Now now, an old pair of shoes would trounce Biden.
Palin is going to get a lot of credit for things that would have happened anyway.

Palin is going to wipe the floor with both of them. She beats Obama on the experience issue and Biden on the “when to keep my mouth shut” issue. I am just waiting for one of Biden’s famous gaffs to happen. Not that the MSM would report it, but would still be fun to read in the blogs

If Palin is allowed to lie with impunity, she will continue to do very well.
When Hillary lied about the Bosnian incident, the press pounded her for it.
Palin lies about the bridge to nowhere, the jet, and her record in general, and the press looks the other way.
It is generally true that if Repubs are permitted to lie, they will do very well. The last few years show that.

Trooper gate, even if true, will HELP Palin…
She gets the man fired who abused his kids and wife, even tazering them??? All Palin has to do is look at the camera and say…”if this was your sister, would you have done the same thing?”…women will say YES!!!
Stupid DEMS should stay on the topics. Any attacks on her will just bounce off and bring them down even more..
Rob

oh, my! how blatantly must you display your hypocrisy?
“So much for the inexperienced meme! She beats the experienced one on the Democrat ticket 53 to 44.”
i guess you and mccain realized that the experience argument was a losing one so now you’re all on board with change being more important than experience. you’re all a fickle group, you conservatives. i don’t trust a group like that.
it looks like mcsame is coming down from his convention bounce already. and polls show that the palin shine is more than blemished already.

imo Biden should be allowed to say whatever he wants in the debate — because Palin isn’t going to tell the truth.
So far even fox has been saying she was lying about the bridge to no where.
Its pretty bad when fox calls you a liar.

Funny RG, even the Washington State Dems give her credit for ending the bridge to nowhere.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2008/09/09/palin-killed-bridge-nowhere-ak-dems
She said that she put the plane on eBay and that is exactly what she did. She never said it sold there.
Her record in general? I don’t know what that means, but your record in general indicates who the liar is here.

The one important thing to remember about a Biden-Palin matchup is….neither one of them is heading any ticket.

“She never said it sold there.”
mccain did on the campaign trail:

“You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay — made a profit.”

that’s a lie. flat out lie. yes, she unloaded the jet… but not on ebay, and the state took a loss… not a profit. do you think that she’ll correct him? i don’t either.
as for the bridge to nowhere, she was for it before she was against it. so she’s only telling half of the story! the wall street journal reported:

“She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.”

careful throwing names around when you don’t have your facts straight, ben.
and speaking of not having the facts…
“She gets the man fired who abused his kids and wife, even tazering them?”
it wasn’t the brother-in-law that she fired. and the issue is over her abuse (and misuse) of power. it’s no wonder you people support palin, you don’t know the facts. yikes.

but the palin barbie-doll is a hoot!
“Oh how McCain must be crowing over the fact that the discussion has turned from his ability to lead”
oh, i’m sure you’re right because he was being shut out, even with the p.o.w. pity vote factored in. don’t worry, since your messiah is not at the top of the ticket, this election is still about obama vs. mccsame.
ultimately, people will see that palin is the opposite of mclame’s “maverickness” on pork-barrel spending. what will he talk about then? p.o.w.?

Palin lies could lead to Bridge to Oblivion
By Jay Bookman | Tuesday, September 9, 2008, 12:50 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sarah Palin is out on the campaign trail, this time in Ohio, still repeating the lie that she rejected federal funding for that infamous bridge in Alaska.
“I told Congress, ‘Thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere up in Alaska,” she said in a speech today. “If our state wanted a bridge, we were gonna built it ourselves.”
Yet even today’s Wall Street Journal, that bastion of liberal, pro-terrorist, anti-American ideology, reaches the only conclusion possible on the facts available:
“Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government ‘thanks but no thanks’ to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state….,” the Journal states.
The Journal also makes clear that Palin only abandoned the project AFTER Congress had killed federal funding for it, and that “she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.” As late as last September, Palin was complaining that criticism of the project had been unfair, claiming that “much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here.”
In other words, it was never “thanks, but no thanks.” It was “thank you very much, and now give me some more.”
As the McCain campaign points out, both Barack Obama and Joe Biden have requested earmarks and voted for earmarks. Neither is anything close to pure on this issue. But neither Democrat is claiming otherwise. They aren’t trying to deny reality. Nor are they trying to construct their entire political identity on that falsehood.

It should be interesting – I’ve never seen a senator field dressed before…

is that what you call palin’s outfit when she goes moosin’? now she’s going to make mccain wear the same dress? yeah, interesting. cross-dresser giuliani will be put out.

She kept the money and if you care to do your research, there is more Fed. Tax Money earmarked to build another bridge to nowhere.
And now that we are expected to pay for the nail put of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac AND pay $22 million severance bonuses to the failed leaders of these debunked Financial Corporations (Not Federally Insured) how are either of the Presidential candidates going to pay for it? McCain still wants to give tax brakes to the corporate giants and still give us rebates. With what? The government can’t even pay for the roads they already have promised us. Yet we still are paying Iraqi leaders off, sending jobs to India and letting Mexican drug cartels run our borders like it was their playground.
Maybe it is time to declare our country bankrupted and put our government into receivership. Recall all of Congress, the Supreme court and the White Hpouse and form a new government that will adhere to the Constitution as it was intended.

I’m completely under impressed with Palin, but at the moment I must be in the minority. However this “race” to the White House is supposed to be between Obama and McCain…not Biden and Palin. Those 2 are the 2nds, not the first name on the tickets.
McCain is a Bush clone…no matter what he says…after all he is a Republican. Palin is even more conservative than McCain I think. She is just plain scary.
I belong to no party…am an Independent. Right now Obama is the only way out of the mess Bush and his cronies have gotten us in.
If McCain wins (we’ll need help)and should die in office, Palin, as president, could make Moose hunting the countries’ national sport! After all, she loves to hunt and kill.

pagansister…several facts for you:
1) it’s true, you are in the minority (see latest public opinion poll results).
2) it’s true, the presidential contenders are between Obama and McCain…not Biden and Palin.
3) it’s not true that McCain is “a Bush clone”. The substantive differences between the two men could not be more clear. You are either out of touch with the facts or predisposed to dismiss facts in favor of ignorance.
4) it’s true, Obama appears to be a good and decent man. However, his presidential qualifications do not measure up.
Why not pick yourself up by the boot straps and get a life…?

It is finally time to roll up the rugs and turn out the lights if ANYONE believes Sarah Palin would make a good Vice-President, and be one step away from the Presidency. McCain better watch his back, Cheney only injured his hunting partner, Sarah won’t miss.
Obama and Biden are the only ones who can lead us out of this mess that the Republicans have left us in. Billions in debt, owned by China, middle class squeezed out of the American Dream by big business and lousy government selling them out to the highest bidder. It goes on and on.
Why anyone even thinks the woman is even good enough to be mayor of anything, governor of a state, or vice president of the United States is clearly over the edge. I am a moderate, rational, reasonal moderate Republican woman who has had ENOUGH.

right on, Mike T…
pagansister, you sound unimpressed; as much as i respect your right to your opinion (and i do) i can’t help but to wonder about obama’s flip-flopping on taxes, nafta, war, etc. – to say nothing of pelosi’s new mantra: ‘drill!’
the truth is, obama is not flip-flopping – his agenda was never doable… if you like him for his rhetoric, you are going to be sadly disappointed, imho…

“it’s not true that McCain is “a Bush clone”. The substantive differences between the two men could not be more clear. You are either out of touch with the facts or predisposed to dismiss facts in favor of ignorance.”
so true. that can be proven simply by looking at the ages of the two conservatives. clearly the boy bush is the clone of the much elder mccain. plus mccain was a p.o.w. in the revolutionary war (haven’t you heard??) and bush took a desk job stateside.
same tax plan for the rich
same foreign policy
same iraq policy
same education policy
same economic policy
same energy policy
same immigration policy

richasis…if you are rich as is, then why complain about the ideology of those who made/make that possible for you? The bitterness of your assalt on Sarah Palin’s experience as an elected official raises serious questions about your claim to being a “moderate, rational, reasonal [sic]…Republican”. You want to support Obama/Biden? For goodness sakes, woman, why??
Obama/Biden is a Democratic Party regime that would seek to nationalize health insurance in America. A little history may help illuminate the risks.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, signed into law on August 14, 1935 the federal legislation that created Social Security. If you have a job and recieve a paycheck (being a Republican, the chances are good that you do), the government takes some of what belongs to you and redistributes it to people to whom it doesn’t belong. You may find it interesting to note that another pair of Democrats, former VP Al Gore (“creator of the Internet”) and former President Bill Clinton are men who by their actions alone raised from 50% to 85% the portion of Social Security benefits subject to taxation (1993 OBRA legislation). That’s a FACT. I don’t see how a “moderate, rational, reasonal [sic]…Republican” can view the Obama/Biden desire to nationalize health insurance as a good idea. Freedomworks dot org reports “Social Security has a massive unfunded liability of $12 trillion, and in 2017 the program runs into the red as benefits paid exceed contributions.” Frankly, for the life of me, I can’t imagine any rational person being in favor of expanding government any further into the lives of Americans than they already are. No thanks, I prefer that government keep it’s paws out of my pocket so someday I too might be “rich as is”.
Thanks for sharing your view.

“Obama/Biden… would seek to nationalize health insurance in America.”
Um… and you folks keep following that up with “so that a government bureaucrat would stand between you and your doctor…” Let’s compare that to the current system, which you guys approve of, since now, a corporate drone with a business degree (health care administration) stands between you and your doctor, for the sake of putting a corporation’s profits ahead of your healthcare needs.
As for me, I’d a whole lot rather have the government administering my healthcare than a for-profit HMO. At least then there would be accountability (oh wait– there’s been less and less accountability in government since the Republicans took over in 1980– and a LOT more looting. Maybe not.)

Please explain to me how Obama is more qualified to be President than Palin is to be Vice President?
Flashback 2004: Obama Says He Is Unqualified To Run For President
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=5BnLozS-TnM&eurl=http://rightwingnews.com/
Perhaps Obama can share with us what major changes have occurred during this time that he now believes himself prepared to be President of the United States. What are your qualifications?
Biden on Mccain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV14xqelWxY
False Internet claims and rumors fly about McCain’s running mate.
Summary
We’ve been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain’s running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading.
Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn’t cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.
She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a “What if?” question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin’s first term.
She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She’s been registered as a Republican since May 1982.
Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a “courtesy” when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state.
Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska’s schools. She has said that students should be allowed to “debate both sides” of the evolution question, but she also said creationism “doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.”
We’ll be looking into other charges in an e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis.
Correction: In our original story, we incorrectly said that a few of the claims we examine here were included in the e-mail by Kilkenny. Only one of the claims – about the librarian’s firing – was similar to an item in that e-mail. We regret the error.
Analysis
Since Republican presidential nominee John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, information about Palin’s past has been zipping around the Internet. Several claims are not true, and other rumors are misleading.
No Cut for “Special Needs” Kids
It’s not true, as widely reported in mass e-mails, Web postings and at least one mainstream news source, that Palin slashed the special education budget in Alaska by 62 percent. CNN’s Soledad O’Brien made the claim on Sept. 4 in an interview with Nicolle Wallace, a senior adviser to the McCain campaign:
O’Brien, Sept. 4: One are that has gotten certainly people sending to me a lot of e-mails is the question about as governor what she did with the special needs budget, which I’m sure you’re aware, she cut significantly, 62 percent I think is the number from when she came into office. As a woman who is now a mother to a special needs child, and I think she actually has a nephew which is autistic as well. How much of a problem is this going to be as she tries to navigate both sides of that issue?
Such a move might have made Palin look heartless or hypocritical in view of her convention-speech pledge to be an advocate for special needs children and their families. But in fact, she increased special needs funding so dramatically that a representative of local school boards described the jump as “historic.”
According to an April 2008 article in Education Week, Palin signed legislation in March 2008 that would increase public school funding considerably, including special needs funding. It would increase spending on what Alaska calls “intensive needs” students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years. Palin’s original proposal, according to the Anchorage Daily News, would have increased funds slightly more, giving intensive needs students a $77,740 allotment by 2011.
Education Week: A second part of the measure raises spending for students with special needs to $73,840 in fiscal 2011, from the current $26,900 per student in fiscal 2008, according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development.
Unlike many other states, Alaska has relatively flush budget coffers, thanks to a rise in oil and gas revenues. Funding for schools will remain fairly level next year, however. Overall per-pupil funding across the state will rise by $100, to $5,480, in fiscal 2009. …
Carl Rose, the executive director of the Association of Alaska School Boards, praised the changes in funding for rural schools and students with special needs as a “historic event,” and said the finance overhaul would bring more stability to district budgets.
According to Eddy Jeans at the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, funding for special needs and intensive needs students has increased every year since Palin entered office, from a total of $203 million in 2006 to a projected $276 million in 2009.
Those who claim that Palin cut special needs funding by 62 percent are looking in the wrong place and misinterpreting what they find there. They point to an apparent drop in the Department of Education and Early Development budget for special schools. But the special schools budget, despite the similar name, isn’t the special needs budget. “I don’t even consider the special schools component [part of] our special needs funding,” Jeans told FactCheck.org. “The special needs funding is provided through our public school funding formula. The special schools is simply a budget component where we have funding set aside for special projects,” such as the Alaska School for the Deaf and the Alaska Military Youth Academy. A different budget component, the Foundation Program, governs special needs programs in the public school system.
And in any case, the decrease in funding for special schools is illusory. Palin moved the Alaska Military Youth Academy’s ChalleNGe program, a residential military school program that teaches job and life skills to students under 20, out of the budget line for “special schools” and into its own line. This resulted in an apparent drop of more than $5 million in the special schools budget with no actual decrease in funding for the programs.
Not a Book Burner
One accusation claims then-Mayor Palin threatened to fire Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books from the town library. Some versions of the rumor come complete with a list of the books that Palin allegedly attempted to ban. Actually, Palin never asked that books be banned; no books were actually banned; and many of the books on the list that Palin supposedly wanted to censor weren’t even in print at the time, proving that the list is a fabrication. The librarian was fired, but was told only that Palin felt she didn’t support her. She was re-hired the next day. The librarian never claimed that Palin threatened outright to fire her for refusing to ban books.
It’s true that Palin did raise the issue with Mary Ellen Emmons, Wasilla’s librarian, on at least two occasions, three in some versions. Emmons flatly stated her opposition each time. But, as the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (Wasilla’s local paper) reported at the time, Palin asked general questions about what Emmons would say if Palin requested that a book be banned. According to Emmons, Palin “was asking me how I would deal with her saying a book can’t be in the library.” Emmons reported that Palin pressed the issue, asking whether Emmons’ position would change if residents were picketing the library. Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny, who was at the meeting, corroborates Emmons’ story, telling the Chicago Tribune that “Sarah said to Mary Ellen, ‘What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?’ ”
Palin characterized the exchange differently, initially volunteering the episode as an example of discussions with city employees about following her administration’s agenda. Palin described her questions to Emmons as “rhetorical,” noting that her questions “were asked in the context of professionalism regarding the library policy that is in place in our city.” Actually, true rhetorical questions have implied answers (e.g., “Who do you think you are?”), so Palin probably meant to describe her questions as hypothetical or theoretical. We can’t read minds, so it is impossible for us to know whether or not Palin may actually have wanted to ban books from the library or whether she simply wanted to know how her new employees would respond to an instruction from their boss. It is worth noting that, in an update, the Frontiersman points out that no book was ever banned from the library’s shelves.
Palin initially requested Emmons’ resignation, along with those of Wasilla’s other department heads, in October 1996. Palin described the requests as a loyalty test and allowed all of them (except one, whose department she was eliminating) to retain their positions. But in January 1997, Palin fired Emmons, along with the police chief. According to the Chicago Tribune, Palin did not list censorship as a reason for Emmons’ firing, but said she didn’t feel she had Emmons’ support. The decision caused “a stir” in the small town, according to a newspaper account at the time. According to a widely circulated e-mail from Kilkenny, “city residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin’s attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter.”
As we’ve noted, Palin did not attempt to ban any library books. We don’t know if Emmons’ resistance to Palin’s questions about possible censorship had anything to do with Emmons’ firing. And we have no idea if the protests had any impact on Palin at all. There simply isn’t any evidence that we can find either way. Palin did re-hire Emmons the following day, saying that she now felt she had the librarian’s backing. Emmons continued to serve as librarian until August 1999, when the Chicago Tribune reports that she resigned.
So what about that list of books targeted for banning, which according to one widely e-mailed version was taken “from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board”? If it was, the library board should take up fortune telling. The list includes the first four Harry Potter books, none of which had been published at the time of the Palin-Emmons conversations. The first wasn’t published until 1998. In fact, the list is a simple cut-and-paste job, snatched (complete with typos and the occasional incorrect title) from the Florida Institute of Technology library Web page, which presents the list as “Books banned at one time or another in the United States.”
Update, Sept. 9: We have revised this section dealing with accusations that Palin wanted to ban books from Wasilla’s library to include more detail about what transpired at the time.
Closet Secessionist?
Palin was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party – which calls for a vote on whether Alaska should secede from the union or remain a state – despite mistaken reports to the contrary. But her husband was a member for years, and she attended at least one party convention, as mayor of the town in which it was held.
The party’s chair originally told reporters that Palin had been a member, but the official later retracted that statement. Chairwoman Lynette Clark told the New York Times that false information had been given to her by another member of the party after she first told the Times and others that Palin joined the AIP in 1994. Clark issued an apology on the AIP Web site.
The director of Alaska’s Division of Elections, Gail Fenumiai, confirms that Palin registered to vote in the state for the first time in May 1982 as a Republican and hasn’t changed her party affiliation since. She also told FactCheck.org that Palin’s husband, Todd, was registered with AIP from October 1995 to July 2000, and again from September 2000 until July 2002. (He has since been registered as undeclared.) However, the AIP says Todd Palin “never participated in any party activities aside from attending a convention in Wasilla at one time.”
There is still some dispute as to whether Sarah Palin also attended the AIP’s 1994 convention, held in Wasilla. Clark and another AIP official told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that both Palins were there. Palin was elected mayor of Wasilla two years later. The McCain campaign says Sarah Palin went to the 2000 AIP convention, also held in Wasilla, “as a courtesy since she was mayor.” As governor, Palin sent a video message to the 2008 convention, which is available on YouTube, and the AIP says she attended in 2006 when she was campaigning.
Didn’t Endorse Pat Buchanan
Claims that Palin endorsed conservative Republican Pat Buchanan for president in the 2000 campaign are false. She worked for conservative Republican Steve Forbes.
The incorrect reports stem from an Associated Press story on July 17, 1999, that said Palin was “among those sporting Buchanan buttons” at a lunch for Buchanan attended by about 85 people, during a swing he took through Fairbanks and Wasilla. Buchanan didn’t help matters when he told a reporter for the liberal publication The Nation on Aug. 29: “I’m pretty sure she’s a Buchananite.” But in fact, she wasn’t.
Soon after The AP story appeared, Palin wrote in a letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News that she had merely worn a Buchanan button as a courtesy to her visitor and was not endorsing him. The letter, published July 26, 1999, said:
Palin, July 26, 1999: As mayor of Wasilla, I am proud to welcome all presidential candidates to our city. This is true regardless of their party, or the latest odds of their winning. When presidential candidates visit our community, I am always happy to meet them. I’ll even put on their button when handed one as a polite gesture of respect.
Though no reporter interviewed me for the Associated Press article on the recent visit by a presidential candidate (Metro, July 17), the article may have left your readers with the perception that I am endorsing this candidate, as opposed to welcoming his visit to Wasilla. As mayor, I will welcome all the candidates in Wasilla.
Palin actually worked for Forbes. Less than a month after being spotted wearing the “courtesy” button for Buchanan, she was named to the state leadership committee of the Forbes effort. The Associated Press reported on Aug. 7, 1999:
The Associated Press, Aug. 7 1999: State Sen. Mike Miller of Fairbanks will head the Alaska campaign chairman for Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes, campaign officials said. Joining the Fairbanks Republican on the leadership committee will be Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, and former state GOP chairman Pete Hallgren, who will serve as co-chairs.
Still, after nine years, the truth has yet to catch up completely.
No Creationism in Schools
On Aug. 29, the Boston Globe reported that Palin was open to teaching creationism in public schools. That’s true. She supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor.
In an Oct. 25, 2006, debate, when asked about teaching alternatives to evolution, Palin replied:
Palin, Oct. 25, 2006: Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both. And you know, I say this too as the daughter of a science teacher. Growing up with being so privileged and blessed to be given a lot of information on, on both sides of the subject – creationism and evolution. It’s been a healthy foundation for me. But don’t be afraid of information and let kids debate both sides.
A couple of days later, Palin amended that statement in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, saying:
Palin, Oct. 2006: I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum.
After her election, Palin let the matter drop. The Associated Press reported Sept 3: “Palin’s children attend public schools and Palin has made no push to have creationism taught in them. … It reflects a hands-off attitude toward mixing government and religion by most Alaskans.” The article was headlined, “Palin has not pushed creation science as governor.” It was written by Dan Joling, who reports from Anchorage and has covered Alaska for 30 years.
That E-mail Author
Switching gears: Almost 100 readers have written to ask us if the many claims made about Palin in an e-mail written by someone named Anne Kilkenny are true. We can tell you that Kilkenny is a real person. (She was quoted by the Chicago Tribune, as we said above.) According to the New York Times, she’s a Democrat. According to Kilkenny herself, Palin “has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the City Librarian against Sarah’s attempt at censorship.”
We’re still analyzing Kilkenny’s claims, and we will be posting something on this soon.
—by Brooks Jackson, Jessica Henig, Emi Kolawole, Joe Miller and Lori Robertson
Sources
Sutton, Anne. “Governor signs revamped education package into law.” Anchorage Daily News, 28 Mar. 2008.
Holland, Megan. “Intensive needs funding examined.” Anchorage Daily News, 12 Jan. 2008.
Cavanagh, Sean. “Alaska Legislators Overhaul Funding.” Education Week, 29 Apr. 2008.
Joling, Dan. “Palin has not pushed creation science as governor.” The Associated Press, 3 Sept. 2008.
Hayes, Christopher. “Sarah Palin, Buchananite.” The Nation “Capitolism” Web site, 29 Aug. 2008.
Palin, Sarah. “Letters from the People.” Anchorage Daily News. 26 July 1999; 5B.
The Associated Press: “Forbes sets Alaska leadership team,” 7 Aug 1999.
Kizzia, Tom. “‘Creation science’ enters the race.” Anchorage Daily News, 27 Oct. 2006.
Paulson, Michael. “Sarah Palin on faith, life and creation.” The Boston Globe, 29 Aug. 2008.
Tapper, Jake. “Another AIP Official Says Palin Was at 1994 Convention.” ABCNews.com, 2 Sept. 2008.
Tapper, Jake. “Members of ‘Fringe’ Alaskan Independence Party Incorrectly Say Palin Was a Member in 90s.” ABCNews.Com, 1Sept. 2008.
Komarnitsky, S.J. “Wasilla Keeps Librarian, But Police Chief Is Out.” 1 February 1997. The Anchorage Daily News, 8 Sept. 2008.
Stuart, Paul. “FROM THE ARCHIVE: Palin: Library Censorship Inquiries ‘Rhetorical’.” 18 December 1996. Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, 8 Sept. 2008.
White, Rindi. “Palin Asked City Librarian Whether She’d Ban Books.” 7 September 2008. The Chicago Tribune, 8 Sept. 2008.

Gallup poll had John McCain ahead of Barack Obama by an astonishing 10 points among likely voters. A Washington Post poll had that lead at only two points, but clearly showed a McCain surge – especially among women. This wasn’t what Democrats were expecting when they left Denver – yet they have nobody to blame but themselves.
Obama’s toughest challenge has always been to connect with working-class swing voters. So attacking the poster child for small-town values, Sarah Palin, was a bad strategy.
No, Obama didn’t engage in the mass sneering at Palin – but he did fall into the trap of disrespecting her. When McCain chose her, the Obama campaign’s first response was to ridicule the size of her town. Then the candidate himself began referring to her as a “former mayor” when she is in fact a sitting governor.
When she retaliated (justifiably) by mocking his stint as a organizer, the Obama camp was clearly rattled. Obama himself actually began arguing about the importance of community organizing. His supporters amplified this cry – claiming Palin’s attack was a racist slur and passing around e-mails titled “Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor.”
Meanwhile, the rest of the country was probably wondering what being a community organizer has to do with being president.
Lured by the McCain camp, Obama supporters engaged in an argument about who had more overall experience – the top of the Democratic ticket or the bottom of the GOP ticket. This diminished Obama.
Meanwhile, the media lit up in all their cultural-elite splendor.
Alaska? they sneered. It has the population of Las Vegas! Funny how the coastal elite only sneers at red states with small populations. Howard Dean hailed from a blue state with almost the same population as Alaska and was a national phenomenon and front-runner for the presidency. Joe Biden’s Delaware has a similarly small population – but no mocking was forthcoming there.
Evangelicals will never vote for a woman who works! they declared. This from people who’ve likely never met an evangelical in their lives. They could barely contain themselves when they found out Gov. Palin’s daughter was pregnant, so sure were they that evangelicals would hang her from the highest tree. When evangelical leaders expressed support, there was a palpable disappointment that Palin or her daughter wasn’t branded with a scarlet letter.
They claimed that the Palin announcement was some desperate pick that came out of nowhere. Had they been doing their jobs, or even perusing The Weekly Standard or right-wing blogs, they’d have known that she was on the list.
Since they didn’t know anything about her, they started making things up. Anything that fit the caricature of a right-wing hypocrite was thrown up with, seemingly, no fact-checking.
They said she opposes contraception, when she said in a campaign debate that she is pro-contraception. They said she cut funding for pregnant teens, when she provided a massive funding hike.
They accused her of cutting funding for mentally disabled children, when she raised it 175 percent over the former administration. She was said to have been a member of the wacky Alaska Independence Party; The New York Times had to run a retraction.
Yes, she is Governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the Lieutenant Governor. No, she’s not currently Mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was Mayor of Wasilla, some years ago.
Yes, as Governor of Alaska, she’s the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard. And yes, her professional military subordinate is quite impressed with her in that role.
And yes, the New York Times says the job of Governor of Alaska is one of the harder, and more powerful, jobs in state government.
Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal.
Yes, she did giggle when someone called Lyda Green a “bitch.” Yes, Lyda Green is a cancer survivor. Yes, it was the same Lyda Green who tried to force a scheduling conflict that would make Palin miss her son’s high school graduation. Yes, this would also be the Lyda Green who complained no one had asked her about Palin during the vetting process.
Yes, she did push for and approve the Wasilla Sports Center. Yes, it did cost a lot of money. (People keep saying $20 million, that article says $14.5 million, but then they also added a $1.2 million dollar food service/kitchen piece. This year, after Palin was out of office as Mayor.) Yes, the city went into debt to do it (how did you buy your house, bunkie?) and raised the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay for it. Yes, the city is paying it off early. Yes, there is an ongoing dispute about title (following a struggle with the Nature Conservancy and another buyer. And yes, at the time it was built, Wasilla had a Federal judge’s decision that they had title to the land.
Yes, she did want authority to have wolves culled from the air, because they were taking too many moose and caribou. Which people hunt for food in the back country in Alaska. No, she isn’t shooting them herself. I mean, not that she couldn’t, but I’m sure she doesn’t have time. (Thanks to bluemerlin in the comments.)
No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol.
No, Track (the kid who is leaving for Iraq) didn’t join the NG because he was a drug addict. He may have joined the NG because he was tired of people saying his Mom was getting him into the good hockey leagues. (Yes, that one was original reporting. I’ve got sources in Wasilla.)
No, Willow and Piper aren’t named for witches on TV. Among other things, Willow was born before Buffy came on TV, and Piper was born before Charmed.
Yes, Trig’s name may be misspelled. Isn’t it usually “Tryg” as in “Trygve”? In any case, I doubt he’s named for the Secretary General of the UN (1948-1952), either. But at least that was before he was born, unlike the others.(Thanks to Chris, via his blog
Yes, it appears that she has a Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. She lost a bet.
No, she’s never been in any porn as far as anyone can find (and God knows I get enough google hits on those very topics.) I would think the Big Dipper tattoo would be a giveaway.
No, no one seems to be able to even find swimsuit pictures of her from her beauty queen days; God knows I looked. The bikini pictures that are around are photoshopped, just like the Vogue cover I have up.
No she wasn’t a member of the (wild-eyed libertarian) Alaska independence Party, although her husband once was
No, neither the (Canadian) National Post, nor Marc Armbinder at the Atlantic have troubled themselves to issue a correction. Yes, the New York Times did finally correct their story of September 1 — on September 5. And on page 14. This was after Elizabeth Bumiller was quoted by Howard Kurtz as saying she was “completely confident about the story.” Yes, that was after the New York Times’s source retracted the story. Yes, this should embarrass the Times, Bumiller, and Howard Kurtz. No, there have been no signs of embarrassment.
No, she was never a Pat Buchanan supporter; even when Buchanan claims she was, she was on the board of Steve Forbes’a campaign in Alaska. Yes, Palin was a Steve Forbes supporter in 2000.
No, she’s not anti-semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office. (Contrary to popular belief, the usual Evangelical thinks Israel has a right to exist, granted by God.)
No, I don’t think she’s being “indoctrinated by Lieberman and AIPAC as we speak”; I don’t get the feeling that being indoctrinated is something that Palin does well.
Yes, it seems unlikely that she’s going to be in hiding for the next two weeks seeing as she’s been in rallies twice in the last two days. Or at least it’s going to be real rough, given that she has three media interviews scheduled today (6 September) alone.
Yes, it does appear that Palin’s local pastor preached about an end time when God will judge everyone, even Wasilla, Alaska, and the United States. Duh. This is called the Book of Revelations, and while I don’t believe it personally, I don’t see it as a disqualifier for the hundred million or so Baptists, Methodists, Evangelicals, Episcopalians, Catholics, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, Lutherans (traditional and Missouri Synod), African Methodist, and so on Christians in the US.
Yes, I do sometimes wonder about the state of Andrew’s health.
No, she’s doesn’t believe that the Iraq War was directed by God. Yes, she did pray that proceeding with the war was God’s will: “they should pray ‘that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.’” (Ever hear the phrase “Not my will, but Thine, be done”?) Yes, this apparently freaks some people right out.
No, Buchanan doesn’t support her now; in fact he’s supporting Obama. (Buchanan did think her speech was amazing, but then so do 80 percent of the people who saw it.) Or maybe not. Buchanan sure doesn’t like McCain though.
Yes, she was apparently pregnant when she got married
No, so far there’s no confirmation she had an affair while she was married, and they’ve denied it pretty strongly. No, she wouldn’t be the first Christian woman who got a little on the side, if it were true.
No, she wasn’t named as a co-respondent in a divorce; there’s no evidence she had an affair with her husbands’ business partner. The partner tried to have his divorce records sealed because he was being harrassed by journalists who used them to get his phone number.
Yes, barring immaculate conception virgin birth (whatever), Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed.
Yes, I have it on reliable report that Sarah Levi’s mom has been heard screaming “Way to go Levi!” at her future son-in-law son. No, it doesn’t appear to have been when Bristol broke the news to her family.
Note: I originally understood this story to be about Sarah, not Levi’s mom, in the context of hockey games. As such, it’s shouldn’t be in a Sarah Palin Rumors story, but I like the story too much to delete it.
yes, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant; no, the baby’s father is not an eighth grader; no, having sex at 16 is not statutory rape in Alaska. And no, there’s no way that a 17 year old can be 5 months pregnant as a result of having sex before she was 16. Learn to count for God’s sakes.
yes, she did fire the public safety guy — but he said in the Anchorage paper that, for the record, she never, and no one else in her administration ever, tried to make him fire her ex-brother-in-law
and yes, the state trooper (her sister’s ex-husband) she was worried about did: tase her 10 year old nephew; drive his state patrol car while drinking or drunk; did threaten to “bring her down”; and did threaten to murder her father and sister if they dared to get an attorney to help with the divorce.
yes, the state trooper was suspended when he was put under a court protective order
no, the trooper wasn’t fired
yes, she did fire the Wasilla Chief of Police as Mayor; yes, it was because he was lying to the City Council.
Yes, she did try to cut her own salary as Mayor by $4000 a year; yes, she had voted against the $4000 a year raise while on the City Council.
No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.
No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent.
yes, she did try, clearly unsuccessfully, to get Bristol married off to her fiancee before the story came out
yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes, it was “rhetorical”, at least as was reported contemporaneously in 1996[1] ; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute
No the list of books she wanted to ban that’s being passed around isn’t real; among other things, it includes a number of books published after her time in office there.
No, that hasn’t actually deterred people from claiming it really is true even if the list isn’t correct. For example:
“This list might not in fact reflect the books Sarah Palin wanted banned. As more than one person in Comments has pointed out, some of them were not published when Palin was in office. It is my hope that the mainstream media will not let this story drop and that at some point an actual list will surface. The very thought of having someone who once advocated book-banning possibly occupying one of the highest offices of our land fills me with profound dread. It should fill you with dread too.”
No, I don’t understand why a fake list is supposed to fill me with dread, either.
no, it wasn’t won’t be [bad tense, hasn't happened yet] a shotgun wedding; Bristol and Levi been engaged for a good while according to Levi’s mother. It was either an accident or just an unconventional order.
yes, she’s an was an Assembly of God Holy Roller. No, she doesn’t attend an AoG church now. Yes, she did leave the AoG because they were getting too weird for her.
No, she’s not anti-Mormon. No, not all AoG churches are anti-Mormon. (AoG is even more hard-core about allowing each pastor and congregation to make their own decisions than the Baptists are.) (Thanks to AnonAmom in the comments.)
No, she’s not from another planet. No, I haven’t actually heard that one yet, but you wait. Okay, I have now heard it.
yes, she apparently believes in some variant of Intelligent Design
no, she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it; she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate.
No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
Yes, she did smoke marijuana, when it was legal in Alaska. Yes, she apparently did inhale.
yes, she kills animals and eats them, and wears their skins
yes, she was a beauty contest contestant
yes, she was once a sportscaster
yes, she has a college degree in Journalism, but I won’t hold that against her, as she seems to have found honest work as well
yes, she sometimes wears her hair up; no that’s not a “beehive”
yes, her husband is Not A White Person (he’s a Yup’ik; an Eskimo but not an Inuit as my Inuit cousins have taken some pains to explain)
yes, she has on occasion, as Mayor, tried to get money from the federal government.
yes, she did finally turn down the money for the bridge. Yes, that meant changing her mind about it.
yes, she was vetted extensively, not just in three days — I’ve got links to press reports about people coming to Wassila on 29 May, and we had her on our Veepstakes at PJM from the first day we ran it.
yes, she want to a bunch of colleges before getting a degree. No, that’s not illegal. Yes, she seems to have made something of herself anyway.
no, they didn’t talk to a lot of the R’s power structure during the vetting; that probably has to do with the fact that she beat them in elections and sent a bunch of them to jail.
Yes, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was written by a speechwriter. Duh. No, none of Obama’s, McCain’s, nor Biden’s speeches were impromptu off the cuff things either.
Yes, she did put the Governors plane on eBay. No, that’s not how it was finally sold. Yes, McCain did say it wrong. Bad McCain.
No, Sarah Palin doesn’t have such control of Alaskans that people are afraid to say bad things about her. (What, are you nuts? Look at this list.) No, I don’t think it’s likely that she called Obama “Sambo”. (Good God, man, I’m ten years older than she and I barely remember “Little Black Sambo.”) Yes, it seems unlikely to me that she’s be real racist and marry a Yup’ik (or a part Yup’ik.) But yes, people are capable of amazing things. Yes, I’m sure there are people who don’t like her — I’ve talked with some myself. And no, I don’t think this waitress would have been thrilled to be called an “aboriginal”. And yes, if she called Hillary a “bitch”, I’m pretty confident is wasn’t the first time anyone in politics has said that.
No, she’s not a “global warming denier”, and when the crush dies down remind me to explain why the very phrasing “global warming denier” is anti-scientific, anti-intellectual, and a clear sign of a desire to impose your beliefs by coercion. But in the mean time, while I do believe that she has expressed some skepticism that warming is wholly human-caused, the existence of the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet and the Alaska Climate Change Strategy work demonstrate that she’s considering the problem and has brought together people more expert than she to advise her.
Yes, Todd Palin did have a DUI. Twenty-two years ago. Get a grip.
No, Sarah Palin’s brother isn’t in jail. No matter what the commenter at Anderson Cooper’s page says. (Thanks to Galynn in comments.)
Yes, Sarah Palin’s pastor apparently does believe that gays can “repent” and be cured of homosexuality. No, believe it or not, even fundamentalist Christians don’t have to believe every litle thing their pastor believes. Yes, Palin seems to be more libertarian about this.
Yes, contrary to press reports, Sarah Palin’s mother-in-law plans to vote for her and the R ticket (on Inside Edition this evening.)
No, the fact that some 17 year old was arrested for malicious mischief at the right time doens’t mean Track Palin was. Goddamn, Josh, have you no shame at all?

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are more or less the same age, but Governor Palin has run a state and a town and a commercial fishing operation, whereas (to reprise a famous line on the Rev Jackson) Senator Obama ain’t run nothin’ but his mouth.
Sarah Palin has actually run a business and a state government. Mr. Obama hasn’t even run so much as a hot dog stand.
So let’s take a look at what Sarah Palin has done in government. What are her accomplishments?
There is no government closer to the people than at the municipal level. Palin spent eight years in city government, winning a seat on the Wasilla City Council in 1992 mostly thanks to her opposition to tax increases. She went on to serve two council terms from 1992 to 1996. She was elected mayor of the fast-growing Anchorage suburb in 1996 and again in 1999. Mayor Palin had a record of reducing property tax levels, increasing municipal services and attracting new industry to her town. During her tenure in Wassilla, she was elected chair of Alaska’s conference of mayors.
Next for Sarah Palin was service as chair of the Alaska Conservation Committee, a board which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. In this appointive position she began to gain what would become extensive and valuable knowedge and experience in the area of one of America’s most pressing issues – energy. It was in this job where Palin first really demonstrated the toughness, political courage and maverick spirit that would years later so impress presidential candidate John McCain.
She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.
State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. But she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who’d been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.
In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn’t. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.
By standing up to the corruption in her own party, as Barack Obama failed to do in Chicago, Palin showed McCain that he had a kindred spirit up north in America’s 51st state.
In 2006, Palin ran for governor and was elected in a landslide.
With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, “it turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly,” wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. She was also lucky. News broke of an FBI investigation of corruption by legislators between the primary and general elections. So far, three legislators have been indicted.
In the roughly three years since she quit as the state’s chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals.
“The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called “Voice of the Times,” which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.
As governor, Sarah Palin’s list of accomplishments lengthened rapidly. She used her line-item veto to cut $268 million from Alaska’s state budget.
She stood up to some of Alaska’s most entrenched interests, including three big oil companies (BP, ConocoPhilips, and ExxonMobil) who hold the lease rights to much of Alaska’s oil and gas wealth:
Once in office, Palin took an aggressive stance toward the oil companies. Her nickname from high-school basketball, “Sarah Barracuda,” was resurrected in the press. Early in her term, she shocked oil lobbyists when she was so bold as to not show up when Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson came to Juneau to meet with her. Palin, after scrapping Murkowski’s deal, would not give Big Oil the terms they wanted, yet insisted that the companies still had an obligation under their lease to deliver gas to whatever pipeline Alaska built. She invited the oil companies to place open bids to build a pipeline, but they refused. A bid by TransCanada, North America’s largest pipeline builder, was approved by the legislature in August.
Palin also raised taxes on oil companies after Murkowski’s previous tax regime produced falling revenues in 2007, despite skyrocketing oil prices. Alaska now has some of the highest resource taxes in the world. Alaska’s oil tax revenues are expected to be about $10 billion in 2008, twice those of previous year. BP says about half its oil revenues now go to taxes, when royalty payments to the state are included. Earlier this week, Palin approved gas tax relief for Alaskans, and paid every resident $1,200 to help ease their fuel-price burden.
To be sure, it would be an overstatement to brand Palin as an enemy of Big Oil. Her husband works as a production supervisor for BP. And her support for drilling in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Reserve, as well as exploiting Alaska’s natural gas resources, certainly won’t endear her to environmentalists. “Personally, I have respect for the industry,” she said in an interview with Fortune last year, “for the contributions it’s made to our state … and great respect for what their CEOs are doing. We know their mission, to take as much as possible and leave as little behind.”
But it does take a special person to go from small-town mayor and hockey mom to standing up to the world’s biggest corporations. Despite a stint as chairman of the state’s Oil and Gas Commission, she’d never done business on a remotely similar stage. When Fortune last year asked Palin if she was intimidated, she said simply, “No. Being reasonable commercial operations, I expected the Big Three will act responsibly.”
In that same interview, she said she intended to change Alaska’s relationship with “the lower 48.” She saw part of her responsibility as delivering her state’s natural gas to those hungry markets. “We’re still too reliant on the federal government,” she said. She canceled Alaska’s support for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” a proposed $320 million bridge to sparsely populated Gravina Island, that Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for public corruption, famously included in the federal budget.
Palin was also critical of Washington’s attitude towards the pipeline project. She said last year she had written a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney asking for help with the pipeline, but didn’t receive a response. President Bush did send an envoy to Alaska to help get the project going, but Palin still felt the approval process was unwieldy. “So many federal agencies and permitting processes,” she told Fortune. “It’s mind-boggling.”
Fearlessly battling corrupt Alaskan politicians is one thing, but not allowing Big Oil to push her over is quite another. There’s little wonder McCain was so impressed with this young but highly accomplished governor.
She has proven herself to be a fierce, knowledgeable, and articulate advocate of responsible development of Alaskan resources to benefit not only its own residents — who actually pay among the nation’s highest gasoline prices and have the least access to affordable and clean natural gas — but also the other 49 states. Palin recognizes that this is not just a matter of economic necessity, but ultimately of national security.
Lest one start thinking that Governor Palin is some sort of green-tinged liberal, she has spoken out and brought suit to prevent radical environmentalists from exploiting the issue of naming the polar bear as an endangered species. She’s a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, and she has proven, by both word and deed, to be one of the fiercest defenders of human life. Palin is the most popular governor in the United States, and she achieved that honor by making good on her campaign promises.
Some other Palin accomplishments include supporting and signing an ethics bill passed by the Alaska legislature and creating the Alaska Health Strategies Planning Council to find innovative solutions to effectively provide access to, and help reduce the costs of, healthcare.
As governor, Palin is commander of her state’s National Guard. Not content to merely sit on the title, she travelled to Kuwait to learn about her troops’ mission there. On the return trip to Alaska, she stopped in Germany to to visit wounded soldiers in the hospital, an activity that Barack Obama did not see fit to engage in during his own overseas venture, blaming the Pentagon for his snubbing of the wounded.
More accomplishments: Gov. Palin signed a resolution in opposition to the FAA’s plan to increase taxes on aviation fuel, impose user fees and slash airport funding. And speaking of general aviation, before Palin became governor, her predecessor Frank Murkowski had purchsed a Westwind Two business jet for the governor’s use at a $2.5 million price tag, despite the objections from the state legislature and the public. Her first order of business after taking office was to put the jet up for sale.
Palin did keep the governor’s state-owned Chevy Suburban, but she got rid of the dirver, saying it was wasteful for the state to pay someone to drive her around, since she was perfectly capable of driving herself. The governor’s gourmet chef also got changed from a full-time to a seasonal-only basis because Palin considered it a luxury she didn’t think Alaskans should be paying for. Her political enemies called all this “superficial pandering.”
Alaska is the only one of America’s 57… er, make that 50 states which borders on two foreign countries. Sarah Palin is chief executive of our most important energy state, one which lies only a few miles from Russian territory. She has negotiated sensitive agreements on fishing rights and other matters to keep the peace up there. She’s also worked on important trade deals with other countries. She has received foreign heads of state and had discussions with them. Her counterpart on the Democrat ticket, Joe Biden, is touted as something of a foreign policy expert, but he has advocated such radical and bizarre notions as partitioning Iraq by religion and sending a no-strings-attached $200 million check to Iran. Palin may not have the long resume of the Senator from Delaware, but neither has she ever advanced such foreign policy foolishness.
There are many benefits to having Governor Sarah Palin on the GOP presidential ticket, and many of them have been already been discussed extensively by both new media and old in the few short days since John McCain introduced her to the GOP faithful in Ohio. They all rest on a rock-solid base of achievement. She is one very accomplished vice presidential nominee.
Obama talks the talk, but Palin walks the walk.

Matt Damon should stick to his acting and keep his political comments to himself.

I think you guys are too excited about her because she is a woman. Isn’t it unfair to ask a woman who has been raped or the victim of incest to bear the child. I do not trust her, not for a second. Aerial wolf killing is cruel and she will be a terrible person to have in office with the state of the environment as it is now

I too am doubtful of her, Why like someone and trust them to handle the intense affairs of the world JUST because she is a woman. I think she was really mean in her speech and had a tinge of sadistic cruelty. I don’t like her dirty politics and hiding behind the fact that she is a woman. I mean she will not even give interviews to her supporters, she just keeps repeating the lines she said at the convention. I heard it is not even true that she was against the bridge to nowhere and they kept the money anyway, each alaskan gets 3k a year, !! i think she is queen of pork. I do not approve of lying, it is not christian.

emma lichtenberger should stick to watching matt damon movies and keep her political comments to herself.

Excellent information in your posts, Sam. The truth stings…well done! Keep up the good work!

michello…thanks for sharing your opinion and views.
1) On what do you base your accusation that Sarah Palin plays “dirty politics”?
2) What has Sarah Palin done that causes you to assert she is “hiding behind the fact that she is a woman.” For goodness sakes, name a woman who you beleive has a more feminine image than she does?
3) You state that “each alaskan[sic] gets 3k a year”. Not sure where you obtained that information? Perhaps you are referencing the Alaska Permanent Fund (“APF”), a constitutionally established fund that was created in 1976)? One of the 3 primary segments of that fund is known as the Permanent Fund Dividend. That dividend program benefits Alaskans without a felony conviction who have resided in the state for at least one calendar year preceding the date applied for a dividend and intend to remain an Alaska resident indefinitely at the time applied for a dividend. The 2008 fund divididend amount is $3,269.00 and includes a one time $1,200.00 Alaska Resource Rebate.
The Anchorage Daily News reported in article written by WESLEY LOY and published August 9, 2008 that Scott Goldsmith, an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research, explained that the Alaska Resource Rebate is possible because Alaska “…is a state so rich it is able to avoid state income or other broad taxes and still send shares of its oil wealth directly to its citizens.” Goldsmith also noted that “a primary reason why Gov. Sarah Palin proposed the rebate and legislators supported it was to help people cope with huge spikes in fuel and heating costs, particularly in remote Bush Alaska.” THE $3K EACH ALASKAN GETS THIS YEAR DID NOT RESULT FROM BRIDGE TO NOWHERE FUNDS AND HAS NO CONNECTION TO PORK BARREL ACTIVITY.
It’s wild, reckless, and factually incorrect allegations and statements such as those you posted that a) causes so much confusion among voters, and b) that only serves to dirty the political landscape.
It appears to me that the dirt is one you…
Best Regards…Mike

Biden is a perfect politician – experienced, intelligent, wise. But that’s it. When Palin came to stage, and “PalinMania” started, Biden became invisible. So rumors claim, that Biden will officially “resign because of health problems”, and Obama will invite Hillary to join his fight against Palin. Because she, and no longer McCain, is Obama’s biggest problem now. http://www.votetheday.com/polls/obama-is-dumping-biden-269