Sarah Palin, the Christian Right and Fascism in America

[Laura]

12 New Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted October 10, 2008.

Palin has taken to smearing Obama. But it's her own record that continues to yield alarming information, undermining her skills and credibility.

Sarah Palin has had a lot of ups and downs in her time in the national spotlight. When she was first nominated, the Alaska governor exceeded expectations by successfully reading from a teleprompter at the Republican National Convention. Then, she sat down with CBS's Katie Couric to disastrous results -- disastrous, hilarious or downright frightening, given your point of view. Any way you look at it, Palin's awful interview with Couric set the bar so low that her embarrassing performance at the vice presidential debate, where she refused to answer the questions and flirtatiously winked at the camera, was deemed a success by many commentators in the corporate media. At least she didn't vomit on stage, seemed to be the general consensus.

Since the debate, though, Sarah Palin has dropped to new lows. She has maliciously gone after Barack Obama, using hate speech, dog whistles and every inexcusable attack in the book.

But no matter how ridiculous or sensational Palin's attacks on Obama are, her venomous words cannot hide all the skeletons that keep pouring out of her unvetted closet. And these are the things that should give the American public cause for concern.

1. Palin's Fearmongering Attacks on Obama

Palin's attacks on Barack Obama over the past week have been sickening. She has questioned his patriotism and manufactured a bogus association to terrorism. Her hateful rhetoric goes far beyond dirty politics.

Palin is a "demagogue in a skirt," says Susie Hoeller of the Huffington Post.

"Webster's Dictionary defines a demagogue as 'a leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace,'" Hoeller writes. "Governor Palin, in her stump speeches this week, fits this dictionary definition."

The McCain-Palin campaign has said that it does not condone the use of Obama's full name, but given that almost everyone who introduces either McCain or Palin at their official rallies is doing just that, many are wondering if it may be an order straight from the campaign.

Jeffrey Feldman goes even further, asking of Palin's recent hate speech, "Is Palin Trying to Incite Violence Against Obama?":

Palin's new rhetorical strategy signifies an alarming new development in the 2008 presidential election, and one that has been not only been documented by such high-profile newspapers as the Washington Post, but confirmed by the McCain campaign itself.

"It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice," a top McCain strategist recently admitted to the Daily News. "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

2. Palin Lied About Darfur

During the vice presidential debates, Palin claimed to have helped spearhead a measure protesting genocide in Darfur:

When I and others in the Legislature found out we had some millions of dollars in Sudan ... we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars to make sure we weren't doing anything that would be seen as condoning the activities there in Darfur.

That's a noble stand to take. Too bad Palin wasn't the one who took it. Palin's administration publicly opposed the bipartisan effort to divest Alaskan holdings from Sudan. According to the Washington Post:

During a committee hearing in February, a Palin administration representative, deputy revenue commissioner Brian Andrews, testified against the legislation on the grounds that it would do nothing to help "the afflicted in Sudan," and would add to the fund's administrative costs.

Palin officially changed her position in April. But by that time, the bill had died in committee.

3. Sarah Palin Hearts Dick Cheney

During one of her sit-downs with Katie Couric, Palin was asked to name the best and worst things that she thinks Dick Cheney has done as vice president:

Worst thing I guess that would have been the duck-hunting accident -- where you know, that was an accident. And I think that was made into a caricature of him. And that was kind of unfortunate.

Kind of unfortunate? He blew a friend's face off. But that is not the worst thing that Dick Cheney has done while in office, which is saying something. When shooting your friend in the face is low on your list of the worst things you've done, you know you're in trouble.

What does Palin think is the best thing Cheney has done?

He's shown support, along with George W. Bush, of our troops.

Are you kidding me? The man helped concoct and sell a massive lie to the American people, which ended up placing thousands of U.S. soldiers in harm's way in an illegal war in Iraq. How does that constitute "support"?

But based on Palin's remarks in the recent vice presidential debate, it seems her real love for Cheney is based on the power he's given the position she's running for. Asked if she believes the "executive branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency" and if it should also be a member of the Legislative branch, Palin replied: "Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation."

Joe Biden responded to the same question: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history."

The fact that Palin doesn't realize that, and worse, actually applauds the man, is downright scary.

4. Sarah Is a Totally Down-to-Earth American (Who's Got More Than a Million Bucks)

In these times of financial crisis, many politicians are scrambling to seem like one of the people, folks who understand the hardships of economic struggle. Sarah Palin is no different, except maybe that she isn't having that hard a time of it. With her roughneck, sea-fishing, moose-hunting Alaskan image, many people don't find it hard to think of Palin as working-class. And she's milking that image for all it's worth by calling herself an "everyday, working-class American."

Too bad that's total B.S. The governor of Alaska gets paid $125,000 annually (a paycheck that isn't exactly working-class), and according to the AP, she and her husband's combined 2007 income and estimated property and investment values are worth at least $1.2 million:

The Palins' assets seem enviable: a half-million-dollar home on a lake with a floatplane at the dock, two vacation retreats, commercial fishing rights worth an estimated $50,000 or more and an income last year of at least $230,000. That compares to a median income of $64,333 for Alaskans and $50,740 for Americans in 2007, according to the Census Bureau.

Show me a millionaire who claims to be working-class and I'll show you a liar. Show me a self-described "working-class" person with a plane, and I'll show you somebody with burning pants.

5. Palin Doesn't Like to Pay Taxes

Republicans love to whip up the GOP faithful by railing against taxes. At last week's vice presidential debate, Palin attacked Biden because earlier he had dared to suggest that in a time of national crisis, the very least we could do for our country is pay our damn taxes.

You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. ... In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic.

Touche.

Here's one case of Republicans practicing what they preach: The Palins' tax records, released last week, reveal that the first family used a variety of creative loopholes to get out of paying much of their taxes. According to the New York Times:

One big issue that tax attorneys are pointing to is the fact that the Palins did not report as income the $43,490 that the state gave the family to cover travel expenses for Mr. Palin and the Palin children. Had the Palins reported these payments as income, the couple would have had to pay taxes on it.

The Palins also deducted expenses incurred from Todd's snowmobiling, claiming it as a business:

The Palins deducted $9,000 in business losses from snowmobiling. This tax loss would not be allowed if the activity is a hobby. The IRS rule is that if an activity produces a profit in three of the past five years, is a businesses and not a hobby. But the Palins released tax returns for only two years, so it is impossible to tell. One year showed a $9,000 loss, the other year a slight profit.

6. First Dude Had Extraordinary Power in Palin's Administration

Last time we checked, "First Dude of Alaska" was not an official government post. But you wouldn't know it from recent revelations that Todd Palin had an extraordinary amount of access and pull with top Alaskan officials. What did the first dude do with his (unconstitutional) power? He campaigned to get his former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, fired.

As the Times Online UK reports:

Sarah Palin's husband campaigned for years to help get his former brother-in-law kicked off the state police force, newly released affidavits show.

The documents were released as part of the so-called Troopergate Scandal, in which it is alleged the Republican vice presidential nominee abused her position as governor of Alaska to settle a long-standing family feud.

Walter Monegan, Alaska's public safety commissioner, says he was dismissed by Mrs. Palin, after refusing to fire Mike Wooten, a trooper involved in a bitter divorce and child custody battle with her sister.

No doubt, the intent here is to divest Sarah Palin of responsibility by having her claim ignorance and pinning the blame on someone else. Reagan would be proud.

7. "Wink! Wink! I'm Not Answering Your Questions!"

When Palin managed to make it through most of the vice presidential debate without looking like a scared deer, conservatives rejoiced. Many commentators even praised Palin for her ability to connect with voters through her folksy gestures and language. It's unclear whether Palin's winks and dropped "g"s resonated with voters. But as Michelle Goldberg at the Guardian points out, any other candidate would have been eviscerated in the media for acting the way Palin did:

Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have been universally noted, discussed and mocked.

One also wonders what conservatives would have said had Hillary Clinton brazenly tried to get out of answering debate questions by flirting.

8. "Look! I Can See Russia!"

In her first interview on the national stage, Palin claimed, with a straight face, that she was qualified to make complex foreign policy decisions because she could "see Russia from Alaska."

Lots of people in the McCain campaign, also with straight faces, echoed Palin's claim that Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her an adequate understanding of international affairs.

Here's a fun coda to one of the McCain campaign's most embarrassing ploys to whitewash Palin's inexperience: It turns out that Palin has never actually seen Russia from Alaska. The only place in Alaska from which Russia is visible is an island called Little Diomede -- an economically depressed town with a 40 percent poverty rate that Palin has never, ever visited.

Unlike Palin, CNN's Gary Tuchman went to the island, where he interviewed townspeople who had barely heard of the Alaska governor.

As Jed Lewison at the Huffington Post writes, it's going to be "fun watching Tina Fey parody it."

9. Palin's Foreign Policy Experience: About 20 Meetings for About 12 Hours

Speaking of Russia and foreign policy cred, Sarah "I want to be one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency" Palin insists that there are other things, aside from Russia's proximity, that give her experience in the field. There have been trade missions with Russia and many other interactions with foreign governments, thanks to Alaska's shared border with Canada. While speaking with Katie Couric, she said, "We have trade missions back and forth. We -- we do -- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia."

David Corn over at Mother Jones used, well, facts straight out of Palin's own governor's schedule to paint a different picture:

... the calendars tracking Palin's official meetings during her tenure as governor contain not one listing indicating she ever met with a Russian official. In fact, the 562 pages of her daily schedules -- obtained by Mother Jones under Alaska's Open Records Act -- indicate that Palin had few meetings at all with any foreign representatives and rarely dealt with any topic related to foreign policy. The schedules include about 20 meetings, events, or phone calls in which Palin interacted with foreign officials. And in many instances, these interactions were cursory or ceremonial and did not involve policy details.

According to the schedules released, Palin spent roughly 12 hours over the course of 19 months on these meetings. (This doesn't count what happened during a four-day trip she took to Kuwait to visit members of the Alaska National Guard. The schedules for those days do not detail whom she met.) The calendars show no meetings between her and a trade delegation from any nation.

Maybe Palin has a different definition of the word "experience" than the rest of us.

10. Palin Used Oil Industry-Funded Scientists for a Global Warming Study Against Polar Bears

As everyone now knows, Sarah Palin is not exactly on board with the rest of the world when it comes to the basic science behind global warming. Well, now we know why: She's getting her numbers from a rather shady source.

The Guardian recently published a story about how the Alaskan governor came to the conclusion that global warming did not pose a threat to polar bears. Apparently, she relied heavily on global warming deniers funded by Exxon Mobil and other oil insiders for a study by the Alaskan state government.

As the article says:

Her own Alaskan review of the science drew on a joint paper by seven authors, four of whom were well-known climate change contrarians. Her paper argued that it was "certainly premature, if not impossible" to link temperature rise in Alaska with human CO2 emissions.

{Laura's note: This is actually the only correct thing Sarah Palin has ever said that I can see. But just because there is no "human caused" global warming does not mean that devastating climate CHANGE is not in progress!}

I guess she must have missed the world's leading scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change coming to a consensus on that one already.

Why is this a big deal? From the Guardian again:

The status of the polar bear has become a battleground in the debate on global warming. In May the U.S. Department of the Interior rejected Palin's objections and listed the bear as a threatened species, saying that two-thirds of the world's polar bears were likely to be extinct by 2050 due to the rapid melting of the sea ice. Palin, governor of Alaska and the Republican nominee for U.S. vice president, responded last month by suing the federal government to try to overturn the ruling. The case will be heard in January.

What's at stake, of course, is money. Oil money, that is.

In its lawsuit, Alaska said it opposed the endangered label partly because the listing would "deter activities such as ... oil and gas exploration and development." Oil companies recently bid $2.7bn (£1.5bn) for rights to explore the Chukchi Sea, an established polar bear habitat.

Hmmm, choosing what's good for big business, not for America or the environment. Wonder if the McCain-Palin campaign will put that in its next ad.

11. Palin Thinks Being Gay Is a Choice

In one of her many embarrassing interviews with Katie Couric, Palin made it clear that, though she doesn't judge, she thinks being gay is a choice:

I have, one of my absolute best friends for the last 30 years who happens to be gay. And I love her dearly. And she is not my "gay friend." She is one of my best friends who happens to have made a choice that isn't a choice that I have made. But I am not gonna judge people. And I love America where we are more tolerant than other countries are. And are more accepting of some of these choices that sometimes people want to believe reflects solely on an individual's values or not. Homosexuality, I am not gonna judge people.

Sorry, Sarah, but just like your views on global warming, that nasty little thing called science isn't on your side. Amanda Terkel at Think Progress notes:

Homosexuality is not a choice, as all major mainstream medical and mental health professional organizations have concluded.

According to the American Psychological Association, "Most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation." Also, despite saying that she won't "judge" gay people, she backed a state constitutional ban to deny spousal benefits to the same-sex partners of public employees.

And Palin's church views homosexuality as a choice, sponsoring a conference to, ahem, pray the gay away. Such conferences are widely opposed by major medical associations.

But good for you Sarah, for that one gay friend you've got that you totally don't judge.

12. The Rape Kit Story: Not Getting the Media Attention It Deserves

OK, we've reported on the rape kit story before, so it's not exactly a revelation, but the fact still stands that this is a terrible story that deserves more attention, especially given very recent developments. Eric Boehlert over at Media Matters has discredited the claim (used as an excuse by many media outlets not to report on the story) that Palin's rape kit story has been, well, discredited:

Writing for the Huffington Post's Off the Bus, and crossposting at Daily Kos, (Jacob Alperin-Sheriff, a 20-year-old blogger and junior at George Washington University) posted by far the most specific and factual analysis of the rape kit story in terms of Palin's role as mayor and the final say she had over the budget.

Combing through Wasilla's budgetary documents, which are posted online, Alperin-Sheriff showed that Palin had clearly signed off on a fiscal-year budget that reduced by three-quarters the amount of money the town set aside annually for rape-kit costs and that the rape-kit reduction was spelled out before the fiscal-year 2000 budget was approved by Mayor Sarah Palin on April 26, 1999.

And yet the corporate media says nothing. Of course, perhaps if Palin offered a little more access to the media, they'd be able to ask more questions about this disturbing fact. Until then, there are many in the independent media, like the filmmakers at the Wasilla Project, who are asking: If someone's home is burglarized, the tools of investigation are not paid for by the victim; why was rape considered different in Wasilla?

 

[Laura]

Readers Write: 12 Stomach-Turning Revelations About Sarah Palin

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted October 16, 2008.

AlterNet readers respond to the latest evidence of just how bad Sarah Palin is for an office that puts her a heartbeat away from the presidency.

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 -flick- 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."

Thing is, Sarah Palin is not that much different from Adolf Hitler all the way around, in character and actions, and he actually did get elected... There is an interesting passage about this question in Political Ponerology:

Many thoughtful persons keep asking the same anxious question: how could the German nation have chosen for a Fuehrer a clownish psychopath who made no bones about his pathological vision of superman rule? Under his leadership, Germany then unleashed a second criminal and politically absurd war. During the second half of this war, highly-trained army officers honorably performed inhuman orders, senseless from the political and military point of view, issued by a man whose psychological state corresponded to the routine criteria for being forcibly committed to psychiatric hospitalization.

Any attempt to explain the things that occurred during the first half of our century by means of categories generally accepted in historical thought leaves behind a nagging feeling of inadequacy. Only a ponerological approach can compensate for this deficit in our comprehension, as it does justice to the role of various pathological factors in the genesis of evil at every social level.

Fed for a generation on pathologically altered psychological material, the German nation fell into a state comparable to what we see in certain individuals raised by persons who are both characteropathic and hysterical. Psychologists know from experience how often such people then let themselves commit acts which seriously hurt others. A psychotherapist needs a good deal of persistent work, skill, and prudence in order to enable such a person to regain his ability to comprehend psychological problems with more naturalistic realism and to utilize his healthy critical faculties in relation to his own behavior.

The Germans inflicted and suffered enormous pain during the first World War; they thus felt no substantial guilt and even thought they had been wronged, as they were behaving in accordance with their customary habit, without being aware of its pathological causes. The need for this state to be clothed in heroic garb after a war in order to avoid bitter disintegration became all too common. A mysterious craving arose, as if the social organism had managed to become addicted to some drug. That was the hunger for pathologically modified psychological material, a phenomenon known to psychotherapeutic experience. This hunger could only be satisfied by another similarly pathological personality and system of government. A characteropathic personality opened the door for leadership by a psychopathic individual.

 

[Laura]

Todd Palin: If You Thought Cheney Was Bad, Watch out for the "First Dude"

By Bill Boyarsky, Truthdig. Posted October 15, 2008.

Todd Palin interfered regularly in his wife's affairs as governor, and there's every reason to assume he'd do the same in the White House.

Todd Palin seated behind a White House desk and shaping national policy could be one of the most dangerous aspects of a potential Sarah Palin presidency.

An overlooked part of the Alaska state trooper investigation is its finding on the influence of Gov. Palin's husband, Todd -- the "First Dude" or, as he is known around the Alaska statehouse, the "First Gentleman."

This is crucial in view of the age of the Republican nominee, John McCain, 72, and the fact that he has suffered from melanoma skin cancer. His doctors have pronounced him in excellent health, but his age and the serious nature of this type of cancer should focus attention on his running mate and her operating methods.

A fascinating picture of Todd Palin's influence in Alaska's capital is provided in the report of a legislative investigation that concluded that Gov. Palin unlawfully abused her power in seeking the firing of a state trooper once married to her sister. The report, released Friday, also criticized Palin for allowing Todd Palin to push hard for the dismissal of Trooper Mike Wooten.

Wooten had been married to the governor's sister. Their divorce was messy. So, apparently, was Wooten's career as a trooper. He had been accused of illegally shooting a moose, drinking beer in a patrol car and using a Taser gun on his stepson. He was disciplined before Palin became governor and was allowed to remain a trooper.

When Palin took over, the Wooten case was high on the family agenda, with Todd Palin leading the effort to get rid of the trooper. As Associated Press writer Mike Apuzzo put it in his story on the report, Todd Palin had "extraordinary access to the governor's office" and he "used that access to try to get [Wooten] fired."

His target was Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he refused to fire Wooten.

The report, by investigator Stephen Branchflower, a retired state prosecutor, shows how Todd Palin operates.

Monegan's secretary, Cassandra Byrne, said that on Jan. 4, 2007, she received a phone call from the governor's office. An aide told her "the First Gentleman would like to have a meeting with Commissioner Walt Monegan. At the time, I was not familiar with the term 'First Gentleman.' So I kept asking 'Who?' and she eventually said 'Todd Palin.' I said, 'Oh, OK,' so we set the time and the place which was the governor's office in Anchorage. "

Investigator Branchflower said that when Monegan arrived there he was directed into the governor's office. Todd Palin, wearing a business suit, was alone, waiting for him. "Mr. Palin was seated at a large conference table and invited Mr. Monegan to sit," the report said.

Monegan said, "What I recalled was Todd sitting there. He had three stacks of paper in an array in front of him" dealing with the Wooten case. One was from the Department of Public Safety, under which Alaska state troopers serve.

Monegan told Branchflower that he got "the impression that Todd was not happy with the investigation [that the department had made before disciplining Wooten].

"He told me that he [Wooten] just got a few days off [suspension] and didn't think that was enough. And this guy shouldn't be a trooper."

Describing Todd Palin, Monegan said, "I saw someone who was somewhat animated. Not certainly out of control but he was passionate about how he was addressing the issue.

"And my impression was that he was venting. I mean there was a complaint, the troopers investigated it and that they had come up with a conclusion and that he was not happy with the conclusion."

The telling vignette shows Todd Palin's position in the governor's office. Dressed in a business suit, seated behind a big conference table with state documents in front of him, he tried to tell the state's top cop how to do his job.

This is a man who was a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a radical group advocating Alaskan secession from the United States. Gail Fenumiai, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, told TPM Muckraker that Palin registered as an AIP member in October 1995 and continued in that status until 2000, when he registered as undeclared for a few months. He registered as an AIP member again and remained with the party until 2002, when he registered as undeclared.

What other radical ideas are percolating in the mind of a man who is now portrayed in the media as sort of a lovable guys' guy?

If Sarah Palin ever becomes president, it is safe to assume that the First Gentleman of Alaska will slip into the role of First Gentleman of the United States with as much access to the Oval Office as he has to the governor's office in Anchorage.

That is a truly scary thought.

 

[mamadrama]

My kids who are in the middle of taking SAT's and ACT's for college sent me this article fwiw:

Sarah Palin: Below-Average American

An as-yet-to-be-authenticated, high school transcript of Sarah Palin's was posted on Gawker Thursday, and it's a doozy. The report shows Palin's GPA for that grading period as a 2.2, her lowest score being a D in Foreign Language class (which seems a bit too on-the-nose). It also says that she earned 3 C's and 2 B's.

The real shocker is her SAT score, also listed in the report. Apparently, Sarah Palin scored an 841 out of 1600 (the maximum of the old point-system). It goes without saying that if I had brought home that SAT score when I was a senior in high school, I would have been disowned. My mom would've painstakingly cut me out of each and every photo with her sewing scissors the way she did friends she was no longer speaking to. I would have become that circular void in photo albums, a hole in the Olan Mills family portrait, excised like cancer.

But, hey, that's just me, your average arugula-munching, Ivy League-attending, elitist American asshole, talkin'. And, I mean, compared to people who didn't have Hardass Asian Parents Psychotically Obsessed with Education, maybe Sarah Palin's sucky SAT score is A-OK. She is, after all, just an average American. She shouldn't be expected to have scored a 1590, like Bill Gates did. Or a 1355, like Al Gore, someone who actually held the position Palin is vying for. Or a 1206, like...President George W. Bush. Or even, say, a 1080, like Kobe Bryant. Am I right? (Click here to see other famous people's SAT scores. James Woods is an SAT genius, btw.)

Maybe it's even unreasonable to expect Sarah Palin's SAT score to be better than the national average--997 combined--in 1982, the time this alleged transcript was issued. In which case, cool. I can accept that. Because Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, smart and dumb, et al., and I love Jesus. But if this below-average report card turns out to be real, is it too much to ask that Palin stop lying about being so "average"?

_http://www.huffingtonpost.com/disgrasian/sarah-palin-below-average_b_133435.html

 

[knowledge_of_self]

I'd like it a lot better if you put the bottom image of Sarah where the image of Diana is and just get rid of the Diana image.

I played around with it a bit, here is a new one :P

 

[Hildegarda]

this really belongs to Tickle Me (although it too is a kind of dark humor), but I'll put it here, to keep everything about Palin together:

"Palin as President"

\\\http://www.palinaspresident.us/

click on objects around the room, but do not click on the red phone!

 

[Hildegarda]

what would Sarah Palin do now

one possibility:

But Palin's race is not yet run.

She proved to be a strong campaigner and drew big crowds. Her future is uncertain and to a large extent depends on what happens in the Alaska Senate race, which at this moment is still undecided. Despite being convicted on seven felony counts last week, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) leads Anchorage mayor Mark Begich by 3,000 votes in his Senate reection race with some votes still uncounted. The polls got this one completely wrong. If Stevens wins, there is an excellent chance the Democrats will move to expel him from the Senate. The Republicans will not want to appear to support a convicted criminal and will probably vote for expulsion.

If this happens, there will be a special election in Alaska to fill the seat. Very likely, Sarah Palin will run and win, as she is still popular in Alaska. Come 2012, she will have 2 years' experience as governor and four years' experience as a United States senator.

She will be well positioned to run for the Republican nomination although she may have to contend with Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and others. But she will actually have to learn something about government in the next four years. You can't run for President while hiding from the press.

Her model will be Ronald Reagan, another right-winger who ran (for the Republican nomination) in 1976 and lost (to Jerry Ford), but came back to win a whopping victory in 1980. But Reagan was governor of California for 8 years, arguably the second toughest executive job in the country. But before she runs for President on a platform of inevitability, she should probably have a word with her (soon-to-be?) Senate colleague, the junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton.

\\\http://www.electoral-vote.com/ , Nov 5 10:00 update

 

[Adaryn]

Re: what would Sarah Palin do now

In the meantime :

 

[NormaRegula]

Re: what would Sarah Palin do now

LOVE IT!

 

[webglider]

Re: what would Sarah Palin do now

Last night, while listening to McCains concession speech, I thought I heard the crowd boo when Palin's name was mentioned.

Did anyone else hear that?

My feeling is that most of the American people can't stomach Palin. The ones that support her are, at least technically, no longer in power.

 

[Hildegarda]

Re: what would Sarah Palin do now

another possibility:

And should her presidential ambitions full flat, Hollywood has also come calling.

Several top producers are vying to see if she can turn her popularity among the country’s conservatives into TV ratings.

Now Joe Biden will be filling the vacant VP job in Washington, network executives are sharpening their pitches to try and persuade her to capitalise on her new found celebrity.

Her self-mocking appearance on Saturday Night Live, with lookalike star Tina Fey and actor Alec Baldwin, only heightened Palin fever in Hollywood.

‘Any television person who sees the numbers when she appears on anything would say Sarah Palin would be great,’ said veteran morning-show producer Steve Friedman.

‘The passion she has on each side, love and hate, makes television people say, "Wow, imagine the viewership".‘

According to the Hollywood Reporter, most industry insiders believe an Oprah Winfrey-style daytime talk show will be the probable route for the 44-year-old.

They think her folksy, straight-shooting personality would be an immediate hit with the predominantly female audience.

'I see her less a variety show host like Ellen De Generes and more of a single-topic host like Tyra Banks,’ said one top TV producer.

Cable news is another possibility and perhaps easier to fit in with her day job. Mike Huckerbee, who lost out to John McCain in the Republican primaries, has just begun his own weekly show on Fox News.

One producer has even floated the idea - only half-jokingly - of taking advantage of the curiosity surrounding the entire Palin clan and their Alaska setting and packaging a reality show called ‘The Palins’ as a mixture of The Osbournes and Northern Exposure.

\\\http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1083142/Boos-mar-John-McCains-gracious-concession-hints-just-beginning-Sarah-Palin.html

 

[Laura]

Tales from the campaign trails: Sarah Palin, wearing only a towel

Reuters
Fri, 07 Nov 2008

Lots of news trickling in about Sarah Palin's time on the campaign trail...

Like the time John McCain's top aides Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to brief the fit 44-year-old Alaska governor in her hotel room at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Here's how Newsweek described it: "After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. 'I'll be just a minute,' she said."

There were strains between the McCain and Palin camps on the trail. Now that the election is over, the long knives have come out.

The Los Angeles Times reported that when Palin arrived at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix on Tuesday, she had expected to speak before McCain gave his concession speech, but was told by Schmidt and Salter that it would not be appropriate.

The Alaska governor is keeping her options open about running in 2012, and when she arrived in her hometown of Wasilla on Wednesday night, she was greeted by chants of "2012."

 

[Laura]

Quebec comedy duo caused friction between Palin, McCain

CBS News
Thu, 06 Nov 2008

A prank phone call from a Montreal comedian posing as the French president fuelled tension between Sarah Palin and John McCain, according to reports in U.S. papers.

The Republicans were soundly defeated by Democrat Barack Obama and his vice-presidential running mate Joe Biden in Tuesday's election for U.S. president.

Palin made international headlines in the days leading to the vote, after she was "punked" by Marc-Antoine Audette, a francophone comedian in Montreal who called her pretending to be French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

The two spoke on the phone for several minutes about hunting, geopolitics, family and Sarkozy's wife Carla Bruni, a conversation that made Palin sound naive and revealed her spotty knowledge of world affairs.

The call was broadcast around the world and Audette was toasted by network media in several countries.

McCain and his camp were not amused by the call, a Republican campaign adviser told the New York Times.

Palin's failure to inform McCain she had plans to talk with "Sarkozy" was a source of irritation for the failed presidential candidate, the report said.

McCain's top strategist, Steve Schmidt, organized a conference call after the prank call went public, demanding to know who would let that sort of thing happen without clearing it with senior advisers, the Los Angeles Times reported.

One of Palin's aides, Steve Biegun admitted to vetting the call without first speaking to McCain's advisers or the U.S. State Department.

"I was fooled," he told the L.A. Times in a report published Thursday.

"No one's going to beat me up more than I beat myself up for setting up the governor like that."

Audette and his partner in crime Sébastien Trudel have basked in the glory of international media spotlight since pulling off their coup. They've given interviews to the BBC and CBS and made weekend newspaper headlines across Europe.

The duo, known in Quebec as the "Masked Avengers", have earned a cult reputation for crank calling famous people and world leaders, including F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, Sarkozy and Britney Spears.

 

[Laura]

McCain aides say Palin spent much more than $150,000 on clothes

Newsweek
Thu, 06 Nov 2008

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family - clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband.

Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

A Palin aide said: "Governor Palin was not directing staffers to put anything on their personal credit cards, and anything that staffers put on their credit cards has been reimbursed, like an expense. Nasty and false accusations following a defeat say more about the person who made them than they do about Governor Palin."

McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign, and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech Tuesday night, but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

 

[Laura]

Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, refused to prepare for interviews, threw tantrums

Fox News
Thu, 06 Nov 2008

From DailyKos

According to [Carl] Cameron,

Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were.
She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.

{Go to link to see video}