative lightning rod. Even if she doesn’t win the vice presidency, her political career will never be the same.

Palin has always attracted controversy, but she is now a far more polarizing figure, both in Alaska as well as nationally, than before her nomination. If she returns, the Republican governor will face former Democratic allies furious at her campaign attacks. She will also face lawmakers from both parties ticked off at her handling of the so-called Troopergate investigation and her recent false assertions that the investigator’s report cleared her, according to interviews with a number of lawmakers and others who watch Alaska politics.

“We’ve seen her do and say things that are shocking to us, so it’s going to be different, to put it mildly,” said Juneau Democratic Rep. Beth Kerttula, the House minority leader. “We have a whole different way of looking at her.”

But Palin would also return as a national figure who excited huge crowds across the nation and is already being described as a potential presidential candidate four years from now. She continues to enjoy high approval ratings among Alaskans, and she would come back a seasoned campaigner with new political chops.

“The main thing is, if she comes back as governor and McCain didn’t win, I do not think she’ll be blamed for it all. She won’t come back as a loser,” said Anchorage political consultant and pollster Dave Dittman. “She’d come back, I think as a winner, or as a person who if McCain had paid more attention to her or followed her lead could have been successful. I think she’d come back strong.”

The McCain-Palin campaign is down in the polls, but nearly three weeks remain until election day. In the meantime, her unexpected rise to the national stage and her new political persona has Alaskans speculating about what happens if she doesn’t win and comes back as governor.

“It’s a question on everybody’s mind,” said Mike Hawker, a Republican state representative from Anchorage.

Gregg Erickson, former publisher of a publication on state government who has watched Alaska politics for decades, predicted a rougher road for Palin than in the past.

“I think things will be very, very different for her if she comes back,” Erickson said. “She’s done some things as vice-presidential candidate that are not favorable for her role as governor, her ability to govern.”

Dittman agreed that a returning Palin would face a more aggressive Legislature than before her turn on the national stage, one that probably wouldn’t be as intimidated by her as before.

Palin has always been much more popular with the public than with legislators. Back when pollsters measured her approval rating among Alaskans in the 80 percent range, it was tough for legislators to resist her. Her Alaska approval ratings have dropped since her nomination to as low as 62 percent, at least according to some pollsters. That’s still an enviable approval rating.

The strength of the opposition, Erickson said, would depend on whether she slid any more after the election was over.

A NEW PALIN?

Palin foes and allies agree she’s likely to seek another national office if she doesn’t win the vice presidency. While she has been ridiculed by some, she has a devoted base of supporters and there’s speculation a U.S. Senate run could be in her future, or even a presidential bid the next time the Republican nomination comes open.

North Pole Republican state Rep. John Coghill said if Palin returns to Alaska as governor, there will always be the question of whether her decisions are being made for the good of the state or to position herself for national office.

“If she comes back then she’s going to have to be very clear of what her motives are in her decisions,” Coghill said.

Coghill said, overall, he’d expect a returning Palin to be more experienced and a little savvier. He said Palin would have national horsepower that she could use to advance Alaska’s interests. He said it would put Alaska in a “nice, favored position.”

But Juneau Democratic Sen. Kim Elton suggested in his newsletter this week that Palin’s broadside about Barack Obama “palling around with terrorists” and other one-liners from rallies have potential blowback for Alaska if Obama is elected and Palin has to work with the Democratic administration.

It’s clear that Palin’s relationship with Alaska Democrats is in deep freeze. That’s a turnaround from pre-nomination days, when Palin’s fiercest critics in the Legislature were Republicans and she relied on Democrats to get through her two biggest bills — a tax increase on oil companies and a license for a Canadian firm to pursue a natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48.

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski, one of the legislators who allied with her on those big issues in Juneau, said he “barely recognizes” the current Palin.

“It’s disappointing to see her bashing Democrats when her main political successes would never have passed without significant support from Democrats,” he said.

Anchorage Republican Hawker said Palin’s frostier relationship with the Democrats could have the effect of helping some Republican legislators warm up to her who weren’t Palin fans before. Hawker said Palin might also now realize that “just because you are a Republican in Alaska does not make you an evil person.”

Many Alaska Republican legislators have complained Palin has been too broad during her time as governor in suggesting that the state’s politics are corrupt.

REBUILDING TRUST

Kenai Republican Rep. Mike Chenault, considered to be a potential speaker of the state House when the Legislature convenes in January, said it remains to be seen how Palin’s new political persona plays with Republican lawmakers.

“It’s hard to say which if any Republicans would change their position on the governor based upon either her running for vice president or her handling of Troopergate,” Chenault said.

There’s resentment among some legislators of both parties for how Palin handled the Legislature’s investigation into her dismissal of her public safety commissioner and if she improperly pressured him to fire a state trooper once married to her sister.

The governor’s surrogates bashed the Alaska Democratic legislators leading the investigation, who were some of her biggest allies on oil and gas issues, saying they were Obama fans who made their bias clear. The investigation, though, was authorized by unanimous vote of the bipartisan Legislative Council, and some Republicans bristled at Palin’s refusal to cooperate in it as well as her attorney general’s failed challenge of the Legislature’s subpoenas.

Steve Branchflower, the investigator hired by the Legislative Council, released his report on Friday concluding that Palin abused her power and broke state ethics law in pressing for the trooper to be fired. But Palin’s response to the report was to say that she was vindicated and “I’m very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there.”

The report said Palin’s removal of her commissioner, Walt Monegan, was not solely about his refusal to fire the state trooper but it was likely a contributing factor. Palin has the right to dismiss a commissioner for any reason she likes.

Legislators are far from united in their reaction to the report, with some Republicans agreeing with Palin it was a political circus. There’s no sign lawmakers are planning to take any formal action against Palin. But hard feelings abound.

“Those people who don’t believe and don’t support the governor, I think the events will perhaps exacerbate their outrage,” said Hawker, the Anchorage Republican. Likewise, he said, Palin supporters are likely to “express their moral outrage at what they feel is a persecution of the governor.”

If she comes back as governor, Hawker said, “It will be one of her immediate challenges to get through, rebuilding fences, rebuilding trust. Those issues will be there with both the Democrats and the Republicans.”

Exposure Changes Palin Image for Good & Bad

The Great American Guilt Trip

(CBS) Getting grandkids to visit usually requires a whopping dose of guilt.

In Florida, something else was at work this weekend – at bagel shops and condo pools, grandkids like Emily Cahn were showing up on their own, CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports.

“All I heard was she’s coming down and this thrilled me to no end because I hadn’t seen her in two years!” Dorothy Cahn said.

Hang on Grandma Dorothy – there are strings attached.

“If you knew that visiting your grandparents could change the world, would you do it? Of course you would!” comedian Sarah Silverman said in an online video promoting what’s being called “The Great Schlep.” She continued: “Schlep to Florida to convince your grandparents to vote for Obama.”

It’s an online push started by two Jewish activists to get young Jewish voters to visit their grandparents – and encourage them to vote for Barack Obama.

Thousands signed up online, and last weekend dozens criss-crossed the country, armed with talking points

Andrew Steinzmetz came all the way from the University of Pennsylvania. His grandparents were easy. But their friends?

“I don’t care for either candidate,” said one friend of Andrew’s grandparents, named Rita.

“You don’t care for either candidate?” Andrew asked.

“No,” she said. “I think you are going to make a great candidate.”

It’s no surprise to University of Miami political science professor Joseph Uscinski.

“Grandparents have very well defined voting patterns; they have very well defined partisanship,” he said. “If somebody came to them and said, ‘I want you to vote for this one or that one,’ it’s probably not going to have that much of an effect.”

That may explain why their competition – Young Republicans – are looking for votes at tail-gaiting parties instead of retirement homes.

“You will hear from a lot of young people that this is the most important election of their lifetimes – short lifetimes, but nonetheless, lifetimes,” said Harout Samra, a University of Miami student.

Still, for Jewish grandparents, the stakes are higher than ever this election.

“If they vote for Barack Obama, they’re going to get another visit this year,” Sarah Silverman says in the online video. “If not, just hope they stay healthy until next year.”

Now that’s political pressure.

It’s not that I assume that Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States (in fact, I anticipate a furious charge from a devil-may-care John McCain in the next 21 days).

But when conservative columnist William Kristol is urging the Republican presidential nominee to divest himself of an operationally incompetent and strategically incoherent campaign apparatus, then perhaps we can at least take a peek, a look-see, at a future in which a Democrat runs the country. Which Republicans might be challenging President Obama in 2012?

In terms of 2008 aspirants we can say that McCain and Fred Thompson will be too old. Rudy Giuliani too strategically incoherent. That leaves the following (with apologies to Tancredo, Brownback, Hunter, Paul and Keyes):

Sarah Palin: If the governor of Alaska wants to run for the White House then she is going to have to spend every day of the next four years systematically rehabilitating her public image. In return for the honor of being selected by that other Maverick, Palin has been rewarded with the widespread perception that she is a dim-wit, dishonest, an abuser of power, and a religious zealot.

Similar charges were leveled at Dan Quayle in 1988, another politician who went from total obscurity to the Most Detested Person in Liberal America in a matter of seconds (I seem to recall a headline in The Village Voice: “Bush flips America the Bird!”). But at least he actually got to be vice-President.

What Palin does bring to the table and what may make her attractive to GOP kingmakers is her ability to “energize the base.” By “base” we mean White Conservative Evangelicals. And if reports from the field are accurate, then the base isn’t only energized by her, but short-circuiting. Her crowds are huge and their shout-outs are becoming increasingly inflammatory. (Incidentally, an Evangelical pastor yesterday correlated Obama’s followers with worshippers of non-Christian gods).

It will be interesting to see what type of campaign Palin would run when unencumbered by McCain’s handlers (who did not, I think, do her any favors in the last six weeks). If she strikes populist Christian themes and plays on her small-town appeal then that should be of concern to. . . . .

Mike Huckabee: I have gone to great pains to point out that the base did not–I repeat, did not–necessarily get overheated for the former governor of Arkansas. In his 2012 incarnation Huck must secure Evangelical support earlier and more often. Palin will be winking at them as well and the mind races at the thought of these two cudgeling one another for a share of the same demographic in Iowa (Chuck Norris, meet the First Dude. First Dude. Chuck).

But if there is one thing we are learning in this election season it is that White Evangelicals are less of an electoral force than they were four years ago. The leadership is in flux. Issues beyond abortion and gays interest them. A younger generation is rising.

A weakened–more precisely, a fractured–Evangelical base signals the possible re-emergence of that other GOP base composed of Free Marketeers, daredevil de-regulators, the pro-Big Business faction, and the anti-tax brigades, among others. It may also a signal an opportunity for ….

Mitt Romney: If McCain loses, it seems safe to say that it was the stupid economy that did him in. Had Romney been selected as his running mate in 2008 he could have addressed this issue with more authority than both Mavericks combined.

But let us not forget that Romney himself pandered to the conservative Christian base (which he fought Huckabee for in some sort of mutual annihilation pact). He proclaimed himself an “evangelical Mormon.” He flip-flopped on abortion. He thumped Bible. He lambasted secularists. In short, Mitt Romney ran as a Culture Warrior–a role he was not suited to play.

If Palin, Romney and Huckabee do run in 2012 they will have to learn one crucial lesson from 2008: culture warfare is not enough. Put differently, they will need to play to the bases. To win a presidential election it takes more than faith.

Can Palin Broaden Base for 2012?

Barbra Streisand

Beloved American icon Barbra Streisand expresses her concerns on the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

Until the Republican Convention, very few had ever heard of Sarah Palin… and now this mean-spirited campaigner is asking who is Barack Obama?

I’m asking who is Sarah Palin?

I know that she’s a woman who doesn’t believe in allowing women the right to choose their own reproductive health decisions even if they are victims of rape… but approves of these victims getting billed by the government for the rape kits used to examine them.

I know she’s a beauty pageant runner-up who is a gun totin’ extremist in her views on the environment, religion, women’s choice and the separation of church and state.

I know she’s a woman who along with John McCain would divide this country while pledging that she and the Senator are “mavericks” who know how to reach across the aisle.

I know that as mayor of the small town of Wasilla she increased spending by 63% and left behind a $19 million long-term debt, which was non-existent before she took office.

I know she hired the same good-ol’-boy network of Washington lobbyists she says she will fight if elected, in order to secure millions of dollars of earmarks for Wasilla.

I know that she’s been found guilty of abusing her power as governor by pressuring a state official to fire her former brother-in-law and then firing the official when he refused… an investigation that began prior to her selection as vice president.

And I know that the American public has had less than two months to vet Sarah Palin, and during this time the press has had to fight tooth and nail to secure just two network interviews with her… while she still refuses to appear on the tougher Sunday news shows.

On the stump, Sarah Palin and John McCain continue to avoid addressing the critical issues facing our country. Neither of them provides any substantive conversation on what they will do to steer our country on a journey back to prosperity. Palin’s sheer ignorance and lack of experience precludes her from speaking thoughtfully about the financial and foreign policy dilemmas we face. And John McCain’s voting record forces him to change the subject.

McCain knows his policies have contributed to the unraveling of our financial systems due to excessive deregulation. McCain knows that he supported the war in Iraq since its inception, which has been a tremendous financial and military drain on our country. Both Sarah Palin and John McCain know that if this election continues to be about the housing market, the economy, healthcare, the environment, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — the issues that affect everyday Americans — they will lose this election. And after eight years of Republican control that has left this country in deep distress… they should lose. So now that we know who Sarah Palin is… do we want her a heartbeat away from the presidency?

Who Is Sarah Palin?

Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin (R) is pictured alongside her husband Todd during an outdoor campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia.

Although much has been written about the Alaskan ethics investigation and the appropriateness of Governor Sarah Palin’s actions, there has been less coverage of the role her husband, Todd Palin, seems to be playing in the governing of Alaska.  The 25-page deposition sent by Todd Palin on October 8th to investigator Stephen Branchflower in response to Branchflower’s request for information into the Troopergate investigation have received no mainstream media scrutiny.  Since there is a great deal of evidence pointing to the possibility that Todd Palin may very well be the ‘shadow’ governor of Alaska, and his wife is running for vice president (one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the US presidency), much more needs to be known about this individual.  Former Alaska Rep. Andrew Halcro examines in-depth the answers prepared by Toddy Palin and his (McCain’s?) attorneys. 

After complaining for the last five weeks about how politics and the media had taken over the intended bi-partisan investigation into Governor Palin’s firing of former Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, Todd Palin’s deposition was leaked to the media on the same day it was delivered to special investigator Steve Branchflower. 

Apparently the first dude was trying to get out in front of a fast moving train.

In his 25 page response, Palin covers old ground about his concerns about State Trooper Mike Wooten and events that occurred years before his wife was elected governor. In fact what Palin’s deposition shows is a guy who isn’t concerned about the safety of his family, it’s about a guy who is trying to get even and trying to use the power of his wife’s office to accomplish the task.

We’ve broken down some of the more curious responses and half truths in his depositions, many of which we written about over the last few months.

Page 1, Line 17: “(Wooten) illegally shot a cow moose without a permit”

Palin of course leaves out the fact that his entire family knew the moose was shot illegally in 2003 but that didn’t stop him and his family from butchering and eating the meat, only to file the complaint two years later when Wooten was divorcing Sarah’s sister.

Page 2, Line 16: “In 2005 and 2006, State Trooper Mike Wooten was the subject of a court ordered domestic violence protective order.”

Palin of course leaves out the fact that the order was granted while Wooten was out of state taking his step son to Portland. While he was away, Sarah Palin and her sister went before a judge in Palmer and convinced the judge to grant the order without any evidence of domestic violence. Upon his return, Anchorage Judge John Suddock questioned Palin’s sister and immediately revoked the order, calling it an egregious abuse of the legal system. 

Page 3, Line 1: “Threats against a public official, and his or her family, fall within the responsibilities of the Department of Public Safety.”

True. But the last complaint of any threat occurred over a year before Governor Palin was elected.

In fact, once the divorce was final in early 2006, there were no more complaints or concerns voiced officially against Trooper Wooten. 

By the time Palin was elected governor, the Wooten issue was all over except for Todd’s obsession.

Page 3, Line 13: “I was not aware of the Grimes report until July 2008, after Monegan left the government.”

This is a blatant untruth. Monegan made it very clear that Wooten had already been punished and that is why he couldn’t take any further action unless Wooten made another mistake. This is exactly why Monegan kept pushing back when pressured because he legally couldn’t take any retro-active action against an employee who had already been punished because it would have violated Wooten’s employee rights.

Page 4, Line 3: “I had hundreds of conversations and communications about Trooper Wooten over the last several years with my family, friends, with colleagues, just about everyone I could including government officials.”

In a July 18, 2008 press release, Governor Palin stated; “To allege that I, or any member of my family….directed disciplinary action be taken against any employee of the Department of Public Safety, is, quite simply, outrageous.

But yet according to Todd Palin’s deposition he complained about Trooper Mike Wooten to Mike Tibbles, Randy Ruaro, Ivey Frye, Frank Bailey, Mike Nizich, John Bitney, John Glass and Audie Holloway. 

In addition, during an interview with former Legislative Liason John Bitney last July, he said, ”People don’t know just how much weight Todd’s words have. When Todd Palin makes a suggestion, it’s not really a suggestion.”

Having this many conversations, over two years after the last interaction with Wooten shows a pattern of Palin’s obsession with getting even with Wooten.

Page 5, Line 3: “I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family and wanting to publicize the injustice of a violent Trooper keeping his badge.”

This comment makes no sense when considered in the scope of his actions.

First, his family was never in danger. In fact a few months ago Governor Palin felt safe enough on her own to become the first governor to ever discontinue her security detail. Does that really sound like someone who is concerned about a rogue trooper patrolling the neighborhood?

Second, Todd Palin didn’t publicize anything. In fact this didn’t even become public until Monegan got fired and we broke the story on this blog.

If this really was a case of a “violent trooper keeping his badge”, why in the world hasn’t the governor done anything to protect the public? Why didn’t she hold a press conference and talk about the need to protect the public’s safety or introduce legislation or even offer an amendment to any number of suitable pieces of legislation that were making their way through the legislative process?

Why didn’t Governor Palin do something, anything, to change the way Trooper’s investigate their own to protect the public against future rogue troopers?

The answer is simple; this wasn’t about the public being at risk, it was about the Palin’s getting even.

Page 5, Line 18: “It is tragic that because Trooper Wooten told a false story to a blogger who repeated it, the legislature has allocated over $100,000 of public money to harass me and numerous other innocents.”

Other innocents? Like Frank Bailey who in a recorded phone call to State Trooper Rodney Dial was trying to get Trooper Wooten fired and inferred he was calling on behalf of Todd and Sarah Palin?

In a taped interview with Anchorage Daily News Reporter Kyle Hopkins on August 14, Governor Palin stated unequivocally that Frank Bailey acted completely on his own.

“No one ever directed him to make any calls, he never disclosed he made any calls,” Governor Palin said. 

However this turned out to be not true.

On February 29, an email was sent from Frank Bailey to Ivy Frye just after Bailey’s recorded phone call to Trooper Dial.

“Leaving pretty quick for the airport…call me though I need to give you a heads up. Spoke to Rodney and he doesn’t get that kind of stuff since he’s a Lieutenant, but he’d definitely pass it on.”

Not only that, but Palin also told Hopkins that “Todd never told Frank Bailey or suggest he take on this mission to call a trooper.”

However according to state phone logs, Todd Palin called Ivy Frye three times between 1:45pm and 3:50pm on the afternoon of February 28, the day before Bailey’s call to Dial.

This set off a flurry of emails which included Todd Palin in the loop and only ended a little more than an hour after Bailey called to try and get Wooten fired.

Then, after all this, Bailey reportedly has testified that the confidential information he received regarding Wooten’s personnel file that he passed along to Trooper Dial came from none other than Todd Palin.

Page 12, Lines 1 through 14, Palin talked about how he and the governor were frustrated with Monegan because whenever they need to use the Department of Public Safety King Air, it was always busy.

“We were concerned that the Department of Public Safety was retaliating against Sarah for selling the Murkowski jet that Department of Public Safety officials enjoyed using.” 

Just one big problem with this assertion; the jet was put on the block before any of Palin’s Public Safety Officials could use it. Ironically, Palin has been using the sale of the jet to promote her fiscal prowess on the national stage, telling Americans she sold it on ebay because the department and Alaska didn’t need it.

Page 12, Lines 22 to 25: There was an email on June 30, 2008 from Monegan that had the annual AST 2007 report. I was aware that Sarah was not happy with the report. Sarah was having difficulty finding out who had authored it and who was going to take responsibility for it.”

The report, which outlined the state crime statistics for 2007 was compiled by the public safety department. In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News in August, Monegan spoke about delivering the annual DPS crime report to Governor Palin where she replied, “This makes me look bad.”

It’s understandable why according to Todd, “Sarah was not happy with the report”, it showed crime was increasing significantly in Alaska under her watch as governor.

The fact that Todd states that she wanted to know who authored it and who was going to take responsibility for it shows just how out of touch she is as governor.

As governor, the buck is stops with her. She is ultimately responsible for the rising rates of crime in Alaska, especially since she has made a fuss about trying to cut the budget at DPS.

This again makes the point that some have made for two years; this administration has been focused more on public relations than public policy….or in this case, public safety.

Click here to read the entire deposition of Todd Palin

Todd’s Deposition: A Dud from the Dude

Number One Observatory Circle in Washington, D.C. is the official residence of the Vice President of the United States.

Today in the Washington Post Opinions section Colbert King considers the REAL possibility of a Vice President Sarah Palin.  Given what we know of Gov. Palin’s governing style in Alaska, imagine what she and her husband Todd Palin could do with access to the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon at her (and his!) beck and call?

It’s time to start taking Sarah Palin seriously.

Though the latest polls show the Obama-Biden ticket ahead, the Alaska governor is still uncomfortably close to becoming vice president of the United States. The thought should concentrate the mind of every American who remembers the abuse of executive power by the administration of Richard Nixon. Just look at what Palin has done, in a short time, with the authority delegated to her by Alaskans.

The “Troopergate” report, conducted by an independent investigator and released Friday by a bipartisan legislative committee, tells the tale. It documents the campaign that Palin and her husband Todd waged to get her former brother-in-law fired from the Alaska state troopers.

Palin did, indeed, have the authority to dismiss the state’s public safety commissioner, the report says. But she violated a state law, the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which prohibits state officials from taking actions that benefit personal interest. According to the report: Palin abused her power as governor when she “knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired.”

I shudder to think of the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon at her beck and call.

The role played by Todd in carrying out his wife’s vendetta was highly unusual. He had no official duties in government. He acknowledged, however, that he made numerous calls to state officials to press his case against the governor’s ex-brother-in-law.

It’s been well reported that Todd Palin’s involvement in his wife’s official business unsettled some Alaskans. He has been known to sit in on the governor’s meetings, use her office for his own meetings and intervene in state business using his status as “First Gentleman.” Clearly, he’s a man with a lot of time on his hands.

What if he assumed the same role in Washington? Imagine Todd in a town that has no use for snow machines (which he loves to ride) or work for commercial fishermen (of which he is one, during the summer months). What would he do? Would he follow the vice president to her White House office? Join her meetings in the Situation Room? Sit in on her daily national security briefings?

Where does Todd Palin stand on America anyway? Neither he nor Sarah Palin ever explained his seven-year membership in the Alaska Independence Party, a group that seeks a vote on secession from America. “I’m an Alaskan, not an American” was the slogan of the party’s founder, Joe Vogler, who also said “I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions” and “I won’t be buried under their damned flag.” What made Todd Palin hitch his wagon to that anti-American train when Alaska offered the Democratic and Republican parties?

Troopergate shows the Palins to be small-bore people unable to distinguish selfish personal interests from official responsibilities. Imagine the power of the U.S. government at their disposal.

The prospect of Vice President Sarah Palin is no laughing matter.

Palin Too Close for Comfort

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and husband Todd Palin

At this point in the campaign are voters are still asking themselves who the candidates are in this presidential election?  Governor Sarah Palin, new to the national politic scene, has presented many faces to voters, both within her own Alaska state administration, as well as to the broader audience in the lower 48 states.  Joseph A. Palmero, writing on the Huffington Post today, considers some of the MANY facets to this vice-presidential candidate, and what “maverick” changes her possible election might bring to our government in Washington, D.C. Is Gov. Palin an evangelical do-gooder “hockey mom” with a handsome “First Dude” or a megalomaniac married to a Machiavellian insider, with both of them wielding power behind the scenes for their own personal agendas?

Alaska Governor and Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, while out on the hustings likes to ask her audiences: “Who is the real Barack Obama?” But it took a bipartisan commission of the Alaska State Legislature to give us a more accurate glimpse at the real Sarah Palin. The commission concluded that Governor Palin abused her powers in pressing subordinates to terminate a state trooper, Michael Wooten, who three years earlier had gone through a bitter divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann. As a result, Trooper Wooten ended up on the wrong side of a family feud.

Governor Palin first claimed that she never did anything to try to get Wooten fired, but later changed her story admitting that she did try to terminate him but only because she and her relatives lived in fear of him. The independent investigation for the State Legislature, however, concluded otherwise: “Such claims of fear were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palins’ real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family reasons.” The 263-page report also points out that Palin had reduced the size of her security staff, which didn’t make sense if she and her family were “living in fear” of Wooten. A member of Governor Palin’s security detail stated: “I never really felt they were in fear of Mr. Wooten doing anything to them.”

The panel concluded that Governor Palin violated Alaska’s Executive Branch Ethics Act. According to the report, Palin “knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda.”

On July 11, 2008, Palin fired Alaska’s public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, because he resisted dismissing the trooper who was under his command. Monegan also testified that Palin was slashing the budget for his department because he resisted her efforts to can Wooten. Palin has changed her story several times on why she fired Monegan, who had a long and impressive record as an Alaskan public official. She first claimed she wanted to move Monegan to another position in the government, and then she insisted Monegan’s firing was performance related.

Brace yourself for the ear-shattering self-righteous anger blaring from the throats of Republican media shills as they denounce as “unfair” and “partisan” the Alaska State Legislature’s account. But it will be difficult to sell that story given that it was a 14-member Republican-dominated Legislative Council that voted unanimously in favor of the investigation long before John McCain picked Palin as his running mate.

Late in a campaign, one thing any presidential candidate does NOT want to see is the name of his VP choice in an official government report that confirms a violation of a state law with the word “ethics” in its title. Especially in Alaska where the Republican Party leadership is notoriously corrupt and cut from the same cloth as Jack Abramoff. In fact, one of the reasons Sarah Palin was catapulted to the governor’s office so quickly in the first place was because she was the last woman standing after the Republican leadership in Alaska imploded under multiple, overlapping corruption scandals. Now, with the commission’s report, even the “maverick reformer” is tainted.

Who is the real Sarah Palin?

Is Sarah Palin the evangelical, do-gooder “hockey mom” who millions of people believe is truthful and honest? Or is she a “She-Bush” megalomaniac who wields power behind the scenes by personal whim? And lies about it?

Is Sarah Palin the wife of an empty-headed, yet harmless “First Dude?” Or is she married to a Machiavellian insider who carried out her wishes with efficient dispatch in an attempt to settle petty personal scores?

And can we really trust someone who is closely associated with a person who used to belong to a radical Alaskan separatist group that committed Treason against the United States of America by urging Alaska to secede from the Union?

If Palin can go around the country inciting mobs to call for Barack Obama’s head after she grossly exaggerates his passing encounters with an aging ’60s radical, then we should be able to scrutinize her more recent abuses of power as Alaska governor.

But the most dangerous problem Palin poses is her apparent cluelessness about the kind of overt racism and potential violence she is stirring up. Her highly personalized attacks against Obama are inciting hatred among the Republican herd. The mainstream press might be contented to portray this as nothing out of the ordinary in a “tough” campaign, but this false “balance” in reportage excuses the seriousness of Palin’s attacks.

Palin is telling large crowds of white people in Red districts that Obama “pals around with terrorists” and she even implies that he may be a “terrorist” himself. Representative John Lewis of Georgia, who has been at the center of every civil rights battle for the past fifty years, thought the situation warranted writing a letter to John McCain calling for a more civil political dialogue. “As public figures with the power to influence and persuade,” Lewis wrote, “Senator McCain and Governor Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy.” McCain simply blew off Lewis’s legitimate concerns in favor of a predictable Republican counterattack. McCain threw the issue back on Lewis and demanded an apology from him for comparing McCain’s tactics to those of Alabama Governor George Wallace.

The Republicans are playing the “race card” now because that is all they have left. Right-wing talk radio, Fox News, Kenneth Blackwell, and the McCain-Palin campaign have all been accusing the activist group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), of “voter fraud” and even playing a role in the subprime mortgage crisis. They have lumped Obama in with ACORN even though he never worked for the organization, and because ACORN is heavily identified with African-American urban communities the Rightwing is trying to tarnish ACORN’s current voter registration activities as being somehow “unfair” to white Republicans and use that charge to smear Obama. The allegations have been proven false but they remind me of D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation, glorifying the history of the Ku Klux Klan. In the film there are scenes of black “freedmen” in the Reconstruction South stuffing ballot boxes to rig elections against the white majority. The KKK bursts on the scene to render “justice” for the white victims of what today Rush Limbaugh would call “voter fraud.” It is noteworthy how little the tropes of racism have changed in America in the past hundred years.

The near total collapse of the financial system and the subsequent panic selling on Wall Street have repudiated everything for which the Republican Party stood for the last 30 years: Neo-cons wishing to use American military power to assert dominance and spread “democracy?” Forget it — We don’t have the money to do that anymore. War hawks who want U.S. troops to stay in Iraq until “victory” is attained? Forget about it — We don’t have $4 billion a month to throw at Iraq. Tax cutters and deregulators who promise that if we just strip away government our “ownership society” will efficiently distribute the bounty because that’s what markets do — Are you telling us a bad joke!?

The economic crisis upended the McCain campaign. In desperation, McCain has chosen to go negative 100 percent of the time. He sent forth his evangelical VPILF to hurl McCarthyite smears and race-baiting attacks at the African-American candidate. And she has done so in a way that only a person from a lily-white noncontiguous state could do.

But McCain’s is a failed “strategy.” The Bush Administration’s reckless disregard for governance has finally precipitated the humungous crisis many of us believed was lurking beneath the surface for many years now. He ran the United States in a manner akin to that of a tin-pot dictator in a banana republic. We are fortunate that the timing of the great financial collapse allows us to hold a referendum on the miserable years of misrule under George Walker Bush. “No” or “Si.”

Let the voting begin!

Who is the Real Sarah Palin?