Sarah Palin is an idiot!

The Sad Defense of Sarah Palin’s Botched History

2011-06-05T07:18:00.000-07:00

-E.D. Kain

Various Sarah Palin defenders have come out of the woodwork to defend her mangling of that most American of tales, the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

The crux of their defense is an obscure letter that Revere wrote in 1789 that has been preserved by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Here’s the key bit:

I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back,and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from,& what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up. He imediately rode towards those who stoppd us, when all five of them came down upon a full gallop; one of them, whom I afterwards found to be Major Mitchel, of the 5th Regiment, Clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name, & told me he was going to ask me some questions, & if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.

Setting aside the likelihood that this is a letter Palin has actually read, the fact still remains that the story of Paul Revere that Americans know and love is one of Revere riding across the countryside alerting the colonists that the redcoats were coming.

This is one of the key stories of the American Revolution, as much legend as history at this point. Nobody references Paul Revere being waylaid by British soldiers and warning them that the Americans were coming. If you answer a question about Paul Revere you talk about his ride, you recite Longfellow. You don’t babble incoherently about warning the British unless you happen to be a half-term former governor of Alaska who simply can’t be bothered to learn a little bit of American history.

I mean, surely Palin could have hired a few tutors between the 2008 debacle and now, right? Does she really honestly think she can just scrape by without spending any time off the publicity circuit? Maybe a course at Khan Academy, or a few hours in a library?

In any case, nobody needs yes men. At least no serious candidate. Maybe her supporters should stop defending her every foible and help her with her education instead.

It sure couldn’t hurt.

P.S. Just to clarify, my broader point is that Palin neither described the famous legend of Paul Revere as told in Longfellow’s poem, or the actual historical events. She mangled the facts (and mangled the syntax much more ferociously) and now her defenders are digging up an obscure story not even relevant to the history itself and holding it up as though Palin knew exactly what she was talking about. This is ludicrous.

"Blood Libel" Remark from Palin Sparks Controversy

2011-01-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

Posted by Stephanie Condon

Sarah Palin responded in a video this morning to the criticism she has received in the wake of the Tucson shooting, but many people today have been more interested in her choice language than the actual substance of her video response.

"Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence that they purport to condemn," Palin said in the video.

She was referring to the criticism she received over her use of images of crosshairs to "target" certain lawmakers during the midterm election cycle.

As the New York Times' Michael Shear explained, "By using the term 'blood libel' to describe the criticism about political rhetoric after the shootings, Ms. Palin was inventing a new definition for an emotionally laden phrase. Blood libel is typically used to describe the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. The term has been used for centuries as the pretext for anti-Semitism and violent pogroms against Jews."

The use of that phrase sparked some commotion in the Jewish community and spurred others to come to Palin's defense. While the term has deep connotations, there are other examples of its use in a modern political context.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the left-leaning Jewish political group J Street released a statement saying he was "saddened" by Palin's use of the term "blood libel."

The term, he said, "brings back painful echoes of a very dark time in our communal history when Jews were falsely accused of committing heinous deeds. When Governor Palin learns that many Jews are pained by and take offense at the use of the term, we are sure that she will choose to retract her comment, apologize and make a less inflammatory choice of words."

The Anti-Defamation League released a statement that in part defended Palin, saying she had "every right to defend herself against these kinds of attacks." However, the group said, "we wish that Palin had used another phrase, instead of one so fraught with pain in Jewish history."

Former Bush White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition's board of directors, did not address Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel," but said, "It it would have been even better if she simply rose above the accusations about her map and focused entirely on the bigger message of loss, tragedy and the greatness of our country.

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who often comments on Israeli affairs, came to Palin's defense, saying that the term has "taken on a broad metaphorical meaning in public discourse." Dershowitz said he has used the term himself to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report. He added, "There is nothing improper and certainly nothing anti-Semitic in Sarah Palin using the term to characterize what she reasonably believes are false accusations that her words or images may have caused a mentally disturbed individual to kill and maim."

Ben Smith of Politico also points out that the phrase has been used in a political context before. For instance, the New York Post used it in a 1999 headline "after Hillary Clinton stood by as Suha Arafat accused the Israelis of 'daily and intensive use of poison gas' against Palestinian women and children," Smith reports.

Conservative pundit Glenn Reynolds used the phrase in a Wall Street Journal op-ed just two days ago.

Palin's Korea Mixup: "We Gotta Stand With Our North Korean Allies"

2010-11-24T13:56:00.000-08:00

KTLA News
12:39 p.m. PST, November 24, 2010

Palin was asked during an interview with how she would handle the current situation between North and South Korea.

NEW YORK -- Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin accidentally mixed up North and South Korea during a radio interview Wednesday.

Palin was asked during an interview with Glenn Beck how she would handle the current situation between North and South Korea.

"Obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies," she said. "We are bound to treaties."

A few moments earlier Palin had correctly identified North Korea as an adversary, not an ally.

"We aren't having a lot of faith that the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is gonna do."

Debate about the nation's policy in Korea has been fueled by North Korea's recent barrage on the island of Yeonpyeong that killed two South Korean civilians, two marines and wounded 18 others in what U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called one of the "gravest incidents" since the Korean War.

Donald Trump considers taking on Palin in presidential bid

2010-11-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

11/18/10 - USA Today

By Evan Agostini, AP

Donald Trump is getting more serious about his run for the presidency in 2012.

"I am thinking about things," he told George Stephanopolous in an interview on Good Morning America this morning. "I love what I'm doing, but it could be fun because I'd like to see some positive things happen for the country. ... We cannot let the rest of the wrold beat us up. We're like a whipping post right now."

Trump, who said last month he was considering running, launched a website - shouldtrumprun.com - on Friday to gauge interest in him as a candidate. He said on GMA he is a Republican and would run as a Republican.

What about Sarah Palin? "She's very interesting. Don't underestimate her," he said. So, he'd be running against her? "If I ran, I would have no choice. I'd take her on. I like her, but I'd take her on." Trump said he will make a decision by June.

Sarah Palin: I Could Beat President Obama in 2012

2010-11-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

November 18, 2010 | Poll Vault

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has been named one of Barbara Walter's 10 Most Fascinating People of 2010. During the special, set to air December 9, Palin said she has a shot at becoming the first female US President.

"I'm looking at the lay of the land now," Palin said. "Trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing."

When asked by Walters if she could beat President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, Palin replied, "I believe so."

Sarah Palin, the Truth Called. It Wants Its Books Back

2010-10-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

John Shore
Award-winning author and blogger

Being honest is a good starting point in building trust. - Sarah Palin

On a Barnes & Noble display table I came across yesterday, a short stack of the paperback edition of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue.

(You know how at a Barnes and Noble, or at any big bookstore, they have all those books displayed on tables? No one who works at the store decided to put those books where they are. Book publishers pay a great deal of money to have their books so displayed. The closer the table is to the front of the store, the more it costs. Rather than honest recommendations, those books represent paid advertising space. Isn't that... special?)

I've never before looked at Palin's book. But in passing it yesterday, I noticed that on its cover, following Palin's name, there was no "with" or "and."

You know, as in "with Lynn Vincent," or "and Lynn Vincent." As in acknowledging Lynn Vincent, who was Palin's co-author on the book.

Everyone in the book business knows that Lynn Vincent had a great deal to do with writing Going Rogue. And few if any of them at all sweat that; they all know that it's practically unheard of for Famous People to write their own books. Writing is, after all, exceedingly difficult -- so difficult, in fact, that it's a given that no one has time to master writing and do whatever they did to make themselves famous enough for a publisher to gamble that they can make a lot of money from a book with their name and face on its cover.

Besides, who really cares about the writing of a book? That's a detail handled readily enough. You can always hire someone (like me, actually) to tend to that for you.

Though a book's denoted author and publisher might naturally enough care to downplay the fact that it had a co-author, they always at least acknowledge that co-author. You see it on the cover of countless books: [Famous Person -- in big type] with or and [person you've never heard of -- in small type]. (By the way, there's a world of difference between that with and and. But... too much detail, I'm sure.)

If a publisher and author really want to hide a co-author's involvement with a book, they can include the co-author's name nowhere on the book besides its copyright page. But that's the bare minimum acknowledgment. Outside of using invisible ink, there's no lesser way to include a co-author's name.

Lynn Vincent -- who, again, was, shall we say, extremely instrumental in the writing of Going Rogue -- didn't even get that. Her name's most definitely not on the book's cover -- and on the book's copyright page (which you can view right here) it says nothing but "Copyright, 2009, Sarah Palin."

That's it. One author listed. (And that is the author's call, by the way. If Palin wanted Lynn Vincent's name on the cover or copyright page of her book, you can trust it would be there.)

It's no secret that Lynn Vincent's writing was literally indispensable to Going Rogue. While Vincent was working on that book, she and I were both on the "faculty" of a Christian writer's conference. She was the full-on rock star of that conference: she was collaborating on Sarah Palin's much-awaited book!

She actually knew Sarah Palin! In fact, she had actually left being holed up with Palin to attend the conference! Sarah Palin was actually waiting for her to get back!

Can you imagine what that's like to a bunch of would-be (Christian) authors? People were positively swooning around Ms. Vincent, who seemed a nice person. Very sweet.

She did, however, tell us in no uncertain terms that she wasn't free to say much if anything about Going Rogue. She intimated that its publisher had made it very clear she'd be in hot water if she did.

Here is Lynn Vincent's personal Web site, which she uses to promote her services as a co-author.

The most famous book she's ever worked on -- one of the best-selling books in the country -- isn't even listed.

I'm no particular fan of Sarah Palin's; I think she's no more suited for public office than I am to being a prison guard. And if she ever gets elected to anything more than winkin' slogan-slinger, I'd be very happy to be proven wrong about that.

But this is a woman who sells herself on how forthright, and morally upstanding she is. And yet, she's very clearly done virtually all she can to take full credit for a book she didn't even write -- one that's all about her.

Palin has a new book out next month: America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag. It "celebrates the enduring strengths and virtues that have made this country great."

Though acknowledging that America by Heart will have a collaborating writer, this time around HarperCollins (who also did Going Rogue) is keeping entirely mum about that writer's identity.

They do, however, assure us that the book is written in Palin's "own refreshingly candid voice."

[Update: I've just learned that Lynn Vincent's name does appear in Going Rogue. At the end of the book, under Acknowledgments, in the middle of the fourth paragraph down (after Palin has thanked thirty-seven other people -- and a few sentences down from "I appreciate the opportunity to write a book!"), we read, "Thanks as well to Lynn Vincent for her indispensable help in getting the words on paper." I'm actually astounded more by such a buried, cursory, and calculatingly dismissive reference to the book's ghostwriter (what a difference there is between writing and helping to "get the words on paper"), than I was to think that Palin had chosen to simply ignore Vincent altogether.]

Watch Sarah Palin Desecrate a Flag

2010-10-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

A Guardian reporter interviewed Sarah Palin while she was giving autographs to her fans. Sarah put her Sharpie marker on a book, a hat, and an American flag. The latter of which is against the law!

Salon blogger Emma Mustich caught the flag desecration at 1:35 in the below video. Palin autographs a star-spangled banner, then waves it and smiles.

According to extant law, "The flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." Rallying against flag desecration is a perennial right-wing rabble-rousing technique, but I have it on good authority that Sarah Palin—who once wrote a book about "family, faith, and flag"—had her fingers crossed when she did this, so it's probably fine. Just stand in front of a mirror at midnight and chant "Bloody Hussein Obama" three times, and all sins against state will disappear.

Whither Sarah Palin? (And four other storylines to watch in today's primaries)

2010-08-24T06:38:00.000-07:00

By Chris Cillizza | August 24, 2010; 7:44 AM ET

With Arizona, Alaska, Florida, Vermont and Oklahoma voters heading to the polls in the last major primaries of the summer, we at the Fix are turning our Morning Fix over to five storylines to keep an eye on in these states.

1. Whither Palin?: Outside of the candidates actually on the ballot today, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin probably has the most to gain or lose in the results.

Palin has endorsed four candidates running today: Sen. John McCain, Joe Miller in the Alaska Senate race, Allen West in Florida's 22nd district and Paul Gosar in Arizona's 1st district.

Out of that quartet, McCain and West look like sure winners and Gosar is favored. Palin deserves real credit for helping McCain weather a difficult patch in his primary race against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth; she campaigned for her 2008 ticketmate back in the spring when he appeared to be in genuine peril, testifying to his conservative bona fides.

Palin's endorsement successes today will likely be overshadowed by a likely failure in Alaska where Miller, an attorney, looks to be headed to a convincing loss against Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R).

Palin's decision to wade into the primary race in her home state was always somewhat puzzling. Murkowski is not beloved among all Alaska conservatives but neither did she create the sort of animosity within the base that a Sen. Bob Bennett, for example, did in Utah.

Many neutral observers chalked up Palin's decision to get involved in the race to a longstanding tension between the Murkowskis and the Palins; Palin beat Murkowski's father, Frank, in the 2006 gubernatorial primary.

Whatever the reason, a Miller defeat is sure to be painted as a blow for Palin with the "she can't even get someone elected in Alaska" storyline too obvious for most of the media to resist.

And, it comes at a time when Palin's endorsement strategy -- to the extent that one exists -- has fallen on hard times. Since June 8 when Palin-endorsed candidates Carly Fiorina in California and state Rep. Nikki Haley in South Caroline won contested primaries -- wins clearly aided by the former Alaska governor's support -- her preferred candidates have struggled.

Palin has endorsed 13 candidates in primaries since June 8 and has just three wins (Tom Emmer in the Minnesota governor's race, Mary Fallin in the Oklahoma governors race and John Koster in Washington's 2nd district) to show for it. Her candidates have lost high profile governor's races in Georgia and Wyoming during that time.

Palin won't likely get the credit she deserves for stabilizing McCain and will get more blame than is fair for Miller's expected loss. But, with the narrative already being built that her endorsement power is waning, a defeat in her own political backyard won't be helpful to her 2012 prospects.

2. Self Funders' Fates: The Florida Democratic Senate race and Republican gubernatorial primary each feature a free-spending self-funder trying to use millions to get to the party nomination.

Businessman Rick Scott in the Republican gubernatorial primary seems to have the better chance and had spent more money while billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene, who is running in the Democratic Senate race, has been hamstrung by amazingly bad press.

Both men jumped into their respective races late in the game (in Greene's case, mere hours before the filing deadline) and both have the kind of baggage that would sink most typical candidacies; Greene has had to contend with a steady drip of negative press surrounding his financial dealings and lavish lifestyle, while Scott has fended off
questions about a fraud scandal surrounding his former company, Columbia/HCA.

But as demonstrated by their spending, neither man could be described as a "typical" candidate. Scott has pumped nearly $40 million into his bid against state Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) while Greene has poured $23 million into his race against Rep. Kendrick Meek (D).

Self funders have a short -- and not very successful history in the state and Greene seems almost certain to wind up not making a very good investment in himself. Polling is all over the place in the governor's race and those following the race closely acknowledge either man could win.

If both Scott and Greene lose, they'll serve as evidence of a storyline that's played out in
countless other races: even spending vast amounts of money on TV advertisements can be enough to overcome severe weaknesses as a candidate.

3. Party Unity: Given the nastiness of the two Florida races, party unity will be a buzzword come Wednesday morning as each contest will be hotly contested this fall.

For Republicans, McCollum has the backing of most of the party establishment and Scott has down everything he can to thumb his nose at the institutional forces lined up behind his opponent.

The Republican Governors Association has stayed out of the race, but it took the unusual step last week of calling on Scott to take down an ad that tied McCollum to indicted former state Republican Party chairman Jim Greer -- a move that signals that national Republicans have become increasingly worried that Scott's attacks crossed the line.
Recent polling suggests that the extended and nasty attacks that McCollum and Scott have traded have hurt both men. The latest Quinnipiac poll showed Scott's unfavorable rating at 40 percent; McCollum wasn't much better at 37 percent.

If Scott wins, how quickly -- if at all-- will state (and national) Republicans rally
around him given that state CFO Alex Sink (D) is gaining momentum thanks to the bruising GOP primary ? What will the RGA do? (Worth noting: One plus for the RGA if Scott wins is that his ability to self-finance may save the committee some tough financial decisions in the very expensive Sunshine State.)

Meanwhile, Greene has tried to score political points by highlighting the fact that Meek has yet to say whether he would support the billionaire if he wound up as the nominee. (Meek -- again -- refused to say in an appearance on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown" yesterday whether he'd support Greene as the nominee.

Greene failed to gain any traction on the issue, however, and given that he seems headed to a double-digit loss today, it's likely a moot point.

More interesting is what -- if anything -- national Democrats do in the immediate aftermath of Meek's win to show whether or not they will put any money behind his candidacy in the fall. Our betting is they ultimately won't spend money in a race they remain unconvinced he can win -- but they may not make that decision public right after a Meek win.

4. Do Republicans get their preferred candidates?: A number of House candidates with either the overt or behind the scenes backing of the national Republican party face very tough primaries on Tuesday.

Washington Republicans have been rooting for businessman Bruce O'Donoghue to win the primary and with it the right to face 8th district Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). Ditto businessman Craig Miller or Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel in the primary to face 24th district Rep. Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.), former state Sen. Jonathan Paton to face Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and dentist Paul Gosar to face Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz).

O'Donoghue faces someone the national GOP initially tried to recruit - former state Sen. Daniel Webster - among others. But O'Donoghue has struggled on the campaign trail, while Webster has the backing of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Miller and Diebel (also backed by Huckabee) are both at the second stage of the NRCC's "Young Guns" program for top candidates, but a third candidate, state Rep. Sandy Adams, could factor into the race.

In Arizona, Paton faces Iraq veteran Jesse Kelly, and Gosar who has the endorsement of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, faces a bevy of Republicans, including 2008 nominee Sydney Hay.

Florida state Rep. David Rivera, who is a top member of the Young Guns program, is not expected to have a problem winning the GOP nomination in the state's 25th district, which Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) is vacating to run for the 21st district of his retiring brother and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R). But Rivera has run into problems in recent days and Democrats will likely seize on any sign of weakness in a battleground open seat were 2008 nominee Joe Garcia will be the party's nominee.

5. Incumbents likely safe: No incumbents are expected to lose today. Nonetheless, it will be worth watching to see how four of them - Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) - fare.

McCain has blown former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) out of the water with a $21 million primary spending blitz. A July poll showed McCain leading by 35 points. It's hard to see him winning by that much given the deep animosity within some segments of the GOP base toward him but anything beyond 20 points would be a pretty strong statement.

Murkowski is in a pretty similar situation. She hasn't spent near as much as McCain, but attorney Joe Miller hadn't even crested $200,000 in spending in his pre-primary report with the Federal Election Commission.

Boyd, who holds a conservative Florida Panhandle seat, has taken a McCain-like approach to his primary challenge from state Sen. Al Lawson who is black; the inucumbent has dropped $2.2 million on the race so far although much of Boyd's spending has been geared toward a tough impending general election race.

Young, who nearly lost his 2008 primary to now-Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, looks to be in stronger shape this time around. He faces businessman Sheldon Fisher, who has spent about one-quarter of the $600,000 Young has dropped on the race. Young also got a boost earlier this month when the Justice Department dropped its investigation of him.

Sarah Palin Blames Environmentalists For Gulf Oil Disaster

2010-06-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

In her latest note on Facebook, Sarah Palin is blaming "extreme 'environmentalists'" for causing the gulf oil disaster that has been unfolding for over a month. Her logic is that because environmentalists push for tougher drilling regulations onshore in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (also known as ANWR) it forces oil companies to explore deeper offshore drilling which has more risks.

Palin writes:

With [environmentalists'] nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you're doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet. Your hypocrisy is showing. You're not preventing environmental hazards; you're outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.
Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It's catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.

You can read her full note on Facebook here.

This is one of several comments about the oil spill Palin has made that has caused a stir, including a tweet in which she said we said we shouldn't trust BP because it is a foreign oil company. Palin's husband Todd worked for BP for 18 years.

Sarah Palin Says "Drill, Baby, Drill" Was Right, Backs Alaska Senate Challenger

2010-06-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

Posted by Brian Montopoli

Sarah Palin today took to social networks to make the case that the GOP slogan "Drill, baby, drill" was right despite the oil leak in the Gulf - and to endorse a challenger to an Alaska senator with whom she has had a rocky relationship.

Palin wrote the following on Twitter: "Extreme Greenies:see now why we push'drill,baby,drill'of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

What Palin appears to be arguing is that is that the oil spill shows that it makes sense to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which, she suggests, is safer than offshore drilling.

Of course, Palin has always maintained that offshore drilling is safe - and has in fact called for such drilling to be expanded.(She later expanded on the argument, writing to environmentalists that "Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas.")

On Facebook, meanwhile, Palin posted an endorsement of Senate challenger and former federal Magistrate Judge Joe Miller. Miller is taking on Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary.

"I share Joe's belief that we are at a critical time in our nation's history and the status quo will no longer do," she wrote. "Unfortunately, Lisa Murkowski and much of the political establishment have recently evolved into being a bigger part of the big government problem in Washington, and they've strayed from the principles upon which they had espoused."

Palin, whose political action committee had donated to Murkowski's campaign, denies in the post that there is "some sort of feud or bad blood between Lisa and myself." But it's worth noting that the two are not exactly close: When Palin resigned as Alaska governor midway through her term, Murkowski put out a very terse statement about how she was "disappointed" that Palin quit on Alaskans.

And that's not where the differences began: Palin gained the governorship by defeating Lisa Murkowski's father Frank, the Republican incumbent, in the 2006 election. More recently, the two split over John Bitney, Murkowski's current campaign manager.

As CBS News' Scott Conroy reports, in her book "Going Rogue," Palin describes Bitney, who orchestrated her successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign and went on to become a top aide in her administration, as hopelessly inept, after the two had a personal falling out. Palin even goes as far as to denigrate Bitney, who remains well respected in Alaska politics, as "a Blackberry games addict who couldn't seem to keep his lunch off his tie."

Speaking of Murkowski in her Facebook post, Palin writes, "I've always wished her well, but it is my firm belief that we need a bold reformer who is not afraid to stand up to special interests and take on the tough challenges of our time. Joe Miller has stepped forward."

"Joe is unashamedly and unequivocally pro-life; Lisa is not and has voted to use taxpayer funds to support abortions and embryonic stem cell research," Palin writes. "Joe is against granting amnesty to illegal immigrants; Lisa has voted for it. Joe is against cap and trade...Lisa believes Al Gore's insistence that man-made global warming is fact, so she's on record as being open to cap and trade legislation to address weather changes."

"These are just some of the major differences between these two candidates," she adds. "I believe Joe is the better choice for Alaskans."

Palin: Obama Would Ban Guns If He Could

2010-05-14T14:35:00.001-07:00

by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin warned NRA members Friday that President Obama wants to gut the Second Amendment and told a separate gathering that "mama grizzlies" will help Republicans win this November, sweeping away the Democratic agenda.

Palin, a potential 2012 presidential candidate, told National Rifle Association members during their annual meeting that the only thing stopping Obama and his Democratic allies from trying to ban guns is political backlash.

"Don't doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment," said Palin, a lifelong NRA member who once had a baby shower at a local gun range in Alaska. "It's the job of all of us at the NRA and its allies to stop them in their tracks."

Palin, the GOP's 2008 vice presidential nominee, also praised tea party activism as a "beautiful movement," drawing a rousing applause from thousands of NRA members who gathered in an arena used by the NBA's Charlotte Bobcats.

During an event earlier Friday in Washington sponsored by an anti-abortion group, she challenged Republican women to help the GOP "take this country back" and elect anti-abortion lawmakers. She praised female leaders of the tea party movement and invoked the 2008 acceptance speech where she compared herself to a pit bull.

"You don't want to mess with moms who are rising up," Palin said at the Susan B. Anthony List event. "If you thought pit bulls were tough, you don't want to mess with mama grizzlies."

Palin said she understood how some women might consider abortion, citing her own experiences as the mother of a child with Down syndrome and the parent of an unwed teen mother. Last year, Palin said that "for a fleeting moment" she considered having an abortion when she learned of her son Trig's prognosis.

But she said Friday that abortion is morally wrong and women should carry a fetus to term.

"It may not be the easiest path, but it's always the right path," she said.

She said Obama is "the most pro-abortion president ever to occupy the White House" and asserted that the health care law would fund abortions.

In fact, Obama's health care law would not allow federal dollars to pay for elective abortions. Catholic hospitals and organizations of Catholic nuns backed the measure. U.S. Catholic bishops and major anti-abortion groups opposed it, arguing that federal dollars could end up paying for abortions.

Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY's List, said Palin talks a good game, but her version of what American women want doesn't honor freedom and independence. She mentioned the Democratic lawmakers whom Palin had targeted for their votes for health care overhaul.

"First she puts targets on their back, then she wants the government in their bedrooms — what is Sarah Palin doing to Western women?" said Schriock. EMILY'S List helps candidates who back abortion rights.

Palin also criticized the media, singling out their coverage of her daughter Bristol, whose pregnancy was announced days after Palin was named the vice presidential nominee. Bristol Palin is a single mother who works on an abstinence-only campaign.

She said some young women would see what happened to Bristol and perhaps be encouraged to seek an abortion instead of facing similar criticism.

Palin also said Friday that the United States should continue to drill for oil despite the Gulf spill. She made the comments in an interview with ABC News.

Sarah Palin: American Law Should Be 'Based On The God Of The Bible And The Ten Commandments'

2010-05-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin joined Fox News's Bill O'Reilly recently to condemn the critics of the National Day of Prayer, saying that the Judeo-Christian belief was the basis for American law and should continue to be used as a guiding force for creating future legislation.

According to Palin, the recent backlash against the National Day of Prayer is proof that some people are trying to enact a "fundamental transformation of America" and to "revisit and rewrite history" in order to shift the Christian nation away from its spiritual roots.

Palins's advice: "Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant -- they're quite clear -- that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.

"What in hell scares people about talking about America's foundation of faith?" Palin continued. "It is that world view that involves some people being afraid of being able to discuss our foundation, being able to discuss God in the public square, that's the only thing I can attribute it to."

Palin had also recently criticized the decision to dis-invite the Rev. Franklin Graham from a Pentagon prayer service over concerns about his past inflammatory rhetoric about Islam, saying it was driven by a desire to be overly politically correct.

WATCH the interview:

Sarah Palin 2012 Opposed By Majority Of Alaskans

2010-05-11T13:13:00.000-07:00

Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

A majority of Alaskans would oppose Sarah Palin if she were to run for the presidency in 2012, according to some intriguing if not surprising poll numbers released on Tuesday.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Alaska found 48 percent of respondents said they would not vote for their former governor in a 2012 presidential election. Just 41 percent said they would vote for Palin. Eleven percent said they were undecided.

Rasmussen posits that Alaskans generally are worried that a Palin presidential candidacy would be bad for the state's image -- pointing to 45 percent of respondents who said her candidacy would reflect negatively on the state. By and large, however, the numbers seem to be a reflection of the deep unease the state has with its once beloved governor, who has become a far more divisive and partisan figure since being tapped as John McCain's running mate. Fifty percent of Alaskans had an unfavorable view of Palin (including 37 percent who had a "Very Unfavorable" view).

On a separate front, public opinion does seem to be trending in the president's favor. A poll released by Public Policy Polling, found that, for the first time since October, a majority of Americans expressed approval with the job that Barack Obama is doing.

Fifty percent gave him good marks while 46 percent expressed disapproval. PPP suggests that the numbers may be due in part to the end of the heated health care debate (though the favorable/unfavorable numbers of the legislation passed by congress remain largely the same). Another factor, it seems like, has been generally good news on the labor front, with the economy adding 290,000 jobs in the month of April.

Discarded Palin contract sparks investigation

2010-04-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

By ROBIN HINDERY
Associated Press Writer

A document fished out of a California state university trash bin last week has prompted a state investigation into the university's foundation arm and its refusal to disclose details related to Sarah Palin's upcoming speech at the school.

On Tuesday, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said his office would look into the finances of the California State University, Stanislaus Foundation, as well as allegations that the nonprofit organization violated public disclosure laws by keeping details of Palin's contract secret.

Palin is scheduled to speak at a June 25 gala hosted by the foundation to mark the university's 50th anniversary.

Brown's investigation was prompted, in part, by a group of CSU Stanislaus students who retrieved five pages of the contract from a campus trash bin last Friday after hearing administrators were engaged in shredding documents.

The contract detailed the former Alaska governor's requirements for her visit, including first-class flights from Anchorage to California - if she flies commercial. If not, "the private aircraft MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger ...," the contract specifies.

Palin also must be provided with a suite and two single rooms in a deluxe hotel near the campus in Turlock in the Central Valley. During her speech, her lectern must be stocked with two water bottles and bendable straws.

The document, dated March 16, does not include compensation details for Palin, who commands speaking fees as high as $100,000. Her appearance at the university gala is expected to draw a large crowd, with tickets selling for $500 each.

"This is not about Sarah Palin," Brown said in a prepared statement Tuesday. "The issues are public disclosure and financial accountability in organizations embedded in state-run universities."

The foundation has previously denied requests by The Associated Press and state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to disclose Palin's compensation package under the California Public Records Act.

Foundation board president Matt Swanson did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Brown's investigation. He previously told the AP that the contract's strict nondisclosure clause prevented him from sharing it, and that university foundations and other auxiliary organizations were not subject to the same public records requirements as the university itself.

Swanson has said Palin's fee and accommodations will be covered entirely by private donations, not state funds.

Jason Recher, a spokesman for Palin, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The students who found the contract document said they acted on a tip that documents were being shredded at the campus administration building on a day when staff members were supposed to be on furlough.

Alicia Lewis, 26, was one of the students who went to investigate. The building was locked and gated, but the students were able to retrieve piles of paperwork, including the contract document, from a nearby trash bin, Lewis said.

Russell Giambelluca, the university's vice president of business and finance, said Tuesday that no one at the university was advised to destroy specific foundation documents, and staff members routinely shred and dispose of paperwork that is no longer needed.

Regarding the excerpt of Palin's contract, he said: "I find it interesting that among shredded documents you find one that's completely intact related to the contract."

Lewis and another student, Ashli Briggs, traveled to Sacramento Tuesday to give Brown office material they said had been thrown out, including two boxes of documents and two trash bags filled with shredded files.

"This is our little Watergate in the state of California," Yee said Tuesday.

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/04/13/1874927/calif-students-find-palin-contract.html#ixzz0l6dDz5MY

dope

2010-03-30T15:09:00.001-07:00

Sarah Palin Avoids Traditional Prep for 2012 Run

2010-03-30T15:06:00.000-07:00

Posted by Brian Montopoli

Sarah Palin may be keeping in the public eye, but behind the scenes she isn't keeping up with her rivals when it comes to laying the groundwork for a potential 2012 presidential run: Palin has largely avoided recruiting the fundraisers that have traditionally been necessary for a serious run at the White House.

That isn't to say she hasn't stayed involved in politics: Palin last week stumped for her former running mate John McCain, and she has continued to weigh in on issues on her Facebook page. She has also unveiled a so-called "target list" of vulnerable Democrats her political action committee is looking to defeat in November and made regular appearances as a contributor on Fox News.

But while potential GOP primary rivals Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty work behind the scenes to garner institutional support from within the Republican Party, Palin has opted to focus largely on other affairs, including her planned television show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska."(She is also hosting a Fox News special Thursday night called "Real American Stories."

Romney is currently on what amounts to a sort of warm-up presidential run, selling his new book at appearances around the country. The latest stop: Iowa, traditionally the first state on the primary and caucus calendar, where he hosted a fundraiser for the state Republican Party and met with the state GOP chairman.

Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota, has been on the road more than one of every three days during the state's latest legislative session, according to Minnesota Public Radio. Most of the trips have been for political purposes, including fundraising and speeches criticizing the Obama administration.

Palin, by contrast, has largely opted to give paid speeches and has sought the mantle of the Tea Party movement, with which the GOP continues to have an uneasy relationship. She made news Tuesday when a group demanded to know how much she was being paid for a planned speech at California State University.

Palin's inner circle remains small and notably devoid of representatives of establishment Washington Republicanism, with the exception of Fred Malek, who was the finance chairman of John McCain's 2008 campaign. Her apparent new press contact, Doug McMarlin, is a partner at a consulting firm based in Ohio who is not as plugged into the Washington media scene as the communications directors for Romney and Pawlenty.

This isn't to say the Palin isn't planning a run -- or even, in an unconventional way, positioning herself for one, potentially on the backs of the Tea Party protesters who have been the most energized segment of the American electorate for the past year.

But at this point she has very little institutional support among Republicans, and that may not bode well for a run at the White House. In 2000, John McCain ran for the White House as a GOP outsider and was ultimately defeated by the establishment candidate, George W. Bush. When he decided to run in 2008, McCain determined that he could not win without winning over the establishment -- and he promptly set out to do so.

As the race for the Republican 2012 presidential nomination heats up, keep an eye on Palin to see whether she makes the same calculation.

Palin Crossed Border For Canadian Health Care

2010-03-09T13:52:00.001-08:00

Sam Stein – Mon Mar 8, 12:26 pm ET

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- who has gone to great lengths to hype the supposed dangers of a big government takeover of American health care -- admitted over the weekend that she used to get her treatment in Canada's single-payer system.

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada," Palin said in her first Canadian appearance since stepping down as governor of Alaska. "And I think now, isn't that ironic?"

The irony, one guesses, is that Palin now views Canada's health care system as revolting: with its government-run administration and 'death-panel'-like rationing. Clearly, however, she and her family once found it more alluring than, at the very least, the coverage available in rural Alaska. Up to the age of six, Palin lived in a remote town near the closest Canadian city, Whitehorse.

Officials at several hospitals in that area declined to give out information on patient visits.

Colbert: "Sarah Palin Is A F--king Retard" (VIDEO)

2010-02-09T06:57:00.000-08:00

Using Sarah Palin's defense of Rush Limbaugh against her, last night Stephen Colbert proudly pronounced that "Sarah Palin is a f--king retard."

After mocking Palin's speech at the Tea Party Convention (taking the obligatory jabs at the notes on her hand) Colbert moved on to Palin's reaction to Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retard." Palin not only called for his Emanuel's firing, but also defended Rush Limbaugh's use of the word, deeming it acceptable because it was satire.

After playing the clip of Limbaugh's "subtle" satire, Colbert jumped on the opportunity that his own satirical show presented. An opportunity to call Palin a "f--king retard." Colbert added that her reasoning also explained the note on her other hand: "Retard = sometimes funny."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/09/colbert-sarah-palin-is-a_n_454744.html

Sarah Palin Hand Notes Earn Criticism

2010-02-09T06:54:00.000-08:00

By Meena Kar
Nashville, Feb 9, (THAINDIAN NEWS)

The former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who was the candidate for vice-presidential race has come under the limelight, after making a speech during the National Tea Party Convention, on Saturday. As per the reports, the veteran Republican, who had mocked President Barack Obama for his dependence on teleprompter scripted the main points of her Tea Party speech on hand. It has been reported that Sarah Palin, who presented a brilliant speech to motivate people referred to her hand notes so that she does not forget the main issues that she needs to highlight on the occasion.

Reports indicate that people who had gathered to listen Sarah Palin’s speech had not noticed that she had jotted down some notes on her hand. It has been reported that some media representatives noticed this brilliant act of the politician and snapped photographs. When they zoomed the images, they had found some words like, “Lift Americans Spirits”, “Tax”, “Budget Cuts” and “Energy” were written on her palm. The news that Sarah Palin had scripted the major highlights of her speech on hand, once again indicated her as an ‘unorganized’ politician, who is not sure of what she needs to say, when she addresses her countrymen in a meeting.

Sarah Palin is one of the most prominent Republican politicians of the country and it is quite surprising that she used notes while addressing people in a meeting. Though the reports that Sarah Palin referred to hand notes in the Tea Party Convention speech has gained huge attention, no one has yet made any comment on this issue. Sarah Palin also has not responded to this news.

The Nation: Fox's New Star, Sarah Palin, May Be Dim

2010-01-13T07:55:00.000-08:00

by JOHN NICHOLS

January 13, 2010
Here's another notion with regard to Sarah Palin:

Maybe it isn't fair to focus on her mean-spirited and ridiculously partisan statements.

Maybe it isn't right to harp about her wildly irresponsible assessments of political foes — and even of former political allies.

Maybe it isn't wise to note all of her missteps and misstatements as if they are evidence of a cavalier approach to politics and governing.

Maybe, just maybe, Palin is doing the best she can.

Maybe the woman who has just signed on as a Fox News contributor is not quite the bright star her supporters imagine and her critics fear. Maybe she is just a little bit dimmer than we thought.

That's the clear implication of the passages in the new book of the 2008 presidential election, Game Change, by veteran political reporters John Heilemann (New York magazine) and Mark Halperin (Time magazine).

In the book, and in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview, 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain's senior adviser, Steve Schmidt, describes Palin as a stunningly inept and ill-prepared contender for the vice presidency.

Schmidt portrays a rushed process that saw the selection of a political neophyte who was essentially ignorant regarding U.S. history and "a broad spectrum of national-security issues."

"Her foreign policy tutors are literally taking her through, 'This is World War I, this is World War II, this is the Korean War,'" Heilemann explained on "60 Minutes." "This is the — how the Cold War worked. Steve Schmidt had gone to them and said, 'She knows nothing.'"

Palin either did not know truth from fiction, or did not care to distinguish the two, according to Schmidt.

"There were numerous instances that she said things that were — that were not accurate that ultimately, the campaign had to deal with," the McCain aide recalls. "And that opened the door to criticism that she was being untruthful and inaccurate. And I think that that is something that continues to this day."

As an example, Schmidt reflected on Palin's response to an official inquiry that detailed her ethical lapses as governor of Alaska: "She went out and said that, you know, 'This report completely exonerates me.' And in fact, it didn't. You know, it's the equivalent of saying down is up and up is down. It was provably, demonstrably untrue."

McCain aides who were preparing the first-term governor of Alaska for her sole debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee, Joe Biden, were reportedly horrified by Palin's ignorance and lack of focus.

Schmidt recalled a frantic staffer calling his after failed attempts to ready the party's nominee for a face-off with one of the most experienced members of the U.S. Senate.

"(The aide) told us that the debate was going to be a debacle of historic and epic proportions," Schmidt said. "He told us she was not focused. She was not engaged. She was really not participating in the prep."

Among the problems: Palin was unable to remember Joe Biden's name.

Confusing the Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees, Palin constantly referred to Biden as "O'Biden."

Conscious of the threat of new Tina Fey parodies on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," McCain aides came up with a strategy to avoid having Palin mention Biden's last name.

"It was multiple people — and I wasn't one of them — who all said at the same time, 'Just say, "Can I call you Joe?",' which she did," recounts Schmidt.

Even with the ruse, Palin still referred to her opponent as "O'Biden" at one point in the debate.

So how did Palin end up on the GOP ticket?

McCain and his aides had been leaning toward Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-Independent who backed the Republican nominee, as a prospective running mate. But they feared rabidly right-wing delegates might revolt on the convention floor and divide the party.

McCain's campaign manager trolled the Internet – paying special attention to YouTube videos – in search of a woman who might make a good running-mate. He stumbled across a video of a peppy Palin, liked what he saw, and things progressed rapidly from there.

With almost no vetting, Palin was added to the ticket.

She reacted calmly to this remarkable development, telling Schmidt it was "God's plan."

How did the plan work out?

Schmidt would not say whether he made a mistake, although he suggests that a "Palin for President" run in 2012 would be a nightmare for the GOP.

Rather, the McCain aide suggests that Palin ultimately helped by energizing the party's conservative base. "I believe, had she not been on the ticket our margin of defeat would've been greater than it would've been otherwise," says Schmidt.

On this point, he is half right.

Palin was, undoubtedly, a more appealing running-mate than Lieberman. But what if McCain had picked someone who could speak boldly and effectively about economic issues from a corporate and managerial perspective, such as former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney? Wouldn't that have helped when the economy melted down two weeks after the GOP convention concluded?

Or what if McCain had picked a genuine maverick, like South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, who might have steered the campaign toward opposition to what turned out to be an exceptionally unpopular bailout of big banks and Wall Street speculators? Wouldn't that have helped the Republicans build a more muscular campaign than the suggestion that it would be cool to have a "hockey mom" one heartbeat away from an aging president?

Of course, there will be Palin defenders who want to suggest that she really is a smart cookie.

But their case is undermined by Palin's whiny (and ghost-written) autobiography, as well as her bumbling mid-term exit from Alaska's governorship.

In the end, Democrats should probably hope that GOP diehards dismiss the warnings coming from Schmidt and other McCain aides and proceed with their Palin passion.

But the latest revelations suggest that Americans, no matter what their partisan affiliation or ideology, would be wise to consider the prospect that the Republican party and the republic might be better served by a 2012 nominee who could remember how to pronounce Joe Biden's name.

Millionaire Palin Still Begging Money from the Public - New Ethics Complaint Filed

2009-12-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

Jeanne Devon ("AKMuckraker") Proprietor of The Mudflats, Contributing author Going Rouge - An American Nightmare
Posted: December 8, 2009 11:58 PM

Those of you playing at home and counting ethics complaints filed against Sarah Palin on your fingers and toes are about to run out. Yesterday, another ethics complaint was filed against the almost one term ex-governor by her one-time political ally, Republican Andrée McLeod.

This particular complaint addresses Palin's legal defense fund, hubristically named "The Alaska Fund Trust." Back in July, we learned through a separate ethics complaint which spawned an investigation, that the very existence of the Alaska Fund Trust is most likely a violation of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. The report of the independent investigation found its way to the media.

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.
An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the "official" legal defense fund.

So what did the ex-governor and her long-time friend Kristan Cole, trustee of the AFT do after they received the report? Nothing. The Alaska Fund Trust website is unbelievably still taking donations. They're still holding out the tin cup and accepting those $5 donations from little old Grannies to pay off Palin's six-figure legal debt, while the supposed beneficiary of the money is jetting around the country promoting her best-selling book "Going Rogue" and raking in the millions. But, please... keep those donations coming.
The latest ethics complaint addresses this lack of response on the part of the Trust and the ex-governor, whom the AFT website still refers to as "current governor Sarah Palin." News flash folks! She quit five months ago, in case you weren't paying attention.

"Palin continues to compromise the integrity of our Governor's Office," says McLeod. "She continues to misuse her official position even though she was told it is wrong to do. What we have is the epitome of a culture of corruption. Why do public officials permit Palin to get away with bad behavior? Why does justice not prevail on the side of the people in the follow through of what has already been established as an unscrupulous pot of money? We still don't know how much has been collected during her term and who's been paid from the fund. Why does the administration continue to protect and defend Sarah Palin, even when she's caught, red-handed, selling out the Office of the Governor?"

There always seem to be more questions than answers.

Read the entire document ----> Dec 09 Palin Legal Defense Fund complaint

Palin: 'My heart goes out to Huckabee'

2009-12-08T15:13:00.000-08:00

Posted: December 8th, 2009 04:18 PM ET

From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

Washington (CNN) – Sarah Palin said in a recent radio appearance that Mike Huckabee made a "horrible decision" nine years ago to commute the prison sentence of the man suspected of killing four police officers in Washington, but she added that her "heart goes out" to the former Arkansas governor.

In an interview last week with conservative radio host Lars Larson, Palin called the murders "tragic" and "unfathomable."

"It was a bad decision obviously, but my heart goes out to Huckabee," the former Alaska governor said. "I love him, and I feel bad for him to be in this position. But I feel even worse for the victim's families in this situation. I do feel bad for Huckabee, but it was a horrible decision he made."

Huckabee has said he regrets the decision to commute the sentence of the suspected shooter, Maurice Clemmons, but said he thinks he made the right assessment at the time. Palin said she had never pardoned or granted clemency to prisoners when she served in Juneau.

"I don't have a whole lot of mercy for the bad guys," she said. "I'm on the good guys' side."

Pressed on her political ambitions, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee would not rule out a third party run at the White House in 2012.

"That depends on how things go in the next couple of years," she said. "It really does depend. There are enough Republicans who are realizing, 'Oh whoops, some of us liberal republicans have screwed up.' And I'm not including myself in that group, but some liberal Republicans have screwed up."

Palin said her decision rests on whether or not the GOP does a better job of appealing to its conservative base.

"If the Republican Party gets back to that base, I think our party is going to be stronger and there's not going to be a need for a third party, but I'll play that by ear in these coming months, coming years," she said.

Sarah Palin Gets Booed

2009-11-23T07:14:00.000-08:00

By DAVID WEIGEL 11/20/09 10:50 AM

It’s the dark side of the media sensation book tour: the disappointed fans who, in the age of YouTube and blog comments, have louder voices than ever. Liberal blogger Kevin K. at Rumproast has video and angry comments from Sarah Palin fans. One angry comment:

Went to the book signing in Noblesville, IN. Waited three hours in the cold to get a wristband to reserve my spot at the book signing tonight. We were told she would sign book for the first 1000 people. Not so. The event ended promptly at 9:00pm, though there were still at least 150 people left. Wasted my day, wasted money on a babysitter, and wasted my money on this book.

The video (after the jump) of the scene in Noblesville is even worse. “You want somebody who’s gonna be quittin’ on the job?” yells one heckler. “Right there! Quittin’ on the job.”

Tony Hicks: Sarah Palin, why have you forsaken us?

2009-11-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

By Tony Hicks
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 11/06/2009 01:00:00 AM PST
Updated: 11/06/2009 07:14:15 AM PST

Sarah Palin is going on a three-week tour this month, promoting her new book "Going Rogue."
Sadly, she's skipping us namby-pamby, latte-slurping, plastic-bag-recycling, no-declawing-our-cats, liberal fruit bats here in California. Which, when you think about it, isn't very rogue at all.

No stops are planned in such big population areas as Seattle and Philadelphia either, where voters tend to be Democrats. Unless her book sales depend on voter registration percentages, that just doesn't compute, since there's easily more conservatives who would buy her book two at a time in the Bay Area and Los Angeles than places like Grand Rapids, Mich.

Never mind for a second that, a bit more than a year ago, this lovely woman from the great state of Alaska (it is, really, I've been there — try the salmon) aspired to represent and serve us all as vice president, and will likely try to do so again as a presidential candidate. If she wants to spread the Grand Old Party's word in a book, wouldn't it make sense not to worry about preaching to the conservative choir in Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa.; and Rochester, N.Y. and go after some of us plant-kissers?

Palin can't be that worried about not being liked. Not if she's going on that commie Oprah Winfrey's show Nov. 16.

We need to build a case for Palin to come and see us in California, where we have a lot of respect for hot grandmas. There are a couple ways to do this. Either we convince her "Going Rogue" could be a morbid curiosity among some Democrats who secretly yearn to learn how to gut a moose. Or we make her feel welcome by demonstrating there are more than enough conservatives here to make the trip worthwhile (apparently no one from HarperCollins has ever been to Danville).

As a fan of airing various viewpoints (i.e., democracy), I prefer the latter. Let's make Sarah Palin feel welcome by reminding her that, according to last year's election, California doesn't like gay marriage either.

Let's remind her we have a Republican governor who used to kill people in movies. And a lot of these people, suspiciously, looked like Middle Eastern terrorists.

Speaking of Republican governors and quality filmmaking, doesn't she realize California has a Ronald Reagan library?

Like Alaska, we have oil wells in Southern California. And we can decimate a salmon population with the best of 'em.

Her tour stops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. If that's her demographic, we have 27 military bases in California, including six in and around San Diego, which is really nice this time of year. They have a great zoo and a 1,800-acre park full of wild animals where, maybe if she asks nicely, they'd let her shoot a few.

She's going to Michigan, where she and running mate John McCain lost to President Obama last year. Among the reasons her book rep Tina Andreadis gave for going to Grand Rapids was that "Barnes & Noble has a great store there."

What, we don't have great Barnes & Nobles in California? We have one in Pleasant Hill that's so big I lost one of my kids there in July and I still haven't found her.

We even have our own bridge to nowhere that, like Palin and her bridge, some Californians were in favor of it before they were against it. We call it the new Bay Bridge which, when stuff stops falling off it, should be complete around the time we all have hovercars to get across the Bay.

California is big enough, and diverse enough, to welcome Sarah Palin with open wallets "... if she'd only be rogue enough to give us a chance.

Reach Tony Hicks at thicks@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Read his blog, "Insert Foot," at www.ibabuzz.com/insertfoot.

Sarah Palin's Brutal Education

2009-11-10T06:59:00.000-08:00

CBSNews.com Exclusive: An Excerpt from "Sarah From Alaska" -- a New Book Telling the Inside Story of Palin's Campaign for VP

(CBS) In "Sarah From Alaska," Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe draw on their experiences as embedded campaign reporters, the many weeks they spent reporting in Alaska during Palin's last days as governor, and exclusive interviews with almost 200 former McCain/Palin staffers, top political minds, friends, and foes in Alaska to tell the remarkable behind-the-scenes story of Palin's political career and the events leading to her surprising resignation.

The authors share new insights and bring to light illuminating stories from Palin's governorship and vice presidential campaign. Read the excerpt below, which includes a prescient remark that Palin made to senior campaign aides after her debate with Joe Biden and revealing emails that demonstrate how she worked behind the scenes to try to convince the campaign's top strategists not to give up on winning the state of Michigan, much to their annoyance.

Scott Conroy is a digital journalist for CBS News, and Shushannah Walshe was formerly a reporter and producer with Fox News. "Sarah From Alaska: The Sudden Rise and Brutal Education of a New Conservative Superstar" is available now in bookstores.

THE OVERPOWERING SMELL OF cheeseburgers and French fries saturated the candidate's suite at the Philadelphia Westin Hotel. About a dozen staffers shuffled around the table set up in the middle of the room where hundreds upon hundreds of five-by-seven-inch note cards were spread out in two-foot-high stacks. Palin had been locked in there for hours, cramming for her debate against Joe Biden. The biggest test of the campaign was less than a week away.

On the heels of the first round of Katie Couric interviews, her margin for error was nonexistent. Joe Lieberman, a veteran of a previous vice presidential debate, had been brought in to give Palin an idea of what to expect. The stifling air shortened everyone's patience, and tensions were running especially high between debate prep coordinator Mark Wallace and foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann. It was the note cards that had first led to the longstanding feud between Wallace and Scheunemann a couple of weeks earlier. One of the aides wanted Palin to memorize them, while the other thought it better for her to learn conceptually. The spat made it all the way up the chain to Steve Schmidt, who told Scheunemann in no uncertain terms that he did not have the time for bickering between staffers and that they needed to sort it out. But the two men were still fuming at one another, and negative vibes permeated the room along with the smell of greasy food.

At the end of one cram session, Palin asked her advisers to run through the various trade agreements, including "who's in NAFTA, who's in CAFTA," and so forth. It seemed an unremarkable request at the time. The advisers knew that the governor was, in fact, aware that the NAFTA treaty included the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But someone in the room with a penchant for whispering to reporters was taking mental notes. Come November, the anonymous source would pass Palin's words along as part of a concerted effort to advance the exaggerated narrative that her handlers had been stymied in their heroic, yet futile, efforts to educate an ignoramus.

Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, and domestic policy adviser Becky Tallent arrived in Philadelphia by train on Sunday, September 28. It was clear by the time they set foot in the suffocating hotel suite on the third full day of debate prep that a dramatic change was needed. Schmidt and Davis had already spoken to John McCain, who agreed to offer up his sprawling Sedona ranch. It did not take much persuasion to convince Palin of the benefits of moving the operation to the desert compound, where she could work in her shorts and T-shirt with her family by her side. Schmidt realized that the candidate would benefit from having a more condensed circle of aides to brief her, so he sent some of the staffers who had been with her in Philadelphia ahead to the debate site at St. Louis. Others who did travel to Sedona were barred from McCain's compound and had to remain at the hotel.

Palin and her downsized contingent of advisers arrived in Arizona the next afternoon. On the first evening of their stay, one of her aides spoke privately to the governor about the importance of speaking in her own voice, rather than regurgitating talking points handed down from the Washington insiders who ran the campaign, all of whom were white males. It was one piece of advice that Palin took to heart.

The preparations were kept informal except for two timed reenactments in which debate conditions were replicated, including the exact distance between the podiums. Randy Scheunemann had flown in to play Joe Biden, an acting role that the archconservative seemed born to play. Scheunemann had sat through years of Biden's speeches during his time working for two Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he knew the Delaware senator's mannerisms well. Palin struggled to keep a straight face as Scheunemann peppered his performance with "God love ya"s and "literally"s and shifted between long-winded discourses on everything from the war in Iraq to his own mother. A former National Rifle Association lobbyist, Scheunemann as Biden delivered a passionate screed on banning assault rifles. When he waxed poetic on the issue of gay marriage, some of the aides looking on from the sidelines gave up on trying to maintain decorum and burst out laughing. At the end of the ninety-minute session, they broke out into spontaneous applause. Palin's keen memory for detail had manifested itself in her very first formal rehearsal, and she had done even better than they had hoped she would.

The next day, the group decided to move the debate operation outdoors so that they could take full advantage of the beautiful Sedona weather. The new environment continued to have a calming effect on Palin and everyone around her. Gone were the endless stacks of note cards and claustrophobic atmosphere that plagued the operation in Philadelphia. Palin looked refreshed as she stood behind her podium in a baseball cap and T-shirt. As evening shadows crept across the well-manicured grass, Cindy McCain came out from the house to address the group. She insisted that all toil must end at an appointed hour of 5 P.M., when everyone was to convene for wine and cheese. There were no arguments.

When Palin nailed a second ninety-minute mock debate, everyone was optimistic about the real thing, which was coming up the next day. By the time she and her aides left the ranch for St. Louis, their confidence was high enough that the hottest topic under discussion was whether the governor should wear blue or black. In the end, she went with black. The background, after all, would be blue.

Just minutes before the candidates shook hands on stage in St. Louis, Palin collected her thoughts in a room as she was joined by three top McCain advisers and her longtime Alaska aide Kris Perry. "Be still in the presence of the Lord!" Perry called out, as Palin bowed her head and prayed.

Palin would give her own version of this event several months later in a speech at a Republican Party dinner in Alaska. "So, I'm looking around for somebody to pray with. I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra," she said. "And the McCain campaign, love 'em, you know-there are a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray."

The remark drew laughter at the dinner but consternation among some former campaign aides, especially the ones who recalled that she had, in fact, deemed them worthy enough companions with whom to pray. On the surface, Palin's remark seemed like a harmless, humorous aside. But to some of the staffers who had spent two months of their lives working around the clock to try to get her elected, it was hurtful. The comment marked a turning point for several campaign operatives who had defended her up to that point but began to wonder about her willingness to exploit their relationship for political gain. "I was initially upset. I think a lot of people were," said one former senior aide who still speaks frequently to other staffers who continued to support Palin through difficult times. "I think that somebody in the group spoke up and said, 'It's not directed at us.'" Still, the aide wondered how the comment could have been allowed to run wild in the news cycle without any clarification from Palin. "Why are people letting her go out and give speeches like this? And why are people not getting ahead of this when she says something like this?"

But all of that was much further down the road. In St. Louis on the night of October 2, the governor's aides looked on approvingly as Palin took the stage and made it immediately clear that she intended to showcase her confidence and personality instead of sparring with Biden over specific details of policy-a fight she could not possibly be expected to win. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear," she declared with a bright smile. "But I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record, also."

There were a few moments that came perilously close to flashbacks of the Katie Couric interviews, such as Palin's response to moderator Gwen Ifill's question about whether any trigger would justify the use of nuclear weapons. "Nuclear weaponry, of course, would be the be-all, end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet," she said (mostly the end-all, as Palin-bashing columnist Maureen Dowd gleefully pointed out in a postdebate column).

All in all, however, Palin performed competently and avoided major gaffes. The Republican candidate winked and "darn righted" her way through the debate, delighting her admirers and infuriating her detractors in a predictable way. She was particularly effective in using her methodically unaffected speaking style to break down into simple terms the lessons the country could learn from the economic crisis. "Let's commit ourselves, just everyday American people, Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say, 'Never again,'" she said. "Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars. We need to make sure that we demand from the federal government strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings and we need also to not get ourselves in debt."

Though Biden restrained himself from delivering any of the over-the-top diatribes for which Randy Scheunemann had prepared her, Palin told a confidante after the debate that she'd had a hard time reigning in her smile because the real candidate sounded so much like Scheunemann. Surprisingly, it was the Democrat who struck the most poignant note of the evening when he choked up recalling the death of his first wife and daughter in a car accident that also nearly took the lives of his two sons.

Still, the aides who prepared Palin for the debate were uniformly pleased with her performance. Before a local late-night rally scheduled to keep the momentum going, Palin's inner circle opened a bottle of champagne and toasted the candidate. Feeding off the adrenaline, Palin approached a small group of aides and made a pitch to start bringing up on the campaign trail Barack Obama's ties to his controversial former preacher, Jeremiah Wright. John McCain wanted desperately to become the nation's next president, but not at the expense of facing the inevitable accusations of racial exploitation if he made Wright an issue. She knew quite well about the decree that he had months earlier laid out to everyone involved in the campaign: no one was to touch the controversy. Still, Palin could not understand why she should be held to the rule.

"I just don't want to go back to Alaska," she said in an offhanded comment that would later seem prescient.

Several polls showed that both the general electorate and undecided voters thought Biden had won the debate, although most pundits declared that Palin had exceeded expectations. But with McCain unable to gain any traction against Obama in the presidential debates, the campaign had needed Palin to do more than that. Her performance did nothing to change the complexion of the race, the way her stirring convention speech had done a month earlier.

The day after the debate, Palin caused more headaches when she told Fox News's Carl Cameron that she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull resources out of Michigan, effectively ceding the state to Obama. She had not been consulted on that critical move in the chess game, which leaked out in a report penned by the Politico's Jonathan Martin the previous afternoon. "I fired off a quick e-mail and said, 'Oh, come on. You know, do we have to? Do we have to call it there?'" she told Cameron. "I want to get back to Michigan, and I want to try."

The e-mail that Palin sent was, in fact, essentially how she described it to Cameron. She wrote to her traveling staff and top McCain advisers, "If there's any time, Todd and I would love a quick return to Michigan-we'd tour the plants, etc. . . . If it does McC any good. I know you have a plan, but I hate to see us leave Michigan. We'll do whatever we had [sic] to do there to give it a 2nd effort."

A senior aide replied, "Michigan is out of reach unless something drastic happens. We must win oh and hopefully pa."

Palin replied that she "got it," but her subsequent interview with Cameron had shown that she hadn't. She acknowledged as much in a postinterview e-mail to senior staff, writing, "Oops-I mentioned something about that to Carl Cameron and it's now recorded that I'd love to give Michigan the ol' college try." Later in the day, she tried once more. "It's a cheap 4hr drive from WI. I'll pay for the gas," she wrote.

Though senior aides had firmly rejected her request, Palin continued to press them on it in the coming days and weeks. A natural optimist but a novice when it came to national campaign strategy, she was inclined not to give up anywhere, much less on a state that had been a prime target for months. She remembered the massive crowds that had greeted her and McCain in Macomb County the day after the convention ended and in Grand Rapids a couple of weeks later. They were good, God-fearing, salt-of-the-earth people. She figured that she could introduce them to her husband, who liked to ride snowmobiles and hunt, just like Michiganders did. Her instincts told her that if she just had a chance to talk to some laid-off automobile workers face-to-face, she could convince them to vote Republican.

"I know what I know what I know." She repeated that mantra to the people around her throughout the campaign. Sometimes she was right, but her growing determination to do things her own way became a continuing headache for the campaign's strategists, who were more interested in polling data and documented fact than they were in the vice presidential candidate's instincts.

Palin sat in her hotel suite in Costa Mesa, California, on the night after the Cameron interview and began to muse with traveling staffers about what she could do to win back Michigan, despite top aides' firm decree that it was out of reach. She was the candidate after all, and it was time for her to take more control over her own destiny. What if they descended upon the state unannounced in the middle of the night and brought Jay Leno or David Letterman along to cover the triumphant surprise visit? Several of her traveling aides loved the idea, as unorthodox as it sounded. There was a growing consensus on the plane that the powers that be at headquarters were holding her back unwisely. The late-night comedian idea was probably pushing it, but maybe they could wait until the next time they were in Ohio and commandeer the campaign bus at the end of the day's events. They could drive it across the border into Michigan, hold a dramatic public appearance to draw in local media, then drive back to Ohio overnight in time for the next day's rallies.

Though many of her aides were on board with her sentiment, other campaign staffers were becoming irritated by how often she brought up her ideas for campaigning in Michigan. There was a growing sense that the vice presidential plane was becoming a renegade operation, increasingly comfortable with acting on its own. Rick Davis was so concerned about the possibility that the governor would ignore orders and travel to Michigan on her own that he attempted to order Secret Service agents to prevent it. Of course, agents would have been obliged to follow the candidate wherever she decided to go.

Analysis: Palin's high-risk, high-reward strategy

2009-10-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

By Alexander Mooney, CNN
October 28, 2009 12:04 p.m. EDT

Washington (CNN) -- When Sarah Palin weighed in last week on the contentious special congressional election in New York, she did so in her trademark way: unconventionally.

While other potential 2012 presidential contenders largely stayed quiet on the divisive congressional race that has exposed fault lines in the party, Palin delivered a slap in the face to Republican Party leadership in Washington when she offered a full-throated endorsement of third-party conservative Doug Hoffman over the GOP's anointed candidate, Dede Scozzafava.

Palin's surprise backing -- not even Hoffman's press secretary knew it was coming until it popped up on his Google reader -- left some political observers scratching their heads, wondering why Sen. John McCain's running mate would risk alienating her party's establishment for a long-shot candidate in a race with little national visibility.

Palin's credibility with the conservative wing of her party is already solid, unlike other potential 2012 candidates who are either largely unknown to conservatives or appear too moderate, like possible 2012 contenders Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Instead, some strategists say Palin should begin to court less partisan-charged voters, or at least avoid alienating them, if she's serious about being a viable presidential candidate.

"In the year since the election has ended, [Palin's] done nothing to expand her appeal beyond that base to the middle of the electorate where elections are decided," former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said recently. "That independent vote is going to be up for grabs in 2012."

But Palin's latest move laid bare the unpredictability that has come to characterize the former Alaska governor since her bid for the vice presidency came to an end nearly a year ago, and has again raised the question of what, exactly, she wants and which game plan she is following.

To be sure, if the former governor is considering a run for the White House in 2012, as several unaffiliated Republican strategists and political observers believe that she is, at first blush she is off to a less than auspicious beginning.

In some ways, the last year has unfolded for her like a reality TV show gone wrong: a governorship plagued by ethics investigations that ended with a shocking and widely mocked resignation speech, the repeated airing of sour grapes from former McCain campaign aides, a series of embarrassing scheduling mishaps at key Republican Party events, and a bevy of tabloid reports carrying insidious allegations about her personal life.

Just-released CNN polling confirms the last 12 months have taken a toll on the Alaska Republican's popularity. Her overall approval rating has dipped to 41 percent and she trails former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in a hypothetical matchup for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 by 7 points. Moreover, Palin's unfavorable rating is 15 points higher than Huckabee's.

Palin has also made few of the conventional moves befitting a presidential candidate-in-waiting: She's rarely shown up at party events, has made virtually no public appearances since she resigned the governorship, or granted no national media interviews and retained no political staff.

What could be most troublesome for Palin at this stage: Most Americans can't seem to envision her ever being the commander-in-chief.

"Her biggest problem is the perception that she is not qualified to be president," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "Seven in 10 Americans, and nearly half of all Republicans, say she is not qualified. It's a problem that politicians have faced before, but one that few have been able to overcome."

On the other hand, the former Alaska governor keeps injecting herself into national policy debates, largely from Facebook postings that have taken aim at President Obama's stances on a host of issues, a sign that she is set on remaining a relevant political figure.

She's also retained a fervent following and the bona fide rock-star status that enabled her to pack more campaign town hall meetings than McCain could on his own.

Two-thirds of all Americans in the CNN poll think she is not a typical politician. If Palin has her eye on the White House, she's staking out a different path toward it.

"Palin has thrown the old GOP playbook out the window," said Matt Lewis, a conservative writer for the Web site Politics Daily. "She believes that the world has changed, that all the old rules don't apply, and the conventional wisdom no longer exists."

That the former Republican vice presidential nominee hasn't broadened her political appeal in the last year was made clear when the two Republicans in the midst of hard-fought races for governor this November, Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia, both declined to invite her on the campaign trail, fearing she may turn off independent voters.

Other Republican candidates vying for office in 2010 have only offered vague assurances the Alaska Republican is welcome in their territory, well aware Democratic opponents will seize on any sight of the divisive political figure.

The CNN poll also shows Palin has lost support among independent voters over the last year, drawing approval from 41 percent of them now, 10 points lower than that group's approval last year. She fares even worse with self-identified moderate voters, drawing only a 34 percent approval rating.

But does any of that matter? It's usually die-hard conservatives who vote in Republican presidential primaries, and Palin's support among this group remains strong, 62 percent, according to the CNN poll. And an eager army continues to support her, some of whom have raised more than $40,000 in hopes that she'll appear at an Iowa GOP event next month.

Moreover, as the Tea Party movement has made clear, a passionate grassroots movement now exists, ready to embrace a leader.

If the Alaska governor locks down that niche voting bloc ahead of the presidential primary season, she could face a smoother course to the nomination. On the flip side, if she's seen as too closely aligned with the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck crowd, her viability as a national candidate could virtually become nonexistent.

By any measure, it's a high-risk, high-reward strategy.

"There [are] a lot of things happening that are changing," Lewis said. "It could be that Sarah Palin has captured that zeitgeist, that she sees things that nobody else sees, or it could be that she's running a really bad campaign. We'll find out."

Sarah Palin: rouge or rogue?

2009-10-23T11:08:00.001-07:00

Above, on the left: the autobiography from Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, set to be released on November 17. And on the right -- and slated for release the exact same day -- a collection that looks to be critical of the high-profile Republican, subtitled, as it is, "Sarah Palin: An American Nightmare."

Note that in the above paragraph, "left" and "right" are meant to denote image locations only, not political perspectives.

The book covers bear no small resemblance to each other. So, too, the titles: Sarah Palin's book is "Going Rogue," a phrase taken from her deviation from John McCain's views during the 2008 campaign. The other book is entitled "Going Rouge," a phrase that comes from nowhere except a switcheroo of the letters "u" and "g" from Palin's title. (And is being used by a coloring book, too).

"Going Rouge," which is being edited by two senior editors from The Nation, is being published by the young imprint OR Books. The company seems to be hoping to either catch the wave of enthusiasm greeting Palin's book -- it's currently the #2 bestseller on Amazon, and Palin will be a guest on Oprah the day before the book arrives in stores -- or to confuse Palin supporters into purchasing the Palin-unfriendly book.

Or maybe OR Books wasn't thinking about the similarities at all. Maybe they were simply remembering that Palin paid a makeup artist more than $20,000 for two weeks' work. And if anyone wants to know how she rolls, rouge-wise, the makeup artist used blushes from Mac and Chanel.

As for going rogue, she is, in some Republican circles, still a bit roguish, in the sense of being an outsider, or perhaps even mischievous. Top of the Ticket reports that her offer to assist in governors races in New Jersey and Virginia was declined.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Images: Left, Harper / Associated Press. Right, OR Books.

Sarah Palin Tells Friends: Watch Glenn Beck!

2009-10-09T13:46:00.001-07:00

Huffington Post | Danny Shea

Sarah Palin is rallying her Facebook community behind Glenn Beck.
In a post on Facebook Wednesday morning titled, "An Invitation," Palin urged her 800,000-plus Facebook fans to watch the Fox News host (via Politico):

FOX News' Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House.

Monday night he asked us to invite one friend to watch; tonight I invite all my friends to watch.

-Sarah Palin

Beck is hardly having trouble in the ratings, and many of Palin's supporters fall squarely in the Beck target audience, but it will be interesting to see if he experiences a "Palin Bump."

Beck has come under fire for his remarks that President Obama is a racist, which has led dozens of advertisers to pull their sponsorship from his show.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/26/sarah-palin-tells-friends_n_269559.html

glenn beck

2009-10-08T13:11:00.001-07:00

Off topic... but WHOA!

We may have to start a Glenn Beck is an idiot blog.

**name was taken so we had to go with Glenn Beck is a MORON! http://glennbeckisamoron.blogspot.com/

Sarah Palin-mania could start up again

2009-09-30T10:23:00.000-07:00

Commentary: Look out if her upcoming book flourishes
By MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Get ready for Sarah Palin-mania, part two.

Her first chapter, in national politics, exploded then fizzled when the former Republican vice presidential candidate unexpectedly retired as governor of Alaska in July. Now, Palin is back, as her memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life" has been moved up by the Harper imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, according to The Wall Street Journal. (Harper Collins and The Journal, like MarketWatch, are units of News Corp. (NWS 14.20, +0.22, +1.57%) ).

The book has been moved up to Nov. 17 from next spring. The publishing house said it is distributing 1.5 million copies of Palin's book -- an enormous commitment -- and it will cost $28.99. The electronic edition won't be ready until Dec. 26.

What's noteworthy here is the commercial potential of Palin's aura. Yes, her conservative followers flock to her political rallies and fundraisers. Sure, the national media can't get enough of her. "Saturday Night Live" (GE 16.60, -0.11, -0.66%) thrived last year when Tina Fey did an uncanny job of lampooning Palin's eccentricities.

If the book flies off shelves at the stores, we will know -- for sure -- that Palin has commercial appeal, too. That's when you'll see the media lining up to ask her to host television and radio programs. And Palin-mania will once again go full throttle.

For Palin, the reward could come in benefits that go beyond the satisfaction of favorable book reviews. She could use this forum as a springboard to her repair her image, which suffered when she surprised Republican followers by departing from the political scene a few months ago.

Palin hopes for a win-win scenario. Don't bet against her.

-- Jon Friedman

Palin Can't Get Domestic Speaking Gigs? That's Not Unusual

2009-09-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

by Holly Bailey

Is Sarah Palin having trouble landing speaking gigs? Citing an anonymous “industry expert,” the New York Post’s Page Six reports today that Palin isn’t attracting much interest on the lecture circuit. The reason: She’s so polarizing. “The big lecture buyers in the U.S. are paralyzed with fear about booking her, basically because she’s a blithering idiot,” the unnamed source tells Page Six. “Palin is so uninteresting to so many groups—unless they are interesting in moose hunting… What does she have to say? She can’t even describe what she reads.” Ouch.

But in Palin’s defense, is she actually trying to book gigs in the U.S. anyway? It’s worth noting that plenty of current and former polarizing political types on the lecture circuit usually make most of their money speaking in other countries—especially their first year out. Back in 2001, when he was still caught up in all the drama of his final days in the White House, Bill Clinton collected nearly $9.2 million for giving 59 speeches—39 of which were overseas. More recently, George W. Bush hit the speaker’s circuit. With the exception of a speech in Michigan, Bush’s talks have all been abroad, in Canada, Asia and Europe. (No word on how much he’s earning—though he’s reportedly asking for at least $150,000 a pop.) There are exceptions: Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hasn’t had trouble landing domestic gigs, giving speeches in Pennsylvania, California and Michigan. She earned reported $150,000 to talk to a meeting of the National Football League’s owners association this past spring.

Palin was signed a month ago by the Washington Speakers Bureau—the same group who reps Bush and Rice. Last week, she earned a reported $150,000 for a speech in Hong Kong. No word on what her next move will be—though the fact her debut speech attracted mixed reviews can’t be reassuring to her bookers. But we’d venture to guess that Palin is still pretty marketable to an overseas audience—After all, no other potential GOP 2012 candidate attracts more attention than she does, and the world never has a lack of curiosity about our political celebrities. The question Palin’s bookers must be wondering is whether the former gov’s memoirs will add to her marketability or if it will lead to overexposure.

Palin resignation cost state at least $40,000

2009-09-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 17, 2009 at 10:48AM AKST

Early estimates put the cost of Sarah Palin’s midterm resignation as Alaska governor at a minimum of $40,000, not including a special legislative session partly linked to her departure.

The preliminary figures obtained by the Associated Press through a public records request show it cost the state almost $14,100 for the swearing-in ceremony of new Gov. Sean Parnell in Fairbanks on July 26 after Palin formally stepped down the same day before a massive crowd in the interior city. The price tag for moving Palin — the former GOP vice presidential candidate — and her family from the governor’s mansion in Juneau amounted to more than $3,328. Travel costs for the governor’s office associated with the transition totaled more than $6,700.

Not included in the tally is the estimated cost of more than $100,000 for a one-day special session held last month in which state lawmakers confirmed Palin’s surprise pick to replace Parnell as lieutenant governor.

Palin’s spokeswoman, Meghan Stapleton, couldn’t be reached by phone and an e-mail to Stapleton was not immediately returned.

The final price tag will be a mere fraction of the roughly $2 million Palin has said it cost the state dealing with “frivolous” ethics complaints against her. Still, bloggers, residents, newspaper letter writers and lawmakers alike have questioned what they saw as unnecessary costs associated with Palin’s resignation 17 months before the end of her first term.

It’s a small price to pay, as far as state Rep. Mike Hawker, an Anchorage Republican, is concerned. Lawmakers have said the former governor appeared disengaged from state affairs after being catapulted into political fame as John McCain’s running mate, and Hawker believes the low-key Parnell will do a better job at the helm than Palin.

“She’s a superstar. He’s a budget wonk,” he said. “Up front, it may have cost the state $40,000, but Sean’s going to save the state far more in operating costs in his first budget.”

Other transition costs disclosed to the AP are $4,626 in assorted expenditures by the governor’s office such as official photos of the new governor and lieutenant governor, letterhead and business cards. The state Department of Labor estimates expenditures of $9,082 for new letterhead, brochures and forms while the Department of Administration projects spending more than $1,600 on new letterhead.

“All in all, it may have been a little less than I had anticipated,” Robert Pearson, special assistant to the administration commissioner, said of the total.

Hawker doesn’t consider the cost of the Aug. 10 special session as fallout of the resignation. He said lawmakers had to meet anyway to consider overriding Palin’s veto of $28.6 million in federal stimulus funds intended for energy efficiency projects — an action they approved. Palin’s press representatives while in office also noted that lawmakers called themselves into the special session, not the governor.

State Rep. Les Gara, however, said Palin could have avoided the need for a special session.

Given the legislative support for vetoed stimulus funds, Palin could have sent a good faith letter to the federal government that new and renovated structures in Alaska would be constructed under energy efficiency standards through 2017, as required, Gara said. He believes she also could have stuck with her original choice for lieutenant governor.

Each legislative session, Alaska’s governor selects someone as a backup to the lieutenant governor, and Palin nominated Corrections Commissioner Joe Schmidt this year.

But in her July 3 resignation announcement, she announced that Military and Veterans Affairs Commissioner Craig Campbell would replace Parnell, without explaining why she wasn’t turning to Schmidt. Lawmakers ended up approving Campbell during the special session.

“If I were in her shoes, I would have tried to avoid the cost and inconvenience of a special session,” Gara said. “It’s not the biggest thing in the world, but I would have done it differently.”

Newt Gingrich's advice for a Sarah Palin comeback

2009-08-19T07:37:00.000-07:00

By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 8/14/09 4:51 AM EDT

If Sarah Palin wants to make a 2012 political comeback, she’ll need three types of speeches, some serious television face time, a credible organization and a bucket load of sheer determination.

Oh, and she might want to get a place outside of Alaska, somewhere in the lower 48.

That’s some of the advice former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offered when POLITICO asked him what Palin needs to do to keep her presidential options open.

Since he’s among the few to come close to pulling off what Palin, the ex-governor of Alaska, may ultimately seek to do, Gingrich is uniquely qualified to comment.

The former Georgia congressman has been out of elected office for more than decade, yet he’s a perennial on the Republican Party’s presidential watch lists, and he is regularly consulted by party insiders for strategic and policy advice.

It’s a feat of political levitation that wasn’t achieved by accident or through some natural political order.

In politics, power and influence are fluid assets, won and lost in a perpetual competition between rising newcomers, established players and fading stars.

Operating at the pinnacle of power requires a strategy for getting there and staying there. Gingrich had such a plan — and it’s one that he says could be tweaked to work for Palin, too.

Essentially there are six elements to his approach:

1. Write a book. Palin is already set to do that, which Gingrich applauds. A book, he said, helps a politician lay out his or her philosophy and experiences in their own unhurried words. It also helps score TV time, which in turn helps sell books, he added.

2. Land a regular commentator slot on television. It’s a sure way for an outsider to stay inside the national dialogue and in touch with the incumbents, activists and strategists who can help launch a comeback.

3. Consider getting a condominium in New York or Washington. An East Coast base of operations would ease what could become an onerous travel schedule from Alaska.

4. Write and master three types of speeches. One speech “is to make money,” he said, and should be something smart and entertaining.

The second set of speeches includes what Gingrich calls “high-value” addresses designed to be delivered before major interest groups and universities, enabling Palin to “project her brand.”

The third speech, of course, is a campaign stump speech that she can take on the road in 2010 to help Republican candidates raise money and gain attention.

5. Create some sort of national project or center. This can serve as a base for her political return and an incubator for ideas and action on issues. A National Energy Project, Gingrich said, would be a natural for Palin.

6. Plan on working really, really hard. Many ex-politicians confuse being a celebrity with being a serious political player, Gingrich said. “She can be a personality for a long time,” he said. “But that is very different from becoming a national leader.”

Of course, even if Palin follows such a path, there are no guarantees.

Gingrich has cut a high profile through speeches, books and a campaign-style organization and website that regularly issues updates on his activities and constantly refreshes his list of donors and supporters.

His policy analysis on energy, health care and other issues are respected — although maybe not embraced — by both conservatives and liberals.

Just last week, Gingrich was stopped in a Capitol hallway by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the bipartisan team of senators working on health care reform legislation. “I’ve read everything you’ve got,” said Grassley, clutching Gingrich’s hand.

Despite all that, Gingrich has yet to see the kind of “Draft Newt” movement that could lure him onto the presidential field.

In fact, the last Oval Office aspirant to dust himself off after a national defeat, stay in the game, and go on to win the White House was Ronald Reagan — and that was 30 years ago.

Many have tried to replicate that magic, including Dan Quayle, John Edwards and Jack Kemp, to name a few. But, despite all their promises that they’d be back, they all fell far short of Reagan’s comeback.

Some of them lost because they overestimated their star power, some turned out to lack the requisite skill set, and others failed to build the type of machine that Gingrich describes, a vehicle that can command attention in the wilderness years.

Reagan’s political recovery plan, which was relatively innovative for its time, included regular radio addresses and newspaper columns. The disciplined writing schedule helped Reagan refine his thinking on policy and spread his message between 1976 and the launch of his second presidential campaign in 1979.

Palin, like Reagan, is a galvanizing figure for conservatives. (She also drives liberals crazy, like he did.) And she exhibited plenty of raw political talent last year running beside John McCain on the Republican ticket.

But first and foremost, Gingrich said, Palin “has to be clear in her own head what she wants to do.”

Palin has said she is still mulling her options. Her rambling farewell speech in Alaska seemed to suggest a fair amount of ambivalence about what course she’ll take.

In that speech, Palin cast herself as both a victim of the national media and Hollywood and a fighter tough enough to stay in the political fray and stand up for conservative values.

Her lack of clarity left Alaskans in a muddle, too. A statewide poll conducted after the speech showed a steep drop in her favorability ratings, with 48 percent viewing her negatively and 46 percent viewing her positively.

The negative perception at home is even more pronounced on the national level, which raises one of the biggest hurdles to a Reagan-like comeback for Palin.

Where Reagan used humor to disarm his opponents and win new converts, Palin uses it to eviscerate adversaries, an approach that can intimidate and alienate the unconverted.

Reagan’s good-guy roles from his Hollywood days helped make him a familiar and likable figure, whereas the television parodies of Palin diminished her.

A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 67 percent of Americans, including 43 percent of Republicans, would not like to see her as president someday.

Still, Gingrich believes she can overcome the caricatures and the poll numbers but that “she has to decide how serious she wants to be about becoming a national leader.”

Obama gets personal on Palin’s “death panels”

2009-08-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama seems to have taken personally Sarah Palin’s accusations that his administration wants to set up “death panels” for the elderly.

Reuters Blogs
Posted by: Jeff Mason

At a town hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colorado on Saturday the president got personal — citing his own grandmother, who died shortly before he was elected last year — when refuting charges by the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee about his healthcare reform plans.

“I just lost my grandmother last year. I know what it’s like to watch somebody you love, who’s aging, deteriorate, and have to struggle with that,” Obama told the crowd.

“So the notion that somehow I ran for public office, or members of Congress are in this so that they can go around pulling the plug on grandma? I mean, when you start making arguments like that, that’s simply dishonest,” he said.

The issue stemmed from a provision in a House of Representatives bill that would have provided government funding for optional counseling on end-of-life care issues such as hospice.

Palin, who has spoken out against Obama’s reform plans, and other critics referred to the process as “death panels.”

Obama, who has refuted the rumor before but is struggling to gain support for his overall healthcare reform agenda, said enough was enough.

“We’ve got enough stuff to deal with without having these kinds of arguments,” he said, without mentioning Palin by name.

Sarah Palin Quit Because of Marital Woes: Levi

2009-08-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin stepped down from her role as Alaska governor because of problems that have dogged her marriage "from day one," Levi Johnston said.

The hockey hunk and father of Palin's grandson was tight-lipped about what led to the Palins' rocky relationship but said the trouble that was brewing between his almost-in-laws was serious enough to lead the former veep candidate to step down from her post.

"Yeah, I do," he said when asked if he thought marital woes were what prompted her to resign. Palin has denied any problems in her marriage.

He also said his would-be mother-in-law's media blitz and lecture was simply a money-grubbing stunt. "She's taking the money," Johnston said. "That's what she talked about, that's what I'm gathering, and I think that's what she's doing."

Palin chases the dollar signs

2009-07-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

A fellow scribe lately assigned to the Sarah Palin beat up north sent down the following joke: Question: What's the best view of Wasilla, Alaska? Answer: Out the rearview mirror.

The former governor and GOP vice presidential nominee grew out of the grassroots of Wasilla's paved-over strip malls. But Palin has outgrown all that and will be spending much of her time in the "lower 48."

Look for Palin to take frequent journeys to the bank before going on the road to the White House.

The public's attention span is short, so it is in Palin's self-interest to seek the gains that come with fame.

The governor's Fairbanks farewell speech last Sunday, with its warnings about big government and attacks on the media -- even a celebration of hunting -- was tailored to tastes of America's political right.

With her views, her looks and the celebrity of her 2008 vice presidential campaign, Palin can probably earn five-figure fees on the speechmaking circuit. She is working with a ghostwriter on a book. By resigning as governor, she does not have to file Alaska public-disclosure forms revealing the advance.

Of course, 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is already holding forth with a show on Fox News. Huckabee has impeccable credentials as a culture warrior. Still, the guy has a streak of personal decency plus thoughtful views on such issues as health care and corporate welfare.

What the far right wants is red meat, served up bloody red.

We have, this week, Fox News' race-baiter Glen Beck calling President Obama "a racist" and accusing Obama of having a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."

On CNN, Lou Dobbs has fanned the Birthers, challenging Obama to "provide the long-form birth certificate," and hinting -- without evidence -- that the certificate produced in last year's campaign is not "the real document."

As this column is written, CNN's "Larry King Live" is readying a lowbrow face-off: Judge Sonia Sotomayor's qualifications for the U.S. Supreme Court will be discussed by left-wing publicity hound the Rev. Al Sharpton and right-wing attention seeker Ann Coulter.

Sarah Palin would fit cable TV "commentary" like a glove, witness her 2008 speeches about Obama "palling around with terrorists." If caught wordless, she could always wink at the camera.

Doubtless, the former governor will undergo analysis by the elite media's two ranking psychobabblers, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times and Gail Sheehy of Vanity Fair. They've sucked every possible milligram of blood out of Hillary Clinton.

But such attacks will only strengthen Palin's credentials with the right-thinking faithful.

If you read responses to seattlepi.com articles, right-thinking Soundoff contributors love to use the word hypocrisy.

The issue does come up with Palin. She has served as governor of a state that, in 2008, received $508.34 per resident in federal earmarks -- highest in the nation --compared to $18.74 per capita in John McCain's Arizona.

As mayor of Wasilla, she hired a lobbyist to seek $27 million in earmarks for a town of 8,000. Palin was for the "bridge to nowhere" before she was against it. She resisted but then retreated on Alaska taking federal stimulus money, although holding out on dollars earmarked to weatherize homes for winter.

The enthusiasm of Palin faithful will not pale at past pork.

Just look at the crowd she drew to the April right-to-life dinner in Evansville. Watch the video of Republican National Chairman Michael Steele reduced to a warm-up act. Read the reactions afterward -- "Awesome!" "Amazing!" "Absolutely beautiful!" -- on the freerepublic.com Web site.

The neoconservative intellectuals of the Republican Party can write their critical columns, but they won't create any more doubters than Dowd and (if she chooses to play) Sheehy.

The right does the nominating in the Republican Party, and two early deciding states -- Iowa, with its caucuses, and South Carolina with its primary -- are strongholds of the Christian right.

As well, Palin -- for the moment -- is an honest-to-goodness national celebrity.

Alaska lawmakers attending last week's National Council of State Legislators' meeting were spotted wearing buttons saying, "I'm from Alaska. Please don't ask me about her." A Washington, D.C., airport newsstand, displaying the Time magazine with Palin on the cover, put out a sign reading "Only two copies per customer." "Starting this afternoon, she's someone else's story," the Anchorage Daily News' irreverent "Alaskan Ear" column opined last Sunday.

They'll miss her. Until this month, I never thought any Alaska governor could match Wally Hickel's famous declaration: "We can't just let nature run wild."

But that was before Sarah Palin intoned: "Only dead fish go with the flow."

Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com.

Stepping aside, Palin vows to 'fight even harder'

2009-07-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

From Candy Crowley

(CNN) -- As Sarah Palin handed over the Alaska governorship this weekend, the wear, tear and resentments of a year on the big stage were evident for the former GOP vice presidential candidate.

Her parting words Sunday included a parting shot at the media:

"So how about in honor of the American soldier, you quit making up things. And don't underestimate the wisdom of the people. And one other thing for the media -- our new governor has a very nice family, too, so leave his kids alone," she said as she handed off power to Sean Parnell, the lieutenant governor.

Palin's farewell to the governor's office was a three-day rolling picnic, from Wasilla to Anchorage to Fairbanks. Palin, a mother of five, was surrounded by friends and supporters.

"I will tell you one thing -- if we get a woman president, let it be her. She is a real woman. She knows what a woman is supposed to be. She is pro-life. She is pro-family. She is pro-woman," said Jon Eric Thompson, who attended the Sunday picnic in Fairbanks.

But it was not all friendly going. Palin has lost some of her light in Alaska and a lot on the national stage.

"She abandoned her state in the middle of a term. They didn't ask for her to run. She volunteered to run and assumed that job. I think she has hurt herself. You've seen those numbers turn," Republican strategist Alex Castellanos said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union With John King."

Fifty-three percent of Americans view Palin negatively, and 40 percent see her positively, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Worse for Palin, four in 10 Republicans don't think she understands complex issues, the poll found.

Still Palin wouldn't be the first politician to rehabilitate herself. And it's clear that while she handed over the governor's chair, she doesn't plan on relinquishing the microphone.

"Now with this decision, now I will be able to fight even harder for you, for what is right and for truth," Palin said.

Palin is working on a book, she says she'll help other candidates, and she'll give speeches. One of her first post-governor events will be August 8 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

She could make good money doing all of that. She also could be on a path that leads to 2012; it's called keeping your options open.

"I just asked her that about five minutes ago, and you want to know what she said? She said, 'I don't know' with her little smirk," said Adele Morgan, who went to high school with Palin and lives in Wasilla.

"That's her one-liner right now, because we don't know," she said.

hair today, gone tomorra - a.k.a. “I feel bad for Sarah Palin and bad for her hair, even though I don’t really care for her.’’

2009-07-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

The Palin debate: tress stress?

Experts at odds about cause of thinning hair.

It was the hair that launched a thousand quips - and now it’s thinning. At least that was the word from Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin is so stressed that she appears “underweight’’ to friends, and the up-do known around the world has thinned “to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser,’’ the New York Times reported.

But can stress thin hair? As with everything else about the Alaska governor, opinions are divided.

Dr. Gerald Weissmann, professor emeritus at New York University School of Medicine, insists the answer is no. “Stress short of chemotherapy or horrible infections does not cause hair thinning,’’ said Weissmann, who edits the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Journal. “There is no evidence of that in all the literature.’’

People believe stress thins hair, Weissmann said, because “aging causes hair thinning, and by and large, it’s difficult to age without encountering some form of stress.’’

He points to the preponderance of male politicians with fantastic hair as proof that political pressure doesn’t cause hair loss. “Take a look at the people questioning [Supreme Court nominee Sonia] Sotomayor,’’ he said. “[Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick] Leahy doesn’t have much, but everyone else has hair.’’

“Stress and hair loss are not like a one-two punch,’’ added Dr. Amy McMichael, director of the hair disorders clinic at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Physiologic stress - such as having a baby, losing a lot of weight, starting or stopping medication - can cause hair loss, but basic psychological stress does not, explained McMichael, who also serves as secretary/treasurer of the North American Hair Research Society. “It’s not like, I had a bad day today, and look, my hair is falling out,’’ she said.

But Dr. Daniel K. Hall-Flavin, a psychiatrist with the Mayo Clinic, argues that emotional stress can lead to bad hair days - or months.

The most common type of stress-induced hair loss is telogen effluvium, he writes on the clinic’s website. “In this condition, emotional or physical stress . . . pushes large numbers of growing hairs into a resting phase. Within a few months, the affected hairs may fall out suddenly when simply combing or washing your hair. The hair typically grows back when the emotional or physical stress is resolved, although this can take months.’’

Humans aren’t the only animals who could be susceptible to stress-related hair loss. Researchers who subjected laboratory mice to rodent-repellant sounds concluded: “psychoemotional stress indeed alters actual hair follicle cycling’’ and “prematurely terminates the normal duration of active hair growth,’’ according to a report in the March 2003 American Journal of Pathology.

With scientists differing in their opinions on stress-related hair loss, perhaps only a hairdresser knows for sure.

“I’ve noticed it with a lot of my clients,’’ said Cliff Bouvier of Crew International in Brookline. “I feel bad for Sarah Palin and bad for her hair, even though I don’t really care for her.’’

Sarah Palin’s hairdresser speaks

2009-07-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

By Beth Teitell

The world needs to know: When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin recently sought “emergency’’ treatment for her hair, what, exactly, did her longtime stylist do?

“It wasn’t like I did an intervention,’’ Jessica Steele said in a phone interview from her Wasilla, Alaska, beauty parlor, the Beehive.

In fact, despite the juicy hair-loss tidbit that Palin-aholics gobbled up in a New York Times story (“The Long March to a Short-Notice Resignation,’’ July 12), Steele insisted that Palin’s hair hadn’t thinned so much as it had gone blah.

“I think the combination of traveling and just being down there in the lower 48’’ took its toll, Steele said in what was either a brilliant bit of spin, the simple truth, or an attempt to save the good stuff for a cut-and-tell memoir. “We needed to get her back to shiny.’’

She gave Palin a much-needed trim, she said, and “kicked up’’ Palin’s shampoo and conditioner a notch, to the high-end Pureology NanoWorks line. She also gave Palin a chichi leave-in treatment, Altieri Brothers Tuscan Oil.

Palin left the salon with a bottle of each, Steele said. That’s $48 for 10.1 ounces of shampoo, another $48 for 8.5 ounces of conditioner, and $22 for 3.5 ounces of Tuscan Oil.

Steele says she doesn’t understand why Palin’s hair is still a story. But if there’s one thing more surprising than the fact that the hair of the former vice presidential candidate remains of global interest, it’s that the hairdresser to the most famous hair on Earth can be reached directly, simply by calling her at work.

“Let me give you my e-mail,’’ Steele said.

Republican pundits open fire on Sarah Palin

2009-07-15T10:51:00.001-07:00

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin speaks to supporters in Fairbanks before signing a gun rights bill Friday.

Their harsh views conflict with those of grass-roots GOP voters, revealing a serious split within the party.
By Mark Z. Barabak
July 13, 2009

Since announcing her resignation, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has been pummeled by critics who have called her incoherent, a quitter, a joke and a "political train wreck."

And those were fellow Republicans talking.

Palin has been a polarizing figure from the moment she stepped off the tundra into the bright lights last summer as John McCain's surprise vice presidential running mate. Some of that hostility could be expected, given the hyper-partisanship of today's politics.

What is remarkable is the contempt Palin has engendered within her own party and the fact that so many of her GOP detractors are willing, even eager, to express it publicly -- even with Palin an early front-runner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Some admit their preference that she stay in Alaska and forget about any national ambitions.

"I am of the strong opinion that, at present day, she is not ready to be the leading voice of the GOP," said Todd Harris, a party strategist who likened Palin to the hopelessly dated "Miami Vice" -- something once cool that people regard years later with puzzlement and laughter. "It's not even that she hasn't paid her dues. I personally don't think she's ready to be commander in chief."

Others suggest a delayed response to last year's shaky campaign performance, now that the race is over and Republicans feel free to speak their minds.

"I can't tell you one thing she brought to the ticket," said Stuart K. Spencer, who has been advising GOP candidates for more than 40 years. "McCain wanted to shock and surprise people, and he did -- in a bad way."

It is more than cruel sport, this picking apart of Alaska's departing chief executive. The sniping reflects a serious split within the Republican Party between its professional ranks and some of its most ardent followers, which threatens not only to undermine Palin's White House ambitions -- if, indeed, she harbors them -- but to complicate the party's search for a way back to power in Washington.

Consider a USA Today/Gallup poll released last week. About 7 in 10 Republicans said they would be likely to vote for Palin if she ran for president. Other surveys place Palin in a statistical dead heat with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, the former governors of Massachusetts and Arkansas, respectively, who sought the White House in 2008 and give every indication that they will try again in 2012.

Although any presidential poll taken this far out has to be taken with a sea's worth of salt, that is not the reason so many Republican strategists and party insiders dismiss Palin.

"People at the grass roots see a charismatic personality who is popular with other people at the grass roots. But their horizon only goes so far as people who think like them," said Mike Murphy. The veteran GOP ad man eviscerated Palin -- a "political train wreck," "an awful choice" for vice president, her resignation an "astonishing self-immolation" -- in a column published Thursday in the New York Daily News.

"Professional operatives keep their eye on a broader horizon and understand, without independents and swing voters, she can't win," Murphy said. "She's a stone-cold loser in a general election."

That, of course, is debatable and subject to any number of developments over the next few years. A Palin spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

In an interview Sunday in the Washington Times, Palin said she planned to write a book and campaign for candidates nationwide, regardless of party affiliation, who shared her views on limited government, national defense and energy independence.

But the reaction to her resignation from Republican candidates around the country has been telling. Asked if they planned to invite Palin to visit and campaign on their behalf, several of those facing tough races -- the ones who need to do more than turn out the party faithful or collect their contributions -- were not rushing out the welcome mat.

"I don't generally need people from outside my district to do a fundraiser," Rep. Frank R. Wolf, a Republican from the Democratic-leaning suburbs of northern Virginia, told the Hill newspaper.

"There's others that I would have come in and campaign, and most of them would be my colleagues in the House," Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) said in the same piece.

Whatever one thinks of Palin, there is no question she has been subjected to a level of internal sniping -- friendly fire seems like a misnomer -- that is extraordinary.

The Republican criticism of Palin, 45, began during McCain's presidential run, privately at first, then breaking into the open during the last troubled days of the Arizona senator's campaign. Finger-pointing and back-stabbing are hardly unusual in politics, especially on the losing side. But like so many things Palin-related -- the crowds, the adoration, the antipathy -- the verbal strafing seems of a whole other magnitude. (How many other losing vice presidential candidates would merit a 10,000-word exegesis in Vanity Fair, which depicted Alaska's governor as a narcissistic, one-woman demolition derby?)

Some blame sexism, though again there is sharp disagreement between Palin's supporters and detractors. Some think the former beauty queen has always been hurt by her looks, whereas others think her appearance has helped her considerably. "If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir, would we even be talking about her today?" Murphy asked.

Others see a knee-jerk reaction from the political establishment, which will always frown on any populist outsider (think Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan, Howard Dean), much less a governor who quits midterm and shows up on TV in hip waders.

"The fact that she is a woman who's extremely attractive and dynamic and charismatic throws them for a loop," said Bay Buchanan, who strategized for her brother's two insurgent presidential campaigns. "Once they sense the first little sign of weakness, that's when they go in for the kill."

No one knows where the future will take Palin, not even the governor herself. Her reemergence on the national scene and the scathing response from so many of her party peers underscore one thing, however: Republicans may hold dear their memories of the late Ronald Reagan. But his famous 11th commandment -- "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican" -- was laid to rest a long time ago.

mark.barabak@latimes.com

Kerry Spars With Palin Over Climate

2009-07-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

By KATE GALBRAITH

Senator John F. Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat, responded on Tuesday to a Washington Post op-ed piece by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that slammed President Obama’s push for a cap-and-trade system.

Writing at the left-leaning Huffington Post Web site, Mr. Kerry argued that Ms. Palin never addressed “the crisis of global climate change” — the underlying issue that prompted legislation now pending in Congress that would create just such a cap-and-trade program.

“Yes, she manages to write about the climate change action in Congress without ever mentioning the reason we are doing this in the first place,” Mr. Kerry wrote. “It’s like complaining about the cost of repairing a roof without factoring in the leaks destroying your home.”

Mr. Kerry outlined the threats of climate change – including those facing Ms. Palin’s own state of Alaska – and also refuted her arguments that cap-and-trade legislation will cost jobs and hurt the poorest Americans.

“Palin confidently claims job losses are ‘certain,’” Mr. Kerry wrote, but “she somehow neglects to mention that jobs in our emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs since 1998.”

Mr. Kerry was presumably referring to a recent study from the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Pres Palin

2009-07-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.president-palin.whiterabbitcult.com/
Click when your cursor becomes a finger and make sure the sound is ON and LOUD!

Obama HOPE Palin DOPE

2009-07-08T13:51:00.002-07:00

http://www.cafepress.com/sarahpalinidiot

Why Sarah Palin Quit: The Five Best Explanation

2009-07-06T20:31:00.000-07:00

By JAY NEWTON-SMALL / ANCHORAGE Monday, Jul. 06, 2009

Sarah Palin, announcing that she is stepping down from her position as Alaska governor in Wasilla on July 3, 2009
Robert DeBerry / The Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman / AP

When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced her intention to resign on July 3, many assumed there must be a looming scandal. Why else make the surprise announcement late in the afternoon before the July 4 holiday — the equivalent of a news black hole — in tones that varied from angry to anxious? Palin even hauled her husband back from a commercial fishing trip to be by her side.

In the days since, however, it has become clear that no other shoe is likely to drop. No federal investigation or teen pregnancy or hikes along the Appalachian Trail. Alaskan politicos who have worked with Palin for years say her reasons for leaving are multilayered, and largely personal. Her unhappiness in the job came as no surprise in Alaska. In fact, given her history — and how miserable the past eight months have been for her — perhaps the surprise is that more people didn't see it coming. Here are the most important factors that Alaska insiders say went into Palin's sudden decision.

1. If It Worked Before, Why Not Try It Again?
Palin's 2004 protest resignation from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) catapulted her into the political limelight. Appointed to the AOGCC by then Governor Frank Murkowski, Palin quit when fellow board member Randy Ruedrich, who was also chairman of the Alaska Republican Party, refused to give up his party role despite what many saw as a conflict of interest. Palin accused Ruedrich of engaging in politics on government time, and he was ultimately fined $11,000 — the largest ethics fine in Alaska's history. He resigned his AOGCC post (he remains to this day head of the Alaska GOP). Palin was perceived as a whistle-blower, willing to call out her own party. Less than two years later, Palin won Murkowski's job. "She was going to stand up to the corrupt administration, she was going to expose wrongdoing, she was going to slay the evil dragon," says Larry Persily, a former Palin aide who now works for a Republican state legislator. "She knows how to position herself. She knows how to appeal to the public, and that was a great move."

In her announcement on July 3, Palin sought to portray her resignation in much the same way: a selfless act that should earn her kudos for saving taxpayers' money. "Many just accept that lame-duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck and milk it. I'm not putting Alaska through that — I promised efficiencies and effectiveness," she said. "I love my job, and I love Alaska. It hurts to make this choice, but I am doing what's best for Alaska."

Perhaps. But this time around, her motives don't ring as true. "In some ways, she is trying to repeat that feat," Persily says. "But there are some flaws in the argument. Under her thinking, every second-term governor or President was a misfit for staying in office because you can't run for re-election. That doesn't make sense."

2. Bye-Bye, Bipartisanship
At the start of her term in 2006, Palin's platform looked much more Democratic than Republican. She picked up on Dem calls for ethics reform and backed Democratic stands against oil- and gas-company interests. She made limited mention of abortion and other social-conservative issues. She would also visit the legislative offices, sometimes bringing fresh baked cookies and bagels. "I'm sure she visited some Republicans, but mostly the people she visited were Democrats," says Alaska representative Harry Crawford, an Anchorage Democrat who has known Palin for more than a decade. "With Sarah, we were able to do things that we'd been trying to do for 25 years. Everything she can point to in terms of achievements was done with nearly uniform Democrats votes and just a smattering of Republican votes."

But her vice-presidential candidacy remolded Palin in the eyes of Alaskan Democrats from a moderate willing to reach out across the aisle to a bomb thrower who accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists." As she became more partisan, she lost support in Alaska — her favorable poll numbers are now in the mid-50s, down from the 80s before she was tapped for VP. Without the Democrats, her agenda has gone nowhere, and she's now attacked from both the left and the right. "I saw her on the elevator in the beginning of session in January," Crawford says. "I said, 'Good afternoon.' She didn't even reply. She was standing there six inches from me, and she didn't say a word. We've hardly seen each other since. This was someone I considered a friend."

Other legislators lay the blame at the Democrats' door. "I believe the word came down from national Democrats to local Democrats to do everything in their power to take her down," says state senator Gene Therriault, a Republican who represents the town of North Pole. "We started seeing a proliferation of ethics complaints against her. It was an orchestrated effort to take her down." Either way, all sides agree that the relationship is irreparable.

3. Do-Nothing Governor
Palin knew that coming back to Alaska wasn't going to be fun and that she'd face a lot of criticism. Her response has been to withdraw. Excluding the budget and appropriations bills, which are mandatory, she has introduced next to very little legislation. In his third legislative session in office, Murkowski introduced 32 bills and saw 19 made into law. In her third session, Palin has introduced 12 bills — none that could be considered sweeping measures — and only one has made it into law.

But Palin has spent a lot of time saying no. She fought to reject federal stimulus money, even though Alaska's legislature is expected to override her final veto of 3% of the funds intended for Alaska. She also spent a great deal of effort trying to keep a Democratic representative from taking a vacant state senate seat. Juneau representative Beth Kerttula, a former Palin ally on energy issues, made the mistake of going on national TV and saying that Palin wasn't ready for higher office. Over the space of six weeks, Palin not only rejected Kerttula but every Democrat put forth by the Juneau Democratic Party for the vacant seat, bringing the state senate to a near standstill. On the last day of session, Palin finally accepted a neutral candidate, former Juneau mayor Dennis Egan. "The governor was on the brink of being taken to court in violation of appointment statutes," says senator Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat. "All because she was trying to rebuke Beth, who during the campaign said one or two things that weren't ingratiating to the governor."

4. Remember Me, America?
Meanwhile, Palin's attempts to engage on the national stage have flopped. Partly because Alaska is so far away, her trips outside the state were noticed by Alaskans, and may well have affected her ability to govern. When she nominated a highly controversial figure for state attorney general, for example, most members of her own party joined the vote to reject him. Palin might have been able to persuade them to support the nomination, but she was out of the state, speaking to a pro-life group in Evansville, Ind.

She has also found it increasingly difficult to campaign and fundraise for 2010 congressional candidates, and her Twittering from Wasilla is like shouting from the top of Mount McKinley for all that it's heard in the lower 48. The only news that does break through nationally are tabloid items like her fights with Levi Johnston and David Letterman. "I buy that you want to spend more time with your family, the stress and demands of five children and a husband. I can buy that you want to push your conservative agenda. I would buy that she thought that she could do more on a national scale because of her popularity and because of her Hollywood stature," says representative Charisse Millett, an Anchorage Republican. "But the lame-duck analogy — you don't do that. You don't quit the game. I wish that she could've been a better example for my daughter and Alaska's daughters."

5. Show Me the Money
Between her husband's income and her own salary, Sarah Palin is by no means poor. But the Palins have had to spend more than $500,000 to deal with the 15 ethics complaints filed against Palin by various outside groups in the past eight months. Palin has been exonerated in all cases, but Alaskan law states that she has to use her own money to defend herself. More cases were expected, which could've become expensive with four kids (and a grandchild) still living at home.

Quitting frees up her time for speaking engagements; politicians of Palin's stature get as much as $50,000 a pop. "I don't think Sarah Palin is a politician. I don't think she wants to be a politician. I think she wants to be an inspirational leader," says representative Mike Doogan, an Anchorage Democrat. "She has the opportunity to make a drop-dead amount of money in the next 18 months." Without resigning, she might have been looking at more than $1 million in legal fees over her remaining 16 months in office. Now she's looking at an unlimited, and very green, horizon.

Palin's speech had shades of Nixon, circa '62

2009-07-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

By Andrew Malcolm and Johanna Neuman
July 5, 2009
The announcement by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that she was bowing out of Alaska politics on the eve of the Fourth of July left a lot of people scratching their heads. Palin's friends report that she is genuinely sick of the attacks that seem to be part of the fabric of national politics these days.

But Palin's hastily announced news conference also had all the earmarks of Richard Nixon's famous concession speech in 1962, after he lost the campaign for California governor to Democrat Pat Brown. Nixon's rant was also a last-minute affair. Reporters had been told that Nixon -- a former congressman and senator who served as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president from 1952 to 1960 and lost the 1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy -- would not be making a public appearance.

Instead, Nixon surprised even his staff by taking the microphone and, at the end of a rambling, 16-minute discourse on national and state politics, he dramatically left the stage:

"I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know -- just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference, and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you."

Like Nixon, Palin seemed fraught with emotion. Like Nixon, she seemed angry at her critics.

Of course to the surprise of his detractors, Nixon recovered. He spent the next six years stumping the country, piling up chits from grateful politicians who benefited from his endorsements, chits he cashed in during his successful 1968 run for the presidency.

Palin gave no hints of her future, except to say that a person can influence from outside the electoral process as well as inside the governor's office. Maybe Palin, who landed on the national political map in August when Republican John McCain plucked her from Wasilla, Alaska, as his vice presidential running mate, is planning to follow the Nixon playbook on that front too.

Fox News has Obama to thank

President Obama may be obsessed with the critical coverage of Fox News, as often reported. But the cable news channel sure must love him.

The latest ratings out for the second quarter show that the top-rated FNC had one of the best quarters in its history, with prime-time ratings jumping an astounding 34%. That 8-to-11 p.m. slot, which includes Fox's showcase "The O'Reilly Factor," is crucial for viewers -- and ad dollars.

Throughout the viewing day, Fox News did even better, with its 1.2 million viewers, on average, more than doubling CNN's 598,000 and more than tripling MSNBC's 392,000.

Loyal Ticket readers will recall back in May when White House official Kareem Dale revealed in a speech that MSNBC was the Obama administration's favorite TV channel. And that liberal affection seems to have rubbed off on Obama backers, helping the NBC outlet to barely squeak past CNN in weekday prime-time average audience, 946,000 to 939,000.

Will Lakers fans forgive Obama?

Chicagoan and basketballophile Obama appears to be writing off the California vote in 2012, at least the basketball fans around Los Angeles.

In a pre-holiday interview with the Associated Press, Obama was asked who was the better player -- six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan or four-time champion Kobe Bryant?

Without a moment's hesitation, the ex-senator from Illinois blurted out, "Oh, Michael!"

Then, apparently realizing what he'd said and the profound effect on any 2012 election, the new president hastened to add: "I mean, Kobe's terrific. Don't get me wrong. But I haven't seen anybody match up with Jordan yet."

Too late.

Obama correctly picked the Los Angeles Lakers to thump the Orlando whatevers in the NBA Finals this year. And he was also right in picking North Carolina to win the NCAA championship this spring.

But then he also picked tax delinquent Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Now, we'll see how the left-handed White Sox fan does on the mound at the upcoming All-Star Game in St. Louis.

andrew.malcolm@latimes.com

Neuman writes for The Times.

Rove: Palin part of 'risky strategy'

2009-07-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's potential presidential rivals says her abrupt resignation won't allow her to dodge scrutiny over her family.
And George W. Bush's former chief political aide says Palin's strategy is unclear, at best.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Sunday that Palin's announcement that she is resigned while still in her first term doesn't make sense in a conventional political setting.
Bush's political adviser Karl Rove says Palin has engaged in a "risky strategy."
Huckabee, who ran for president in 2008, says he isn't sure if he'll run in 2012. He does say that Palin remains a viable candidate despite her decision to quit the governor's office.
Huckabee and Rove appeared on "Fox News Sunday."

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Sarah Palin To Resign As Alaska Governor

2009-07-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

At Hastily Convened Press Conference Says She Will Not Run for 2nd Term, Mum On Future Plans

(CBS) Last Updated 3:44 p.m. ET.

Sarah Palin has announced that she will resign as governor of Alaska and will not seek a second term.

CBS Affiliate KTVA reports that at a press conference this morning Palin said she will resign the governorship within a few weeks.

CBSNews.com producer Scott Conroy, who covered Palin's vice presidential campaign last year, confirmed through a source close to the governor said she is leaving office.

Earlier today, a holiday, Palin sent out an early morning press release indicating that she would be making an announcement from her home in Wasilla.

Joining Palin were her parents, family and state commissioners.

Palin said that power will be transferred to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, who will be sworn in during the upcoming governor's picnic in Fairbanks.

She did not field questions, and would not give any indications about her future plans.

Palin Announcement Forthcoming

2009-07-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Posted by David S Morgan

The office of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin issued a press release today saying she will make an announcement from her home in Wasilla today at 11:00 a.m. local time (3:00 p.m. ET).

There was no indication as to the topic of the announcement.

CBSNews.com producer Scott Conroy, who covered Palin's vice presidential campaign last year, said it is rare that Palin sends a press release out nationally.

GO DAVE!!!

2009-06-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

Women's Advocacy Group Leader Blasts Letterman's Jokes About Palin, Calls for Apology

By Joshua Rhett Miller
The president of a national women's public policy group on Thursday blasted David Letterman's "offensive" jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter and called on the CBS late-night host to formally apologize.

"There's a saying that out of the heart, the mouth speaks, and Letterman's statement reveals a pretty ugly reflection of who Letterman may be," Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, told FOXNews.com.

"When he said those things, they were thought through. He probably kicked them around with his writers who thought it was appropriate to say these reprehensible things."

Letterman has been under fire since he made several jokes about the Alaska governor and her daughter on his show Tuesday night, following a visit they made to New York City. In one joke, he characterized the former vice presidential candidate's style as that of a "slutty flight attendant." And in another, he joked that Palin's daughter had been "knocked up" by Yankees star Alex Rodriguez during the seventh-inning stretch of a Yankees game.

Critics jumped on Letterman soon after the show aired, accusing the comedian of making crass jokes about child rape because the girl who accompanied Palin to New York was her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, and not 18-year-old Bristol, who is the unmarried mother of Palin's first grandchild.

Letterman, on his Wednesday night show, addressed the controversy but stopped short of apologizing.

“We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is — her name is Bristol, that’s right, and so, then, now they’re upset with me," Letterman said on his Wednesday telecast.

“These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don’t think it’s funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn’t put it in a joke.”

He then invited Palin and her husband, Todd, to be his guests on his show, but Palin declined. "The Palins have no intention of providing a rating's boost for David Letterman by appearing on his show," a statement to FOXNews.com read.

RELATED: Sarah Palin Declines David Letterman's On-Air Invitation.

On Thursday, Wright, whose group advocates biblical values and family traditions, called on Letterman to issue a "real" apology, saying his comments were "worse than" merely poor taste.

"The apology was inadequate and it was only about one of the statements," Wright said. "Letterman's very poor view of women and minor girls is very disturbing, and he certainly needs to do more to change his own attitudes and then prove that his attitude has changed."

She called on Letterman to contact Palin personally rather than address the issue on air. "He needs to reach out to Sarah Palin," she said. "Apparently he feels threatened by the fact that she's a beautiful conservative woman. He would've never said anything like that if Sarah Palin was a liberal. He needs to treat Sarah Palin with the respect and dignity she deserves."

Deborah Donovan Rice, executive director of Stop It Now, an organization aiming to prevent the sexual abuse of children, also denounced Letterman's jokes and praised Palin's response as "spot on."

"This wasn't the usual fun, creative stuff I usually see on Letterman," Rice told FOXNews.com. "This really dropped below the bar."

Outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York Thursday afternoon, most of the studio audience lined up for the taping of Letterman's show said they were not aware of the controversy surrounding his comments.

But audience member Ann Frechette from Tampa Bay, Fla., said Tuesday night's jokes were “very harsh, very unlike David Letterman.”

She also said that “his apology was just another joke.”

Another, Cindy Baldwin from Ogden, Utah, said "I don't think [Letterman] should make comments about anyone's daughter, whether she's 18 or 14."

Emily Dore contributed to this report.

Sarah Mania! Sarah Palin's Greatest Hits

2009-05-15T15:31:00.001-07:00

Matt Damon Rips Sarah Palin

2009-05-15T15:29:00.001-07:00

Why Sarah Palin still befuddles the media

2009-05-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

Commentary: Alaska governor appears set for 2012 presidential bid

By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch)

-- A year after she became an overnight celebrity in America, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin still confounds journalists.

You would think that the national media, which spends lots of money to uncover political trends from every nook and truck stop between Portland, Maine, and Portland, Ore., would understand Palin's appeal by now. After all, she rose to prominence as John McCain's running mate last year and helped bolster the disaffected, conservative wing of the Republican Party.

You also might assume journalists could grudgingly appreciate Palin's appeal to conservative voters -- especially the potentially influential "soccer-mom" demographic.

Though Palin could well seek the presidency, she remains something of an American punch line. But even Tina Fey, the incisive comedian who brilliantly lampooned Palin on "Saturday Night Live" during the campaign, has moved on by now.

Palin is "a huge fundraising tool," noted veteran journalist Melinda Henneberger. "People love to read about her. She is very attractive -- and we don't have a surplus of that in American politics.

Palin was a major story in 2008 because she introduced so many unexpected elements to the political scene because of her gender, age, home state and uncanny ability to charm audiences with her charismatic flair.

She isn't going away, either. By all indications, Palin is now building toward a run at the White House in 2012. That's why the media should take her seriously.

Palin added to her high profile by agreeing to write a book about her life and experiences in politics for HarperCollins, it was reported widely on Wednesday.

"She's out raising money, she's traveling," said Henneberger, who covered Palin's recent appearance at a right-to-life rally in Evansville, Ind. "That speech was given at a time when she was closing up the legislative schedule back home and she was needed there. But she was willing to take that hit to be on the national stage."

Visceral appeal

Henneberger, the editor-in-chief of PoliticsDaily.com, a new site funded by Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit, attended Palin's recent headliner appearance at a pro-life rally in Evansville, Ind. She was impressed by Pain's visceral appeal to the audience.

"This was a soft launch for what she hopes is her presidential campaign," Henneberger noted. "It was SRO (standing room only), filled with 'Sarah Palin Republicans.'"

Henneberger has a keen understanding of the political scene. She spent 10 years at the New York Times as well as Newsweek and other media outlets.

"I don't think we should treat her as a buffoon, as entertaining as she is," Henneberger pointed out. "I was at the Republican convention and was very moved by seeing all those Republican women in tears, saying that they had found the 'Republican Hillary.' That's cool. I was happy for them."

Henneberger says: "It's great to see a younger woman in that high-profile role in her party. Republican women were saying, 'Are all the women in my party 100 years old? Where are the women who look like me?'"

Bristol Palin splits with ‘white trash’ Levi Johnston

2009-03-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

By Inside Track
Thursday, March 12, 2009

And from the They Said It Wouldn’t Last File: Bristol Palin, the 18-year-old daughter of former GOP veep washout Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has broken off her engagement to Levi Johnston, the father of her 2 month-old son.

Isn’t this the same Bristol Palin who told Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren last month that her fiancee was a hands-on dad to their son, Tripp, and they hoped to marry after finishing their education?

Levi’s sis Mercede Johnston told Star maggie that the couple actually split up more than a month ago. Bristol doesn’t attend school and rarely lets Levi see the baby.

“Bristol’s just crazy. That’s the nicest way I can put it,” said Mercede. “Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible for him. She tells him he can’t take the baby to our house because she doesn’t want him around ’white trash,’ ” she said. “She treats him so badly.”

Bristol Palin splits with her fiance, Levi Johnston

2009-03-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

By Rachel Dor | The Associated Press
9:33 AM EDT, March 12, 2009
WASILLA, Alaska - Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby.

Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided "a while ago" to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family's home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.

He also said some details of the breakup, rumors of which had been swirling on the Internet, were inaccurate.

Bristol Palin said in a statement that she was devastated about a report on Star magazine's Web site that quoted Levi's sister, Mercede, as saying Bristol "makes it nearly impossible" to visit the teenagers' infant son, Tripp. The baby was born Dec. 27.

"Unfortunately, my family has seen many people say and do many things to 'cash in' on the Palin name," said the statement, which was issued through the governor's political action committee. "Sometimes that greed clouds good judgment and the truth."

SarahPAC spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton did not immediately respond to calls seeking further information. The governor's spokesman, Bill McAllister, declined comment.

Sarah Palin revealed her daughter's pregnancy just days after being named John McCain's running mate on the Republican presidential ticket. She had said in December that her daughter and Johnston "are committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child." In an interview that aired on Fox News last month, Bristol Palin said her fiance saw the baby every day and described him as a "hands-on" dad.

Johnston and Palin had said they were considering a summer wedding.

"We both love each other," he told the AP in October. "We both want to marry each other. And that's what we are going to do." ------ Associated Press writer Anne Sutton in Juneau contributed to this report.

Bristol Palin: Abstinence for all teens 'not realistic'

2009-02-17T11:39:00.000-08:00

Bristol Palin says "everyone should just wait 10 years" to have a baby, rather than when you're young.

(CNN) -- In her first interview since giving birth, the teenage daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said having a child is not "glamorous," and that telling young people to be abstinent is "not realistic at all."

"It's just, like, I'm not living for myself anymore. It's, like, for another person, so it's different," Bristol Palin told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. "And just you're up all night. And it's not glamorous at all," she said. "Like, your whole priorities change after having a baby."

The 18-year-old, who gave birth in late December, said she is being helped tremendously by her mother, grandmother, cousins and other family members. She is engaged to teen father Levi Johnston, who is now working for his father and trying to complete school, but said she wishes that she waited another 10 years to have a baby.

It was "harder than labor" telling her parents she was pregnant.

"Well, we were sitting on the couch, my best friend and Levi, and we had my parents come and sit on the couch, too. And we had my sisters go upstairs," Bristol said. "And we just sat them down, and I just -- I couldn't even say it. I was just sick to my stomach.

"And so finally, my best friend just, like, blurted it out. And it was just, like -- I don't even remember it because it was just, like, something I don't want to remember."

Todd and Sarah Palin were "scared just because I have to -- I had to grow up a lot faster than they ever would have imagined," Bristol said.

Her parents insisted that she and her boyfriend hash out a "game plan" immediately. And now her parents and relatives are all pitching in to help take care of the child, particularly when Bristol is at school during the day.

Van Susteren was delicate with the teenager but pointedly asked if "contraception is an issue here."

"Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have philosophical or religious opposition to it," Van Susteren asked.

Bristol quickly answered that she didn't want to get into specifics. The best option is abstinence, the teen said, but added that she didn't think that was "realistic."

While her mother was running for vice president, the teenager said her treatment in the media was "evil." She said she read some of the tabloids that wrote about her. People didn't understand, she said, and some media reports perpetuated falsehoods about her experience.

"They thought that, like, my mom was going to make me have the baby, and it was my choice to have the baby," she said. "And it's just -- that kind of stuff just bothered me."

Van Susteren asked, "But this is your issue? This is your decision?"

Bristol answered yes. "(It) doesn't matter what my mom's views are on it. It was my decision, and I wish people would realize that, too," she said.

The network interview was Bristol's idea, the teen said. And she apparently sprung the news to her parents that she was going to speak publicly the day before the network taping. The teen said she wanted to tell her story so that other young people might think twice about having sex.

"I'd love to [be] an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy because it's not, like, a situation that you would want to strive for, I guess," Bristol said.

Gov. Palin made an unexpected appearance during the interview in Alaska, and Van Susteren asked her about her daughter's pregnancy.

"Not the most ideal situation, certainly you make the most of it," the governor said.

Bristol is a "strong and bold woman, and she is an amazing mom," Palin said. "And this little baby is very lucky to have her as a mama. He's going to be just fine."

Sarah Palin may be shopping a book

2009-01-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

The former GOP vice presidential candidate is reportedly working with Robert Barnett, who brokered deals for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Some reports say she is seeking as much as $11 million.
By Michael Muskal
11:22 AM PST, January 22, 2009

If you thought being governor of Alaska and a new grandmother would be enough to fill the cold, dark nights in the Arctic state, you underestimate Sarah Palin, the failed vice presidential candidate.

Palin has reportedly enlisted the services of Robert Barnett, the Washington lawyer who represented President Obama, would-be President Hillary Rodham Clinton and former President Bill Clinton in their multimillion-dollar book deals.

Barnett declined to comment. But a variety of published sources, including the Hollywood Reporter, said that Barnett was on board in helping to sell a Palin book.

Presumably, the book would tell her side of the 2008 presidential election, when the GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, plucked Palin out of relative obscurity and offered her the vice presidential spot. Though she was a darling of conservatives and ignited the Republican base whenever she appeared in public, Palin has made it known that she had a difficult time with McCain's strategists.

Throughout the campaign, Palin was kept under wraps by staff, and her appearances were carefully orchestrated in the failed hope of protecting her from ridicule. Frequently when she did engage the media, she appeared ill prepared at best and hopelessly naive at worst. Her comments on Russia and politics were a steady diet for late-night comedians.

During the campaign, there were charges that Palin tried to censor books at the Wasilla, Alaska, library when she was mayor of that community. Though the reports turned out to be overblown (she did ask the librarian about removing some books and then dismissed her along with other officials), the ink stuck to her, helping with conservatives and hurting with other voters.

Still, for many on the right, keeping Palin on a tight leash was one of the campaign's significant failures. The GOP ticket was ahead in some polls going into September, when the economy tanked and McCain's drive to White House faltered.

The economy could also be a factor in how much Palin, whose family is not wealthy, could earn from any book. In recent months, reports of her wanting as much as $11 million for her memoirs have surfaced, though she could get far less. Former First Lady Laura Bush just sold her memoirs for less than $2 million.

But there is more than money at stake. Palin has been trying to stay in the spotlight, presumably with an eye on 2012, and a book could help as well as giving her some sort of a base beyond Alaska.

michael.muskal@latimes.com

Palin to news organizations: Leave my kids alone

2009-01-22T15:20:00.000-08:00

By RACHEL D'ORO – 17 hours ago

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is going on the offensive against news organizations and bloggers she says are perpetuating malicious gossip about her and her children. But political observers say the former Republican vice presidential candidate can't have it both ways: trotting out the children to showcase her family values, then trying to shield them from scrutiny.

Palin's criticism also raises questions about her motivations because she has said she is open to a presidential run in 2012.
"I think she's positioning herself. She's attacking the media as a way to generate support among a base she hopes will support her," said Leonard Steinhorn, a professor of communications at American University in Washington and an expert on the presidency.

Palin shied away from interviews during the campaign, although her children often accompanied her on her travels, including her oldest daughter, Bristol, who was pregnant at the time.

But in recent weeks, she has personally reached out to media outlets such as People magazine and The Associated Press to complain about information she claimed is wrong.

She slammed reports that 18-year-old Bristol Palin and the teen's fiance are high school dropouts. The governor insists the two are not dropouts because they enrolled in correspondence courses.

The couple last month had a son — the governor's first grandchild.

The governor said she is speaking out to set the record straight, not because of any political aspirations.

"It's all about the family," she said. "I'm wired in a way that I can take the criticism. I can take the shots. But any mother would want to protect their children from lies and scandalous reporting."

In a Jan. 5 interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler, Palin also questioned whether Caroline Kennedy's quest for a New York Senate seat was as heavily scrutinized as her vice presidential campaign.

When her comments were reported, she chastised journalists for taking her remarks "out of context to create adversarial situations."

Steinhorn is not alone among experts who believe the first-term governor is trying to keep her name in the spotlight. A newcomer to national politics when she was nominated, Palin energized the Republican base but also attracted intense criticism that she had little substance.

Palin "does seem to have ambitions, and this is one way of staying in the public eye," said Janis Edwards, an associate professor of communication studies at the University of Alabama and an expert on women candidates. One of Edwards' classes monitored Palin's role in a project called "The Palin Watch."

Palin's grievances include what she calls "false stories" such as a talk show host's suggestion that she helped Levi Johnston get a job in Alaska's North Slope oil fields, circumventing eligibility rules since he does not have a high school diploma.

Johnston's father, an engineer for an oil-field services company, has said his position accounted for any help Levi received in getting the apprenticeship job.

Palin also lashed out at bloggers and others perpetuating Internet rumors that her 9-month-old son, Trig, is actually Bristol Palin's child from a secret previous pregnancy.

Her decision to strike back at news organizations seems to contradict the governor's earlier statements on how politicians should respond to media coverage.

Months before she was named John McCain's running mate, Palin attended a leadership forum in Los Angeles and was asked her opinion on then-Sen. Hillary Clinton's allegations that she was being unfairly treated by the media during the primaries.
Palin said Clinton did herself a disservice to even mention it. The governor said it bothered her to hear Clinton "bring that attention to herself on that level."

Palin said her opinion has not changed since the March 2008 event and insisted that defending her children is her only motivation.

"I'm not whining about the treatment of the press, but I am calling reporters on the family aspect of this," she said. "I think it's unprecedented in some respects what I have seen with my children."

It's not unprecedented. The children and spouses of high-profile politicians always draw attention.

Early in President George Bush's first term, his twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, made headlines after an embarrassing run-in with the law for underage drinking.

So did Kitty Dukakis, the wife of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, when she was treated for alcoholism after her husband's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1988. She later suffered a relapse and was hospitalized after drinking rubbing alcohol.

Two weeks before President Obama's inauguration, his daughters Sasha and Malia were escorted to their new schools past a line of waiting photographers.

Sarah Palin Snubbed for Obama Inaugural Dinner Honoring John McCain?

2009-01-20T11:39:00.000-08:00

The word is out that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will NOT be attending President-Elect Barack Obama’s dinner for GOP opponent John McCain this next week.
But, why?

On the night before Barack Obama is sworn in as the nation’s 44th President, his inaugural committee will host a series of dinners honoring public servants it deems champions of bipartisanship. To be feted are Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Colin Powell, and John McCain, whom Obama vanquished last November. At the McCain dinner, the GOP senator, who managed to suppress his bipartisan tendencies during the hard-fought 2008 campaign, will be introduced by one of his closest Senate confidants: Senator Lindsey Graham. But McCain’s No. 1 booster during the last year will not be among those hailing McCain. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, his controversial running-mate, will not attend the dinner, Bill McAllister, a Palin spokesman tells Mother Jones.

Here is the official Palin office explanation:

According to McAllister, Palin will spend next week in her home state preparing for the legislative session, which begins on Tuesday, and for her State of the State address on Thursday.

Was she even invited? “I don’t know if she was invited,” McCallister says. Don’t know? How could that be? It’s hard to miss an invitation from a presidential inauguration committee. For its part, Obama’s inaugural committee has declined to say whether an invitation was sent to Palin. Repeated phone calls to its press office produced no answer to this simple question.

So, is there still bad blood between the McCain and Palin camps of the Republican Party? Is McCain pissed off about Palin’s latest attack on her media handlers and the MSM in general. And, what about McCain’s daughter refusing to discuss Sarah Palin for the blogs?

Or is McCain just being “The Maverick,” deferring to “The One” and being politically correct while not having that bible thumper, “UNQUALIFIED” HICK around? Part of McCain’s political rehabilitation with the media and Washingtonians, perhaps?

If Palin was left off the guest list, it’s not clear whether the snub came from McCain or the Presidential Inaugural Committee. But it’s not terribly hard to imagine why she might not make the cut. There appears to be lingering bad blood between the McCain and Palin factions, over such issues as the profligate spending spree to attire the vice presidential candidate and her family (Silk boxers for the first dude?) and the McCain campaign’s botched media roll-out of Palin. The Alaska Governor still appears to be holding a grudge against the McCainiacs, as evidenced by recently released excerpts from her interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler, whose forthcoming documentary explores the “media malpractice” that supposedly paved the way for Obama’s election. In the interview, she lashed out at the media, but also criticized her McCain campaign handlers for allowing her to become a campaign punchline in multiple disastrous interviews with CBS News’ Katie Couric.

Flap bets it was McCain who deemed it unwise to invite Sarah Palin. After all, isn’t after “The One,” isn’t it all about McCain?

Palin says she's been exploited by Couric and Fey

2009-01-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

-Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says CBS News anchor Katie Couric and comic actress Tina Fey have been "exploiting" her.
Palin also is questioning whether Caroline Kennedy is getting better treatment from the news media in her quest for a Senate seat than Palin herself received as Republican John McCain's running mate.

Palin reflected on her campaign for national office in an interview this week with conservative radio talk-show host and filmmaker John Ziegler. Clips are posted on YouTube.

Palin gave Couric a rare interview at the beginning of her campaign, and Fey frequently impersonated Palin on "Saturday Night Live."

Palin says she thinks there may be a "class issue" involved in the press coverage of Kennedy and her own bid for office.

Sarah Palin installed a tanning bed at the governor's mansion

2009-01-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Posted by ESNEAD on September 15, 2008 in sarah palin

What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?

A tanning bed!

Seems Sarah Palin installed a tanning bed in the governor's mansion in 2007.

"She did. She paid for it with her own money," Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities told Us Weekly.

"It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion," Wetherell told the Narco News, who first reported the story.

According to Wetherell, it was paid for with her own money and purchased used from a health club.

Tanning beds can cost up to $35,000 to install in a home -- not including parts, Alaska-based Color Me Tan manager Erin Weise told the Narco News. Weise added, "I don't think it's normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house. It's expensive."

Palin's running mate, John McCain, battled skin cancer in 1993 and 2000 and has admitted to being a regular wearer of SPF 30, long sleeves and a hat in the sun. Bet he won't be in favor of her installing one of these babies.

The irony here is that Palin declared May 2007 to be Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska. In the press release, it read, "Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds.”

Photo: Getty Images

Mother of Palin daughter's boyfriend arrested

2008-12-19T12:15:00.000-08:00

AP – Sherry Johnston, mother of Levi Johnston, talks about her son at her home in Wasilla, Alaska in this …

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Alaska state troopers have arrested the mother of Bristol Palin's boyfriend on drug charges.

Sherry L. Johnston was arrested Thursday after troopers served a search warrant on a Wasilla home. The 42-year-old Johnston has been charged with six felony drug counts.

Troopers did not identify the drug involved in a brief mention on the agency's Web site.

Johnston is the mother of 18-year-old Levi Johnston. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the GOP nominee for vice president, announced in September that her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant and Johnston was the father.

Sherry Johnston was released from jail in Palmer on $5,000 bail.

Democrats Back Palin?

2008-11-20T11:49:00.001-08:00

For a political figure whose campaign got pretty damn surreal (moose hunting in full makeup), it could get even spookier. We checked in with some of the key Republicans who managed to not get Sarah Palin elected vice president a couple of weeks ago. What's going to come of their expensively dressed dame now?

"The GOP is split down the middle right now," remarked one of our top Washington insiders, who breaks bread with these red-state types quite regularly. "One faction wants to cleave closer to the Christian right—and those are the ones who think Palin is as close to the Second Coming as we're gonna get—and the other faction wants to distance themselves from the wack jobs and re-establish the party's strengths in the areas of economic development, smaller government, states' rights and moderate trade policy."

Wack jobs? In the Republican party? Quel joke, n'est-ce pas?

The best case scenario we're hearing from those Republicans who don't want Palin coming back for another stab at national politics: She stays in Alaska, gets a book deal from a conservative Christian imprint and we only hear another peep from her in about a year, and then she goes away.

"However, she's a crafty little minx with Hillary-type ambitions," added our Washington insider, "so don't count her out in any way, shape or form. She could pull a Ross Perot in four years, because she's as nutty and self-absorbed as he is and has the support of a very right-leaning minority with deep pockets who will fund her because Jesus told them to."

Indeed. But did you all know the entire Holy-Rollin' Democratic party is dying for the big-haired hon to re-enter the national race again? Latest Potomac poop is that a bunch of moneyed Washington Dems are secretly planning on funding her race in 2011, now, that's funny.

Cold realities await Gov. Sarah Palin in Alaska

2008-11-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

By GENE JOHNSON

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Gov. Sarah Palin, heralded by some conservatives as the future of the Republican Party, faces some cold political realities in present-day Alaska.

Within days of the McCain-Palin ticket's defeat earlier this month, the unsuccessful GOP vice presidential nominee capped her tumultuous two months on the campaign trail with a whirlwind series of national media interviews and a headline-grabbing appearance at the Republican Governors Association meeting in Florida.

Now it's back to her day job at the state capital in Juneau.

Palin's state budget proposal is due in a month, with plummeting oil prices slashing Alaska's revenues by billions of dollars.
The 1,700-mile natural gas pipeline she bragged about on the campaign trail — "We began a nearly $40 billion-dollar natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence," she said at the Republican National Convention — is nowhere near being built.

Some hard feelings linger over her administration's initial decision to ignore subpoenas in the investigation of whether she abused her power in firing the public safety commissioner who wouldn't oust her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper.

"The main focus is going to be on the gas line and on the long-term financial issues," said Democratic state Sen. Bill Wielechowski. "You're going to see really a clampdown on government services."

Uncertain is whether the bipartisanship that existed during Palin's 20 months as governor can survive the heated rhetoric from the presidential campaign and her own political ambitions, with the 44-year-old clearly signaling that she's open to a bid for president in 2012.

The difficult task at hand "provides the governor with a great opportunity to roll up her sleeves and get back to her job," said Kenneth Khachigian, a former adviser to President Ronald Reagan. "She's got four or five election cycles ahead of her where she can do things. She doesn't have to comment on 2012 or 2016. Being a good governor is the best thing she can do right now."

Among the challenges she faces:

_THE BUDGET:
Alaska has no income or sales tax, and a huge chunk of its annual revenue — as much as 90 percent — comes from taxes and fees on oil companies. When oil prices soar, as they did this summer, so do the state's coffers: Alaska in the past two years has socked away billions in its already massive savings accounts.

But one of those accounts, the $28 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, sends every Alaskan a dividend each year — this year it was $2,069. So tapping its income to pay for government is considered political suicide, and falling oil prices can put big pressure on state spending.

The governor's chief economist is working on a new revenue forecast, and many lawmakers expect the state to drastically reduce spending on such things as road projects.

_THE PIPELINE:
With overwhelming support from Democrats, Palin awarded a license to TransCanada in August to pursue building a pipeline that would carry natural gas from Alaska's North Slope to an existing pipeline network in Alberta.

Although the state granted TransCanada $500 million to plan the pipeline, there's no guarantee it will be built. TransCanada says it won't get financing for the massive project until it has guarantees from oil companies to ship the gas through the pipeline; the oil companies say they won't give such guarantees unless Alaska sets a fixed tax rate on production of the gas, and Palin says she won't approve the rates the oil companies want.

Solving that problem will require not only cooperation from the Legislature, but probably from the oil companies Palin has battled. And her claim to being a national leader on energy issues depends on it.

_TROOPERGATE AND THE CAMPAIGN:
The episode — and the media spotlight that resulted from Palin's vice presidential nomination — drew attention to practices that simply can't be ignored.

Palin's administration routinely used private e-mail accounts for state business, circumventing public disclosure laws. "We will undoubtedly address that in some form of legislation," said Democratic Sen. Hollis French, who oversaw the Troopergate investigation.

Lawmakers also said they could hold hearings on, and possibly restrict, Palin's practice of charging the state for her children's travel and taking per diem payments for nights spent in her Wasilla home.

Democratic Rep. Les Gara has — without luck — asked the Alaska State Troopers and the Palin's appointed attorney general to investigate whether the McCain-Palin campaign urged anyone to ignore their subpoenas. Under state law, to "induce a witness to be absent" from an official proceeding to which they've been summoned is second-degree witness tampering.

But even Gara, a recently outspoken critic of Palin, said he doesn't want such matters preoccupying the government.

"There are much more important things in this state than rehashing Troopergate," Gara said. "We all have to sit down and let bygones be bygones, but it's going to take some conversations."

Palin in line for big book deal?

2008-11-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Posted by Jeff Mapes, The Oregonian November 18, 2008 08:58AM

Forget the argument over whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is the savior of the Republican Party or merely a drag on it. What's important, for her bottom line at least, is that she has become a bona fide celebrity.

And that means she's in line for a big book deal, according to the Times of London. Maybe even $7 million.

Palin wants God to show her way to White House

2008-11-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Defeated Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she hopes God will "show her the way" before she decides on any future bid for the White House.

The Alaska governor declined to say whether she was planning to run for the US presidency in four years, stating in an exclusive interview Monday with the Fox News Channel that 2012 remained too far off.

"I can't predict what's going to happen a day from now, much less four years from now," Palin said in the interview.
However the devoutly religious 44-year-old mother-of-five said that if God wanted her to run for the highest office, she hoped to be shown the way.

"You know, I have -- faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I always do," said Palin, who served as running mate to Senator John McCain.

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is," she added.

"Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door.

"And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

Palin's faith was scrutinized during the election campaign after an Internet video surfaced showing her being blessed by a Kenyan witch-hunter in a 2005 service at a Pentecostal church in Alaska.

In a separate interview with the Anchorage Daily News she blamed President George W. Bush's administration for the defeat of the McCain-Palin ticket in last week's election.

"I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a 10 trillion dollar debt in a Republican administration?" Palin told the paper.

"So people desiring change I think went as far from the administration that is presently seated as they could.
"It's amazing that we did as well as we did."

In Monday's wide-ranging interview with Fox News, Palin also appeared to admit for the first time allegations made by anonymous aides to running mate John McCain that she had "gone rogue" during the election campaign.

In the final weeks of the election, reports of tensions between Palin and McCain's advisers emerged, with unidentified sources alleging she had routinely disregarded their advice and made unscripted remarks.

"But being quite independent, just like John McCain is also, yes, maybe there is some characterizing of me going rogue when once in a while I would say something that -- hey, I said it from the heart," Palin said.

"I believed in going off script once in a while in some of the rallies in order to really reiterate, perhaps, something that I believed about John McCain."

"Maybe it wasn't written in the script, but so what? Geez, if this is all going to be so scripted and kind of like a movie screen and we have to follow verbatim everything that somebody writes for you, I don't want any part of that. That's not who I am and that's not who John McCain is either."

Palin denied however that any of her comments had hurt McCain's campaign.

Meanwhile Palin also dismissed reports following last week's election suggesting she was unaware Africa was a continent, not a country, insisting the question had never arisen during discussions about the region.

"We discussed what was going on in Africa. And never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or is it a continent," Palin said.

"I just don't know about this issue. So I don't know how they took our one discussion on Africa and turned that into what they turned it into."

And Palin denied she ever asked for her much-publicized 150,000-dollar wardrobe during the campaign, saying it was purchased for her by the Republican party and that many of the clothes for her and her family were never worn.

"I did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes," said Palin, saying she "would have been happy to wear my own clothes."

Given the serious issues facing the country, "that turned into a kind of odd campaign issue," she said.

Fox News: Sarah Palin "Didn't Understand Africa Was a Continent"

2008-11-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6, 2008

Now that the election is over, Fox News' Carl Cameron -- the beat reporter for the Republican presidential ticket -- says he is able to report on his "off the record" sources who told him there was great tension between McCain staffers and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"There was great concern in the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin lacked the degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, and a heartbeat away from the presidency," he says in an interview (above).

"We're told by folks that she didn't know what countries that were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement -- that being the Canada, the US, and Mexico.

"We're told she didn't understand that Africa was a continent rather than a country just in itself ... a whole host of questions that caused serious problems about her knowledgeability," said Cameron.

"She got very angry at staff, thought that she was mishandled... was particularly angry about the way the Katie Couric interview went," he continued.

Added Cameron: "She didn't accept preparation for that interview when the aides say that that was part of the problem. And that there were times that she was hard to control emotionally. There's talk of [throwing] temper tantrums [after reading] bad news clippings."

Meanwhile, Palin is playing coy on a possible run in 2012.

"2012 sounds like years away. What will we be doing then? Enrolling Trig in kindergarten," Palin told CNN of her 6-month-old son.

Palin returns to Alaska, urged to mend fences

2008-11-06T15:14:00.000-08:00

By Yereth Rosen – Thu Nov 6, 3:02 pm ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – After two months sharpening her conservative rhetoric on the U.S. presidential campaign trail, Gov. Sarah Palin returned to Alaska a star in the Republican party, but weakened at home where people had known her as more centrist.

Palin's "pit bull" campaign persona and her strident pitches to the conservative base of the Republican Party were a stark contrast to her nonpartisan, populist style as governor, leaving raw feelings among some Alaskans, experts said.

As speculation of a presidential run in 2012 builds, an editorial in Thursday's Anchorage Daily News asked which Palin will return to Alaska: the pragmatic centrist who was wildly popular at home or the highly partisan politician who drew huge crowds to campaign rallies across the United States?

"Her obligations as governor point her in one direction. Her national ambitions point her in another," the Anchorage Daily News said in an editorial.

Prior to joining Republican presidential candidate John McCain on the ticket, Palin boasted the highest approval rating of any U.S. governor, winning favor with her tough stance toward oil companies and championing a handsome payout to all Alaskans as a windfall from high oil prices.

Palin returns to an Alaska where oil prices are less than half the record highs that padded the state treasury with surpluses and where critics have launched various ethics probes alleging misuse of public funds and abuse of power.

This week, a state panel cleared Palin of wrongdoing in the abuse-of-power investigation.

She first ruffled some feathers in her introductory speech on August 29, when she claimed credit for killing the notorious "Bridge to Nowhere" - a contradiction of her past support for the project and her claim, during the 2006 gubernatorial race, that the nickname for the proposed bridge was insulting.

Her claims about cutting Alaska's budget and the size of government also did not sit well with critics since both ballooned under her watch as oil prices surged.

"A lot of people have been stung, or felt stung," said state Sen. Reggie Joule, an Inupiat Eskimo from the northwest town of Kotzebue and part of a mostly Democratic coalition that backed Palin's initiatives on crucial oil and gas issues.

Even her reference to the "Joe Six-Pack" constituency was considered poor form by some Alaskans and insensitive because of the historic ravages of alcohol abuse here, especially in Native villages.

'GET THICK SKINS'

Palin arrived back in Alaska late on Wednesday, greeted by cheering supporters at the Anchorage international airport. She downplayed concerns about how hurt feelings in the state legislature could make it difficult for her to govern.

"Nobody should have hurt feelings. My goodness, this is politics. Politics is rough and tumble, and people need to get thick skins, just like I've gotten," said Palin.

Palin still remains popular in Alaska but her once-stratospheric approval rating has slipped. As of late October, it was down to a 64 percent from a high of 89 percent, according to Anchorage pollster and consultant Ivan Moore.

The key to Palin's success in Alaska has been a focus on popular stances that cut across party lines.

Palin increased oil production taxes and promoted a natural gas pipeline that would, if built, be independent of the major North Slope oil producers that have dominated the energy industry in Alaska and have been blamed for exercising undue influence over the state's politicians.

"The reality of the situation is that Sarah was very strategic in going after things that the public agreed with," said state Rep. Paul Seaton, a moderate Republican from Homer.

"If she continues on that course of selecting issues that have broad public approval, all the same people will agree that these are good for Alaska and will work together again."

(Editing by Daisuke Wakabayashi and Jackie Frank)

and it worked!

2008-11-05T10:02:00.001-08:00

Although the election is over, it sounds like good 'ol Sarah still has plenty in store for us, so stay tuned and feel free to forward any of her craziness our way!

Good job people. We kept the crazy bitch OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE!!

Palingram

2008-11-02T17:18:00.001-08:00

Cabbage Patch Kids Vice President Candidate Sarah Palin

2008-10-31T13:53:00.000-07:00

Current bid: US $3,650.00
End time: Nov-04-08 05:00:00 PST (3 days 16 hours)
Item number: 200267359418

Palin might not be permitted to cash in on fame

2008-10-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

By HILLEL ITALIE and ANNE SUTTON, Associated Press Writers

NEW YORK – If her bid for vice president fails, Gov. Sarah Palin could almost surely use her sudden fame to obtain a lucrative book deal or high fees on the lecture circuit, or even get her own TV talk show. But Alaska law might not allow it.

A provision of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act restricts outside employment. It says: "The head of a principal executive department of the state may not accept employment for compensation outside the agency that the executive head serves."
Senior Assistant Attorney General David Jones said the section likely applies to the governor but it's not clear what constitutes "employment."

"Clearly, the intent of the statute is to make it clear these are full-time jobs. If you are a commissioner, for example, you can't be working in the private sector. But does that mean you can't go out and give a speech now and then for an honorarium? I don't know. I don't know that we have interpreted it for that purpose in the past," Jones said.

Palin, 44, was little known beyond Alaska before John McCain chose her in August to be his running mate on the Republican ticket. Although she has been widely criticized as too inexperienced to handle the presidency, Palin consistently draws large crowds and is considered an attractive and dynamic presence, receiving high praise for her appearance Oct. 19 on "Saturday Night Live."

"It's not unimaginable that Ms. Palin, who once worked as a television sports reporter, could someday follow (Ronald) Reagan's path in reverse and cash in her political renown to become a show-business celebrity," New York Times critic Alessandra Stanley wrote.

"One thing everybody can agree on is that Gov. Sarah Palin is qualified — to someday host her own television show."
Palin was elected governor in 2006. Her term is scheduled to run through 2010.

Unlike McCain, or the Democratic candidates — Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joseph Biden — Palin has never written a book. But interest in her has been so high that her nomination made an instant best seller out of an obscure biography, Kaylene Johnson's "Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down," published last spring by Epicenter Press, Inc., based in Kenmore, Wash.

Publishers agree that a Palin memoir would bring her a seven-figure advance, should she be permitted to accept it.

"If she is allowed to do whatever she wants, all kinds of things are possible," says Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs, which released the best seller "What Happened," by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

"What you have with her is a situation in which she's a real celebrity, and she's new enough for people to want to read about her."
____
Anne Sutton contributed to this story from Juneau, Alaska.

Palin looks past Tuesday to her political future

2008-10-30T15:49:00.000-07:00

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 1 min ago

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. – With days still to go in the White House race, backers of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin are talking her up as a possible contender in 2012, speculation that irritates other Republicans who contend she's a drag on the ticket and that her lightweight image — unfair or not — will be hard to shed.

The Alaska governor has done little to quiet the talk. In fact, she fueled the discussion this week when she signaled that she will remain on the national political scene no matter what happens Tuesday. "I'm not doing this for naught," she said in an interview with ABC News.

The telegenic Palin, who burst onto the national stage seven weeks ago, has divided conservatives — some energized by her strong stand on social issues and others embarrassed by her halting interview performances. On the campaign trail, she is a popular draw, attracting numbers that a Republican Party searching for female star power can't ignore.

The divide is clearly evident.

George Will, a prominent conservative columnist, suggested "Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain's saddle than is his association with George W. Bush."

Indeed, a poll released this week by the Pew Research Center found that 49 percent of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Palin, compared to 44 percent who viewed her favorably. Pew also found that unlike past vice presidential choices, opinions of Palin mattered to the ticket.

None of that is apparent as Palin campaigns across battleground states in the closing days of the presidential contest. She drew huge crowds to a rally in southern Missouri on Thursday and 16,000 jammed in to see her Wednesday night in Jeffersonville, Ind., many wearing "Sarahcuda" T-shirts and buttons saying "I'm a bitter gun owner, and I vote."

Pell Blakeman, a Palin supporter who now calls himself "Pell the Electrician" in honor of the infamous Joe the Plumber, captured her appeal this way: "She just connects with the people. She's doing a fine job and she'll make a fine president one day."

Palin's future will be a top item on the agenda at a meeting of national conservatives scheduled next Thursday outside Washington. Participants in the meeting have declined to offer many specifics but said Palin's role in the conservative movement, either as vice president or as a 2012 contender if the GOP ticket loses, will be discussed.

To that end, Palin has begun to develop a national political identity that is separate from McCain's.

She's given three policy speeches in the last week, on energy independence, special needs children and the ways in which women are affected by national tax policy. She announced her support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage despite McCain's long-standing opposition to such a measure. And she has publicly questioned some of the McCain campaign's tactics, like the use of robocalls and the decision to pull resources out of Michigan.

Such departures from the script have irked some of McCain's advisers even as the Arizona senator insists he has no problem with Palin asserting herself.

"Sarah's a maverick, I'm a maverick. No one expected us to agree on everything," McCain said on "Larry King Live" Wednesday, adding, "We share the same values, the same principles, the same goals for this country."

If the Republican ticket were to win next Tuesday, Palin would instantly be viewed as a GOP nominee-in-waiting no matter what her stated intentions. She'd also be the most prominent and popular conservative in McCain's sphere — a powerful role, given many conservatives' lukewarm view of McCain.

"You have various legs to the Republican stool, and she'll be a feisty spokeswoman for that part of the party," Republican strategist William O'Reilly said of a potential Palin vice presidency.

But with Democrat Barack Obama leading in the polls, McCain aides are second-guessing many decisions made during the campaign, including Palin's role.

She was poorly vetted for the job, leading critics to say McCain had botched his first major decision as a presidential nominee. And aides are distraught over how Palin's initial rollout turned sour after her well-received speech to the Republican National Convention in August.

In the days that followed, Palin was shielded from the press except for a few cringe-worthy TV interviews in which she was hard-pressed to name a newspaper she reads and said Alaska's proximity to Russia gave her insight into that country's affairs. The interviews helped fuel Tina Fey's widely viewed "Saturday Night Live" impersonations of Palin as charming but clueless.

"I think she may have been ill-served by staff who sequestered her after the convention and gave the Democrats a chance to define her," New Hampshire GOP chairman Fergus Cullen said. "That may have lasting political consequences for her past election day."

Palin's reputation came in for another hit after the Republican National Committee disclosed it had spent about $150,000 at pricey department stores and boutiques to buy clothes for her and members of her family. Palin defended herself as a frugal shopper and called the purchases part of the stagecraft of running a national campaign, but the flap helped tarnish her image as a champion of the middle class.

But Palin's strongest support still lies with grass roots voters, many of whom cite her popularity and executive experience in Alaska as evidence that she could step into the presidency once day.

"I think she's the best thing that's happened to this campaign," 20-year Navy veteran Bill Costello said at the Missouri rally Thursday. "Me and my particular clique — we aren't voting for John McCain, we're voting for Sarah."
___
Associated Press Writers Liz Sidoti in Washington and Jim Salter in Missouri contributed to this report.

Republican VP nominee Palin eyeing 2012: report

2008-10-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Reuters – Republican vice-presidential nominee Alaska Governor Sarah Palin speaks at a campaign rally with Republican …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Whether or not Republican presidential candidate John McCain is elected next week, his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, plans to remain on the U.S. national political scene, ABC News reported on Wednesday.

Asked about 2012, whether she was discouraged by daily attacks on the campaign trail and whether she would return home to Alaska, the Republican vice presidential nominee signaled that she expects to be a player in the next presidential election cycle.

"I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken ... I'm not doing this for naught," Palin told ABC News in a taped interview airing on Thursday.

A campaign spokesperson traveling with Palin in Indiana said the vice presidential nominee was talking about being focused on winning on November 4 and is not going to quit despite what the critics have said.

With less than a week before Election Day, Palin told ABC that she believes in the current Republican presidential ticket and that she thinks "it's going to go our way on Tuesday, November 4."

"I truly believe that the wisdom of the people will be revealed on that day," she said.

Palin has energized the Republican base of supporters. But the Alaska governor has come under withering criticism on a variety of issues, including whether she is qualified to become vice president.

(Writing by Joanne Allen; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Larry Flynt's Top 10 REASONS HE SUPPORTS JOHN MCCAIN

2008-10-29T12:56:00.001-07:00

Palin's future causes Republican rift

2008-10-29T12:52:00.000-07:00

By Alexander Mooney
CNN

(CNN) -- Election Day is still days away, but Republicans are already caught up in a heated debate about Sarah Palin's future role in the party should the GOP ticket fail to win the White House.

Gov. Sarah Palin speaks at Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday.

In one corner are some conservatives who believe the Alaska governor has been a detriment to John McCain's presidential bid and threatens to lead the party astray for the foreseeable future.

Another faction says Palin's core-conservative beliefs, demonstrated political acumen, and compelling frontier biography position her to reshape the face of a party now viewed by many voters as out of touch.

It's a debate, somewhat ugly at times, that is beginning to play out in public view as Republicans brace themselves for the possibility of losing the White House and a significant number of seats in Congress come Election Day. And that may leave the party in shambles with drastically reduced influence in Washington. iReport.com: Share your thoughts on Palin

Should that happen, political observers say, the party will face its biggest identity crisis in more than a generation, and Palin may well be caught squarely in the middle of it.

"A civil war that is simmering will break out into the open if McCain loses, and the party will have to decide what they want to be in the post-Reagan world," said Gloria Borger, a senior political analyst for CNN. Watch whether Palin is making a power play »

Palin, whose campaign rally crowds have been noticeably larger than McCain's, will certainly have legitimacy to run for president in four years should she want to. Some McCain operatives, claiming Palin repeatedly veers off script and often disregards the campaign's advice, already believe she is more interested in positioning herself for the future than helping the party win this year.

"She is such a compelling figure, and she has helped, without a doubt, with the Republican base," CNN Chief National Correspondent John King said. "But she's also hurting with key constituencies, like suburban women and independents, and there's a big question that, if McCain loses, does she try to emerge as the leader of the party heading into the 2012 cycle?"

Should Palin ultimately decide to launch her own presidential bid, she will face a massive headwind from an influential group of conservatives who believe the Alaska governor represents the very reasons why the Republican Party finds itself in retreat.

"She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? It's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just ... says things," conservative columnist Peggy Noonan wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal column.

It's an argument that has been echoed by a string of conservatives -- including David Brooks, George Will, Kathleen Parker, and David Frum -- who believe Palin exhibits a poisonous anti-intellectual instinct of the party that threatens to ultimately destroy its foundations.

"Reagan had an immense faith in the power of ideas. But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices," said Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times.

Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush who has written that Palin is woefully inexperienced to be president, told CNN the Alaska governor's chances might be slim in a general election matchup.

"She will face the classic problem of being a strong candidate for the nomination, but not such an appealing candidate across party lines," he said. "She has a very intense following among core Republicans, but at the same time, non-core Republicans have reached a very negative verdict."

Frum also pointed to recent polling that suggests Palin's unfavorable ratings have sharply risen in the last two months, and predicted it will be extremely difficult for her to combat a perception among many voters that she is a lightweight, ill equipped for the burdens of the presidency.

"This is a moment where people have formed impressions, they have been watching her closely and paying a lot of attention," he said. "Even if she spends the next two and a half years delivering worthy speeches at the Council on Foreign Relations, the cumulative work that she will do will be seen by fewer people than probably watched the Katie Couric interview or the Charlie Gibson interview, or the debate with Joe Biden."

But even as one corner of the party predicts dire consequences if Palin becomes the Republican standard-bearer, another is strongly behind her.

"I hope and expect that she stays involved nationally, and she can play pretty much whatever role she wants to. She's got momentum now, and I'd be surprised if she didn't play a leadership role in the party," Richard Viguerie, a prominent cultural conservative and chairman of conservativehq.com, told CNN.

Viguerie, as well as many other cultural conservatives, point to Palin's core beliefs on key issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage and say she represents a fresh face, from a different region of the country, who has the potential to reshape the conservative movement.

"Palin, as best I can describe it, exudes a kind of middle-class magnetism. It's subdued but nonetheless very powerful," Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes recently wrote. "Whether they know it or not, Republicans have a huge stake in Palin. If, after the election, they let her slip into political obscurity, they'll be making a tragic mistake."

Conservatives across the party are slated to meet in Virginia in the days after the election to discuss the future of the party and Palin's role is expected to be a topic of conversation.

"Palin will certainly be a discussion point," a conservative who will attend the meeting said. "While the Washington establishment and some of the New York academics may not like her, a lot of the country and the conservative movement's base does."

Factors out of Palin's control could ultimately control her fate.

The political landscape in 2012 may look markedly different than it does now, depending on the success of a President Obama should the Illinois senator win. Unforeseen developments in the economy and the war in Iraq will also likely have an effect on whether Palin rises to the forefront of her party in the next election cycle.

But one thing is clear: If Palin wants to mount a serious bid for her party's nomination in 2012, she has a lot of groundwork to do.

She has yet to form relationships with many key conservative groups at the local level, whose support would be instrumental in ultimately capturing the Republican presidential nomination. She knows few party chairman in the key early primary states where the race will likely be decided.

"She needs to get out there and get to know conservative leaders at the national, state, and local level," Viguerie said. "She needs to introduce herself in a way she hasn't had the opportunity to do so far."

And should McCain lose next Tuesday, the Alaska governor will have little time to take a breath.

"She would have to start the day after the election if she wants to run for president -- there is no period where the election isn't going on," Frum said.

Palin allies report rising campaign tension

2008-10-26T02:59:00.000-07:00

Ben Smith – Sat Oct 25, 8:27 am ET

Even as John McCain and Sarah Palin scramble to close the gap in the final days of the 2008 election, stirrings of a Palin insurgency are complicating the campaign's already-tense internal dynamics.

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain's camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain's decline.

"She's lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.
"I think she'd like to go more rogue," he said.

The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," a McCain insider said, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News' Katie Couric, the sometimes painful content of which the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.

"A number of Gov. Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," the McCain insider fumed, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign.

Wallace declined to engage publicly in the finger-pointing that has consumed the campaign in the final weeks.

"I am in awe of [Palin's] strength under constant fire by the media," she said in an e-mail. "If someone wants to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is to lie there."

But other McCain aides, defending Wallace, dismissed the notion that Palin was mishandled. The Alaska governor was, they argue, simply unready — "green," sloppy and incomprehensibly willing to criticize McCain for, for instance, not attacking Sen. Barack Obama for his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Palin has in fact performed fairly well in the moments thought to be key for a vice presidential nominee: She made a good impression in her surprise rollout in Ohio and her speech to the Republican National Convention went better than the campaign could have imagined. She turned in an adequate performance at a debate against the Democratic Party's foremost debater.

But other elements of her image-making went catastrophically awry. Her dodging of the press and her nervous reliance on tight scripts in her first interview, with ABC News, became a national joke — driven home to devastating effect by "Saturday Night Live" comic Tina Fey. The Couric interview — her only unstaged appearance for a week — was "water torture," as one internal ally put it.

Some McCain aides say they had little choice with a candidate who simply wasn't ready for the national stage, and that Palin didn't forcefully object. Moments that Palin's allies see as triumphs of instinct and authenticity the Wright suggestion, her objection to the campaign's pulling out of Michigan ”they dismiss as Palin's "slips and miscommunications," that is, her own incompetence and evidence of the need for tight scripting.

But Palin partisans say she chafed at the handling.

"The campaign as a whole bought completely into what the Washington media said — that she's completely inexperienced," said a close Palin ally outside the campaign who speaks regularly to the candidate.

"Her strategy was to be trustworthy and a team player during the convention and thereafter, but she felt completely mismanaged and mishandled and ill advised," the person said. "Recently, she's gone from relying on McCain advisers who were assigned to her to relying on her own instincts."

Palin's loyalists say she's grown particularly disenchanted with the veterans of the Bush reelection campaign, including Schmidt and Wallace, and that despite her anti-intellectual rhetoric, her closest ally among her new traveling aides is a policy adviser, former National Security Council official Steve Biegun. She's also said to be close with McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, who prepared her for the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate.

When a McCain aide, speaking anonymously Friday to The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder, suggested that Palin's charge that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" had "escaped HQ's vetting," it was Scheunemann who fired off an angry response that the speech was "fully vetted" and that to attack Palin for it was "bull****."

Palin's "instincts," on display in recent days, have had her opening up to the media, including a round of interviews on talk radio, cable and broadcast outlets, as well as chats with her traveling press and local reporters.

Reporters really began to notice the change last Sunday, when Palin strolled over to a local television crew in Colorado Springs.
"Get Tracey," a staffer called out, according to The New York Times, summoning spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, who reportedly "tried several times to cut it off with a terse 'Thank you!' in between questions, to no avail." The moment may have caused ulcers in some precincts of the McCain campaign, but it was an account Palin's admirers in Washington cheered.

Palin had also sought to give meatier policy speeches, in particular on energy policy and on policy for children with disabilities; she finally gave the latter speech Friday, but had wanted to deliver it much earlier.

She's also begun to make her own ad hoc calls about the campaign's direction and the ticket's policy. McCain, for instance, has remained silent on Democrats' calls for a stimulus package of new spending, a move many conservatives oppose but that could be broadly popular. But in an interview with the conservative radio host Glenn Beck earlier this week, Palin went "off the reservation" to make the campaign policy, one aide said.

"I say, you know, when is enough enough of taxpayer dollars being thrown into this bill out there?" she asked. "This next one of the Democrats being proposed should be very, very concerning to all Americans because to me it sends a message that $700 billion bailout, maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg. No, you know, we were told when we've got to be believing if we have enough elected officials who are going to be standing strong on fiscal conservative principles and free enterprise and we have to believe that there are enough of those elected officials to say, 'No, OK, that's enough.'"
(A McCain spokeswoman said Palin's statement was "a good sentiment.")

But few imagine that Palin will be able to repair her image — and bad poll numbers — in the eleven days before the campaign ends. And the final straw for Palin and her allies was the news that the campaign had reported spending $150,000 on her clothes, turning her, again, into the butt of late-night humor.

"She never even set foot in these stores," the senior Republican said, noting Palin hadn't realized the cost when the clothes were brought to her in her Minnesota hotel room.

"It's completely out-of-control operatives," said the close ally outside the campaign. "She has no responsibility for that. It's incredibly frustrating for us and for her."

Between Palin's internal detractors and her allies, there's a middle ground: Some aides say that she's a flawed candidate whose handling exaggerated her weak spots.

"She was completely mishandled in the beginning. No one took the time to look at what her personal strengths and weaknesses are and developed a plan that made sense based on who she is as a candidate," the aide said. "Any concerns she or those close to her have about that are totally valid."

But the aide said that Palin's inexperience led her to her own mistakes:
"How she was handled allowed her weaknesses to hang out in full display."

If McCain loses, Palin's allies say that the national Republican Party hasn't seen the last of her. Politicians are sometimes formed by a signal defeat — as Bill Clinton was when he was tossed out of the Arkansas governor's mansion after his first term — and Palin would return to a state that had made her America's most popular governor and where her image as a reformer who swept aside her own party's insiders rings true, if not in the cartoon version the McCain campaign presented.

"There are people in this campaign who feel a real sense of loyalty to her and are really pleased with her performance and think she did a great job," said the McCain insider. "She has a real future in this party."

VP SNL debate

2008-10-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

RNC shells out $150K for Palin fashion

2008-10-22T15:08:00.000-07:00

By JEANNE CUMMINGS | 10/22/08 5:47 PM EDT Updated: 10/22/08 5:47 PM EDT

The Republican National Committee has spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

The cash expenditures immediately raised questions among campaign finance experts about their legality under the Federal Election Commission's long-standing advisory opinions on using campaign cash to purchase items for personal use.

Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment on Monday, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.

Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing.

“The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent," she said.
But hours after the story was posted on Politico's website and legal issues were raised, the campaign issued a new statement.

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

The business of primping and dressing on the campaign trail has become fraught with political risk in recent years as voters increasingly see an elite Washington out of touch with their values and lifestyles.

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore took heat for changing his clothing hues. And in 2006, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) was ribbed for two hair styling sessions that cost about $3,000.

Then, there was Democrat John Edwards’ $400 hair cuts in 2007 and Republican McCain’s $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes this year.

A review of similar records for the campaign of Democrat Barack Obama and the Democratic National Committee turned up no similar spending.

But all the spending by other candidates pales in comparison to the GOP outlay for the Alaska governor whose expensive, designer outfits have been the topic of fashion pages and magazines.

As clock ticks, hope dims for McCain savior
Democrats' gloom deepens
California gives most to Obama camp
What hasn’t been apparent is where the clothes came from – her closet back in Wasilla or from the campaign coffers in Washington.

The answer can be found inside the RNC’s September monthly financial disclosure report under “itemized coordinated expenditures.”

It’s a report that typically records expenses for direct mail, telephone calls and advertising. Those expenses do show up, but the report also has a new category of spending: “campaign accessories.”

September payments were also made to Barney’s New York ($789.72) and Bloomingdale’s New York ($5,102.71).

Macy’s in Minneapolis, another store fortunate enough to be situated in the Twin Cities that hosted last summer’s Republican National Convention, received three separate payments totaling $9,447.71.

The entries also show two purchases at Pacifier, a top-notch baby store, suggesting $196 was spent to accommodate the littlest Palin to join the campaign trail.

An additional $4,902.45 was spent in early September at Atelier, a high-class shopping destination for men.

Editors' note: In earlier versions, a purchase at Steinlauf & Stoller was inaccurately described as a baby item.

A Drag on the Ticket?

2008-10-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

from Yahoo...

Old conventional political wisdom dictates that vice presidential picks don't change the outcome of a race. When Sarah Palin received larger fanfare than John McCain a month ago, the pundits cautioned, "people vote for President, not for Vice President."
Well, vice presidential candidates may not win elections, but this year it's looking increasingly likely that Sarah Palin may help lose one.

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released last night, the number one concern about McCain was Palin's perceived lack of qualifications.

Today Show/NBC News graphic

This morning, NBC's Political Director Chuck Todd explained McCain's "Palin problem":
"Speaking of Palin, her numbers have plummeted in our poll. For the first time, she has a net-negative fav/unfav rating (38%-47%), the only principal [candidate] to carry that distinction. What's more, 55% think she's unqualified to serve as president if the need arises, which is a troublesome number given McCain's age. (Have worries about McCain's age risen because of Palin? Seems to be the case)."

Other polls reflect this perception problem for the McCain/Palin camp as well. Pew released its latest poll that echoes many of the NBC/WSJ's findings about voters' perceptions of Palin and their effect on McCain. Pew's headline doesn't mention Palin specifically -- "Growing Doubts About McCain's Judgment, Age and Campaign Conduct" -- but it has this telling observation in the write-up:
"Notably, opinions of Palin have a greater impact on voting intentions than do opinions of Joe Biden, Obama's running mate."

Then ABC pulls McCain's poll problems together with this nugget explaining its most recent poll: "Fallout continues from McCain's pick of Sarah Palin for vice president, with 52 percent saying it weakens their confidence in his judgment."

Obviously, the McCain people aren't loving this and Politico reports that the candidate himself says he's "amazed" by the reaction to his VP pick. Politico writes:
"She is a governor, the most popular governor in America," McCain said. "I think she is the most qualified of any that has run recently for vice president."

"I'm amazed. I'm amazed. Which is better? Serve 35 years in the United States Senate and say you've got to divide Iraq into three different countries, or be governor of a state and a reformer and give people their tax dollars back and bring about reform in the way that your state does business? Which is better?"

Palin buzz -- good and bad -- has lit up the Internet over the past 24 hours. Our friends at Yahoo! Buzz have the details.

Powell endorses Obama, calls Palin pick a disappointment

2008-10-21T12:36:00.000-07:00

Monday, October 20, 2008 5:58 AM EDT
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, a Republican who was President Bush’s first secretary of state, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president Sunday and criticized the tone of Republican John McCain’s campaign.

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said either candidate, both of them senators, is qualified to be commander in chief.

But he said Obama is better suited to handle the nation’s economic problems, as well as help improve its standing in the world.

“It isn’t easy for me to disappoint Sen. McCain in the way that I have this morning, and I regret that,” Powell, interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said of his longtime friend, the Arizona senator.

But, he added: “I think we need a transformational figure. I think we need a president who is a generational change and that’s why I’m supporting Barack Obama, not out of any lack of respect or admiration for Sen. John McCain.”

Powell’s endorsement has been much anticipated because he is a Republican with impressive foreign policy credentials, a subject on which Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, is weak. Powell is a Republican centrist who is popular among moderate voters.

At the same time, Powell is a black man and Obama would be the nation’s first black president. Powell said he was cognizant of the racial aspect of his endorsement, but said that was not the dominant factor in his decision. If it was, he said, he would have made the endorsement months ago.

Powell expressed disappointment in the negative tone of McCain’s campaign, his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate and McCain’s and Palin’s decision to focus in the closing weeks of the contest on Obama’s ties to 1960s-era radical William Ayers.

McCain seemed dismissive of Powell’s endorsement, saying he had support from four other former secretaries of state, all veterans of Republican administrations: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker III, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander Haig.

“Well, I’ve always admired and respected Gen. Powell. We’re longtime friends. This doesn’t come as a surprise,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Sarah Palin's college years left no lasting impression

2008-10-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin, then Sarah Heath, left, with classmate Stacia Crocker at a dorm party at the University of Idaho.

In the five years of her collegiate career, spanning four universities in three states, Palin left behind few traces. Not many professors or students even remember her.
By Robin Abcarian
October 21, 2008

Reported from Moscow, Idaho -- What can we learn about our political stars from impressions they made in college?

Sen. John McCain is remembered as a passionate contrarian who won the hearts of his classmates at the Naval Academy. Sen. Barack Obama, who attended Occidental College, Columbia University and Harvard Law School, is remembered as a daunting scholar and calming influence. Sen. Joe Biden, who had a brush with plagiarism at Syracuse University College of Law, is remembered fondly by professors who found him charming.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, however, is barely remembered at all.

In the five years of her collegiate career, spanning four universities in three states, Palin left behind few traces.

"Looking at this dynamic personality now, it mystifies me that I wouldn't remember her," said Jim Fisher, Palin's journalism instructor at the University of Idaho, where she graduated with a bachelor of science degree in journalism in 1987.

Palin, he said, took his public affairs reporting class, an upper-division course limited to 15 students. "It's the funniest damn thing," Fisher said. "No one can recall her."

"I don't remember her," said Roy Atwood, Palin's academic advisor at the university.

Indeed, interviews with a dozen professors yielded not a single snippet of a memory.

Most were perplexed and frustrated that they could offer no insight into a woman who has become their most famous former student. Only a few classmates recalled her, and those with the strongest memories were people she had grown up with in Alaska.

Some of her college anonymity is understandable. "She enrolled in and finished my class, American government, but I have had 12,000 students in my career, and maybe remember 400," said political scientist Tony Stewart, now retired from North Idaho College, which the future vice presidential candidate attended in 1983. Palin, he added, was not among them.

The former classmates who do recall her paint a portrait of a young woman who, like many freshmen, went from hometown stardom to college obscurity.

Friends described her as a serious, unassuming student who showed only brief flashes of the outsized political personality that would one day emerge.

"She wasn't out to get attention," said Michelle Carney Overstreet, a hometown friend and classmate at the University of Idaho. "She kept to herself."

At home, she was known as Sarah Barracuda, the ferocious point guard who led her high school team to a state basketball championship her senior year. But the standout athlete never joined a college team.

As soon as she graduated from Wasilla High School in 1982, she set her sights on leaving Alaska.

"Everybody who grew up in that town at that time was looking for a way out," said Overstreet, one of the few college classmates who had anything like a real memory of Palin. "We wanted to be more and do more."

Palin's parents -- a high school science teacher and school secretary -- could not afford the college tours so common today. Their four children were expected to, and did, work their way through college.

"We didn't have the luxury of spending a week driving around visiting universities to see what they're like," said Kim "Tilly" Ketchum, a high school friend. "We were looking at pictures of campuses."

Palin and Ketchum picked the University of Hawaii at Hilo from a brochure.

Only after arriving in Hawaii did they realize that Hilo had rainfall approaching 100 inches a year. "The rain," Ketchum said, "was disturbing."

They attended orientation but never even enrolled.

The Wasilla girls soon moved to sunny Honolulu and enrolled in Hawaii Pacific University, a small private liberal arts school. They lived in an apartment in the Waikiki Banyan and took a bus to school.

Palin, a school spokeswoman said, attended full time as a business student.

The girls studied on the beach, tried surfing and pulled straight A's, Ketchum said. "We took the basic classes -- chemistry and biology, this and that."

But there was a problem. "When you're used to having some cooler weather, you get tired of the heat," Ketchum said. "We went one semester there before we realized we needed to go someplace else."

They transferred to tiny North Idaho College, on the shore of Lake Coeur d'Alene. Palin's older brother, Chuck Jr., had gone there before transferring to their father's alma mater, the University of Idaho in Moscow.

At North Idaho, Palin and Ketchum found what they had missed in Honolulu. They lived on campus before moving to separate apartments their second semester. "It was all very quaint," Ketchum said. "You kind of felt safe."

Ketchum could remember only one out-of-character incident.

"Someone pulled the fire alarm next to my door," she said. "We all were told there is an invisible dye that squirts onto your hand when you pull the alarm and you're not going to be able to hide. And Sarah looked at her hands, and said, 'Oh my God, look!' And she went and confessed."

Ketchum discovered there that Palin was a natural in front of a camera, a quality that helped her land her first post-college job as a weekend sports reporter at an Anchorage television station. For a journalism class, they videotaped themselves giving a 30-minute speech for classmates to critique.

"She didn't have the kind of fear most kids would have had," Ketchum said. "I could barely handle it."

In 1984, after two semesters at North Idaho, Palin transferred to the University of Idaho. There, she continued her low-key life. A visit to the University of Idaho library here yielded little more than a senior photo of Palin from the yearbook. Though she majored in journalism, her name appears nowhere in the archives of the campus newspaper, the Argonaut.

During summers, Palin worked in an Italian restaurant and a seafood cannery and fished for salmon with high school boyfriend Todd Palin on his boat. While still enrolled in the University of Idaho in fall 1985, she moved home for a semester, taking classes at nearby Matanuska-Susitna College to save money.

Tuition at the university ranged from $485 a semester to $520 by the time Palin graduated. Generous educational loans from the state of Alaska helped her pay her way. So did beauty pageants.

"I razzed Sarah about it at the time," her brother said. "But she looked at me straight-faced and said, 'Hey, this is going to help pay for my college education.' "

Maryline Blackburn, who beat Palin for Miss Alaska in June 1984, said Palin, who competed as Miss Wasilla, earned at least $1,250 when she placed third and was named Miss Congeniality. The following year, Palin competed as Miss Big Lake and did not place, said Blackburn, a professional singer in Georgia.

"Everybody liked her, but I could tell she was very calculating," Blackburn said. "We were all very secretive about our talents and how we were going to present ourselves. She was always asking questions, figuring out what she needed to do to get ahead."

Stacia Crocker Hagerty, 42, lived on the same dorm floor as Palin and considered her a good friend. Still, the Coeur d'Alene lawyer and real estate agent said she had only a few random memories of Palin and a couple of snapshots -- including one at a 1986 "kegger" in which they sport big hair and wide belts over untucked blouses.

Palin was a calming presence who offered to pray for her when Hagerty had boyfriend troubles. "She was so 'steady Eddie,' so rock solid," Hagerty said. "She didn't make a big deal out of things like other people did. She talked about politics and history and what was going on in the world. I was like, whatever, I don't care about that stuff."

Until 1987, the Idaho drinking age was 19, and the university had a reputation as a top party school. Hagerty said Palin "was upbeat and fun but not a heavy partyer."

When she ran for Alaska governor in 2006, Palin admitted that she had smoked marijuana, but Hagerty said she never saw her friend do drugs.

Hagerty said Palin was good friends with Jill Loranger, their resident advisor for two years.

When reached at her home in Hailey, Idaho, Jill Loranger Clark was mystified.

"I can honestly tell you I have no idea who she was," said Clark, a middle school teacher. "If she had been a big party animal, I would have remembered her."

Church Lady - this is so scary.

2008-10-16T09:49:00.000-07:00

A video of Palin speaking at her church a couple months ago.
MAKE EVERYONE YOU KNOW WATCH THIS!

Palin has checkered history on ethics issues.

2008-10-14T13:00:00.000-07:00

By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose reformer image took a hit in a report concluding she abused her powers to settle a family score, has skirted state ethics rules before for personal benefit and used her office to help friends and supporters, according to an Associated Press review of records.

Palin's first try at statewide office, after six years as mayor of Wasilla, was an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 2002. To raise money, she improperly used her City Hall office and equipment, city records show. A year later she would make headlines by blasting a fellow Republican for, among other things, improperly using his government position to boost his campaign.

Then, in 2006, Palin won the governor's race with a vow to reform state ethics. But in less than two years, she has repeatedly taken actions that violated her own stated standards for ethical behavior — if not state law. In the process, the Republican vice presidential nominee has become much like the old-school politicians she attacked during her rise to power.

Some examples:

_She pummeled opponents for giving oil companies and other businesses too much control of state government. Yet she appointed the founder of an engineering firm that received $6.8 million in state business as head of the transportation department.

_She has accepted dozens of gifts worth tens of thousands of dollars since taking office, including two free trips last year that she failed to report on disclosure forms, despite criticizing state legislators for the gifts they take.

_She is under another investigation, accused of misusing her office to campaign against a voter referendum calling for tighter mining regulations. Her husband, Todd, has accepted free trips from a mining company to look at their proposed new site.

_Another ethics complaint, unresolved, accuses her staff of finding a state job for a friend and campaign contributor.

Last week, an investigation by the Alaska legislature found that Palin, running mate to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, abused her powers when she and her husband improperly pressured the state public safety commissioner to fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. The brother-in-law was never fired, but Palin fired the commissioner in July.

"It's all about the power, and it frightens me," said state Rep. Beth Kerttula, a Juneau Democrat who like many in the minority party have supported Palin on some issues, including energy policy. "She doesn't seem to know where the boundaries are."

Even critics concede that Palin deserves credit for working with legislators to toughen state ethics laws and for providing more information to taxpayers about state spending. She advocated restrictions on lobbyists' giving, increased disclosure requirements for public officials and posted state spending details on the Internet.

Palin also risked her own political future by exposing unethical behavior by other public officials, even those in her own party.

But they say she often claims the ethical high ground when she hasn't been above questionable behavior herself.

"She's very good at reading the public's discontent and pandering to it," said Larry Persily, who worked in the governor's Washington, D.C., office until resigning earlier this year.

Palin faced questions during her 2006 gubernatorial race about her use of the Wasilla mayor's office four years earlier to run for lieutenant governor. Palin used city staff and office equipment — including a fax machine, computers for e-mail and a City Hall phone number — to run her campaign, according to city records.

She apologized for those transgressions in 2006, but only this month acknowledged to the AP that the city initially paid for a campaign flight in that 2002 race and that weeks later she reimbursed the city.

"According to people who worked with her at the time, the travel agency inadvertently billed the city rather than her personally," McCain campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said in a written statement. "To ensure that it was corrected immediately, she reimbursed Wasilla and the campaign later reimbursed her. It's an example of Gov. Palin's commitment to the highest standards of ethics."

Palin brushed the issue aside when she ran for governor, arguing it was nothing more than an opponent's smear campaign.

She has cast herself as Alaska's ethics watchdog. In her most dramatic move, she revealed in 2003 that the state's Republican Party leader was campaigning from his state job. She then challenged incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski two years ago on a platform of government reform.

After her victory, though, Palin reverted to political tradition, rewarding even marginally qualified friends and campaign backers with high-level positions.

A friend from her Wasilla High School class was named to manage the state's agriculture office after a career in real estate. A family friend and campaign worker became head of the state agency that invests Alaska's oil revenue. Her real estate agent's husband received an appointment to the state real estate board.

Palin's biggest political splash was from attacking the big oil companies that she said ran the state. She challenged their political power, and promised voters that her administration would avoid cozy relationships with business.

But one of her first cabinet appointments didn't live up to that pledge.

Leo von Scheben, a co-founder of Anchorage-based USKH Inc. engineering firm, took over the state's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, and his firm's state business increased, records show. USKH received $6.8 million in state transportation contracts last year, up 13 percent from $6 million the year before.

Von Scheben stopped taking a salary and all benefits from the company when he stepped into the state job. But he didn't sever all financial ties. Von Scheben receives annual stock payments that he arranged before he left the company in 2007 that will continue for 10 years, according to his financial disclosure forms.

Von Scheben said he has recused himself on projects pursued by the firm and that others in the agency select companies to receive state business. He said he believes his appointment may have cost his former company state business, although he doesn't regret taking the job.

"If the state can't draw on some private sector people, they're missing out," he said.

Palin claims passage of broad ethics reforms as an accomplishment following state corruption scandals. But Palin didn't report as gifts two free trips she received in 2007 as legislators were debating the new ethics law.

"This is simply a rare oversight, nothing more," campaign spokesman Griffin said when asked about the omissions by the AP.

Palin has, in fact, reported most of her gifts on her annual financial disclosure forms, something her predecessor never did, according to Alaska Public Offices Commission records.

The unreported paid trips:

_The $2,988 cost of Palin's April 2007 flight and hotel in Scottsdale, Ariz., for a four-day conference was paid by the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute of North Carolina, a nonprofit education policy group. Palin received the same free trip as dozens of other governors invited over the years to attend the annual summit, institute spokesman April White said.

_A May 2007 overnight visit with her three daughters and her parents attending a family reception at Mt. Chilkoot Lodge in Skagway, Alaska, was paid for by friend and former deputy campaign treasurer Kathy Hosford, one of the lodge's owners.

"We weren't open and it was just on a friendship basis," Hosford said.

The Palins used two suites valued at $150 each, said Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman in the governor's office.

The same day Palin visited Skagway, executives of the Anchorage-based VECO Inc. pleaded guilty to offering bribes to five legislators. Palin, mingling with old family friends and town residents, spoke briefly with local reporters during her visit, calling the corruption developments "atrocious" and promising change.

"There are problems in state government," Palin told The Skagway News, "and on our watch it is our responsibility to show people that we are going to clean things up."

Persily, who said he left Palin's administration because he didn't enjoy working in Washington, said Palin is skillful in "attacking the 'good ol' boys.' The good ol' boys that Palin is talking about are those that can't help her politically."

Democratic state Rep. Mike Doogan said Palin, even as she bends or breaks the rules herself, acts as if she invented ethics in Alaska.

"It's insulting to those of us who have always done the right thing," he said.

Palin defiant after probe jolts McCain campaign.

2008-10-11T15:34:00.000-07:00

By Myriam Chaplain-Riou

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AFP) - Vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin denied wrongdoing Saturday after a probe found she had abused voters' trust as Alaska governor, in a new blow to John McCain's trailing White House campaign.

Republican McCain was embroiled in turmoil of his own meanwhile, after he was booed late Friday by supporters and appeared to undercut his own campaign strategy by calling time on personal attacks on Barack Obama.

Alaska Governor Palin rejected the findings of a bipartisan legislative probe which found she violated ethics rules by letting husband Todd pressure top officials for the firing of her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper.

Asked by a reporter in Pennsylvania if the charges were true, Palin replied: "No, and if you read the report you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about it. You have to read the report."

The report said that Palin had "the authority and power to require Mr Palin to cease contacting subordinates, but she failed to act."

But in a phrase seized upon by the McCain camp, the report also said she acted within her "constitutional and statutory authority" in the case.

The probe was the latest blow to Palin, who electrified the Republican Party when she was first picked, but has seen her impact, especially among undecided voters and women diminish amid questions about her qualifications.

The damaging report could make it tougher for the McCain camp to portray Palin as a crusading reformer set to flush out corruption in Washington.

McCain meanwhile took to the campaign trail in Iowa, for the first time after he had to step in at a town hall meeting in Minnesota Friday, when one woman said Obama was an "Arab" and a man said he was "scared" of the Democrat.

Critics say the seething anger seen at McCain rallies, with shouts of "treason" and "kill him" heard from some crowds, has been whipped up by campaign ads which have accused the Democrat of associating with terrorists.

"He's a decent family man (and) citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about," McCain said at the town-hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota.

McCain told the man who said he was "scared" to bring his new baby into an America ruled by Obama that the Democrat was a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States."

McCain's comments drew boos from some of his supporters and appeared to directly undercut the thrust of his aggressive negative ad campaign which has question whether Obama has a character befitting a president.

The campaign has accused Obama of not telling the truth about what he insists is a passing acquaintance with William Ayers, a 1960s radical who is now a college professor.

Palin, who has been cast in the role of attack dog by the campaign, did not repeat her criticisms of Obama over Ayers during an appearance in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Obama meanwhile acknowledged McCain's attempt to cool things down, but charged his rival with running a negative campaign to try to distract voters from the number one issue -- the tumbling US economy.

"Now, I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric yesterday in his town hall meeting and I appreciate his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other," Obama said.

"I have said it before and I'll say it again -- Senator McCain has served this country with honor and he deserves our thanks for that," Obama said, as McCain's name was greeted with boos at Obama's rallies in Philadelphia.

But McCain's spokesman Tucker Bounds immediately responded: "The tone of this election is not fueling voter outrage, it's that Americans are frustrated" at Obama's "plans to raise taxes during a down economy."

Just 24 days before the election, time appeared to be fast running out for McCain to change the trajectory of a campaign which has seemed to be slipping away ever since the onset of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

Obama led McCain 52 percent to 41 percent among registered voters nationwide, according to a new Newsweek survey, which a month ago had the race locked at 46 percent.

As many as 86 percent of voters said they were dissatisfied with the way things were going in the United States, and only 10 percent said they were satisfied -- a grim omen for Republicans.

Sarah, Sarah, Why You Buggin' 4?

2008-10-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

From the Associated Press:

Alaska panel finds Palin abused power in firing

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Sarah Palin unlawfully abused her power as governor by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, the chief investigator of an Alaska legislative panel concluded Friday. The politically charged inquiry imperiled her reputation as a reformer on John McCain's Republican ticket.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report by a bipartisan panel that investigated the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain.

The inquiry looked into her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, who said he lost his job because he resisted pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

The report found that Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making even if it was not the sole reason Monegan was dismissed. "I feel vindicated," Monegan said. "It sounds like they've validated my belief and opinions. And that tells me I'm not totally out in left field."

Branchflower said Palin violated a statute of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

Palin and McCain's supporters had hoped the inquiry's finding would be delayed until after the presidential election to spare her any embarrassment and to put aside an enduring distraction as she campaigns as McCain's running mate in an uphill contest against Democrat Barack Obama.

But the panel of lawmakers voted to release the report, although not without dissension. There was no immediate vote on whether to endorse its findings.

"I think there are some problems in this report," said Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens, a member of the panel. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye."

The nearly 300-page report does not recommend sanctions or a criminal investigation.

The investigation revealed that Palin's husband, Todd, has extraordinary access to the governor's office and her closest advisers. He used that access to try to get trooper Mike Wooten fired, the report found.

Branchflower faulted Sarah Palin for taking no action to stop that. He also noted there is evidence the governor herself participated in the effort.

Now It's Personal...

2008-10-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

Stay the F@&* out of Cleveland, Palin. The city has been through enough bullshit - it doesn't need you parading your ignorant ass around town. If I still lived there, I would have thrown those empty beer cans at your head (this is not a threat, it was said in jest). This is your last warning, you have 24 hours... (this is also not a threat, as there was no stated ultimatum).

CLEVELAND (AP) — Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said more than one person has whispered in her ear in Ohio that John McCain needs "to take the gloves off" in his campaign against Democrat Barack Obama. Before a friendly crowd of Republican fundraisers Friday, the Alaska governor did that herself.

Palin said Obama was exploiting the economic crisis for political gain, "instead of trying to find solutions and work together to deal with it."

She also accused Obama of proposing a trillion dollars in new government spending without explaining where that money will come from.

"Media, don't know why they're not asking him: 'Where is that money gonna come from?'" she said. "He's got to raise taxes."

Obama has said his new spending will be paid for by ending President Bush's tax cuts for the 5 percent of Americans who make more than $250,000 a year, savings from withdrawing U.S. combat forces from Iraq and greater government efficiency. He pledges tax cuts for those making less than $200,000 a year.

Speaking to about 200 supporters in a ballroom at The Ritz-Carlton in downtown Cleveland — her second fundraiser of the day in hard-fought Ohio — Palin defended the Republican campaign's effort this week to ask the public and media to take a closer look at Obama and his associations.

"With only 25 days to go, it's not negative and it's not mean-spirited," she said.

Palin led a campaign rally in Wilmington in southwest Ohio on Thursday, and attended a fundraiser Friday morning at a private home in the upscale Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill.

In Cleveland, she immediately turned folksy, telling the cheering crowd to sit down and keep eating.

"We'll just be a big happy family here, just like my own family," Palin said.

Palin also cited a disputed report, first in the New York Post and in Friday's editions of the Washington Times, that said Obama tried to influence negotiations with Iraqi leaders.

"If it is true, what Barack Obama attempted to do there, it is a stunning example of putting ambition before country," she said to applause.

Obama and the lawmakers who accompanied him to Baghdad have said the reports are not true.

"This ridiculous charge is completely false, and has been disputed by independent fact-checkers and bipartisan members of Congress. Barack Obama's consistent position is simply that any agreement about our long-term troop presence in Iraq must be reviewed by the United States Congress to ensure bipartisan support from the American people," said Obama spokesman Tom Reynolds.

Palin was greeted by protesters at both Friday stops. There were at least 20 when she arrived in Cleveland, with one holding a sign that read, "Like Bush's economy? Hire McCain."

The group chanted "Bush-McCain! More of the same!"

Earlier in Indian Hill, a few neighbors stood along the street to greet Palin with supportive posters and American flags. About a dozen protesters gathered nearby wearing "Joe Six-pack" nametags and holding empty beer cans.

Palin has said she appeals to "Joe Six-pack," meaning everyday people who buy beer.

The Battle Plan II: Sarah "Evita" Palin, the Muse of the Coming Police State

2008-10-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

-Naomi Wolf
The Huffington Post

Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.

You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you don't have freedom.

I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?

Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."

Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.

In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:

"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism... [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."

"Paid, confidential informants... infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."

Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:

"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God...Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing 'inappropriate content'. At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election..."

Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is Rove's and Cheney's.

Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating t o establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been .

The evidence is also buried on the Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications witho ut a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.

-- "Senate panel's GOP staff spied on Democrats" By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 22, 2004

Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.

Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.

Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing portects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:

Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them.

The Colbert Report: David Gergen Tells Sarah Palin to Rein It In

2008-10-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

Sarah Palin's Shocking Animal Cruelty

2008-10-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

By Michael Markarian, Humane Society Legislative Fund.

If Sarah Palin ran the United States like she has run Alaska, it would indeed be a terrible day for animals.

GOP conventioneers were officially introduced to their vice presidential candidate who is, as Fred Thompson said, "the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose."

But it's not Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's personal love of hunting or appetite for moose venison that should strike fear in the heart of every animal advocate in the nation--it's her retrograde policies on animal welfare and conservation that have led to an all-out war on the state's wolves and other creatures.

Her record is so extreme that she has perhaps done more harm to animals than any other current governor in the United States -- and that's a difficult distinction to achieve among our 22 Republican and 28 Democratic chief executives. Voters of both political parties who care about the humane treatment of animals must unite to make sure that the nation's worst governor doesn't end up just a heartbeat away from the nation's most important job.

Palin is not only a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but is also a close ally of Safari Club International. These radical groups don't represent rank-and-file hunters, but instead lobby on behalf of their elitist, wealthy members to defend despicable and unsporting practices such as captive trophy hunts, bear baiting, and steel-jawed legold traps -- practices that real hunters agree are inhumane and unacceptable.

And the Palin Administration, in lock-step with these extreme anti-conservationists, has waged an all-out war on Alaska's predators to artificially boost the populations of moose and caribou for trophy hunters. Palin has tried to pass legislation making it easier for state officials to gun down wolves and bears from the sky, and even offered a $150 bounty for the left foreleg of each dead wolf as an economic incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more of the animals.

Leading up to the recent statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way. Palin may have criticized "the old politics as usual" and "the culture of self-dealing" in her speech last night, but that's a pretty good description of her dealings with the NRA and Safari Club.

Since Alaska is not protecting its wolves from aerial hunting, the U.S. Congress has stepped in and is now considering the Protect America's Wildlife (PAW) Act, which would close a loophole in federal law that allows the shooting of animals from airplanes and helicopters. But Gov. Palin has attacked that effort, too, and used her office to criticize the federal legislation. She wrote in a press release that the bill's author "doesn't understand rural Alaska" and "doesn't comprehend wildlife management in the North."

This new video from our friends at the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund reveals shocking images from the brutal practice of aerial hunting, and shows the world just what Gov. Palin has championed at the state and federal levels.

Watch:

But that's only one part of the story. It's not just wolves, of course, who have been the targets of Palin's outdated policies, but also the Arctic region's iconic polar bears, the 21st Century's canaries in the mineshaft who are teetering on the brink of extinction.

Despite the effects of climate change on the bear's vanishing habitat and shrinking ice floes, Gov. Palin penned an op-ed in The New York Times earlier this year arguing that it was the "wrong move" to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act. Later, when the Bush Administration announced its listing of the polar bear as a threatened species, she filed a lawsuit seeking to reverse the decision. Environmentalists fired back over Palin's lawsuit and said "her head-in-the-sand approach to global warming only helps oil companies, certainly not Alaska or the polar bear."

For those who don't believe that the number two spot on the ticket matters much at all, consider this: fourteen vice presidents in American history eventually climbed to the top job, eight of them because their predecessors died in office. If Sarah Palin were to be propelled into the presidency and given the opportunity to run the United States like she has run Alaska--controlling the Departments of Interior, Agriculture, and Commerce, with wide-ranging authority over issues affecting pets, wildlife, farm animals, marine mammals, animals in research, and public lands--it would indeed be a terrible day for animals and for the country.

AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.

Is Palin Trying To Incite Violence Against Obama?

2008-10-07T13:48:00.000-07:00

MCCAIN CAMP TALKS 'CHARACTER ASSASSINATION,' SUPPORTERS SHOUT FOR REAL ASSASSINATION
At her last rally in Florida, Sarah Palin told the audience that Barack Obama "palled around with terrorists" adding,"I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America." Upon hearing the Republican VP candidate's concern that Sen. Obama might be a terrorist, a voice in the crowd cried out 'Kill him!'

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reported an incident at a Palin rally that should open America's eyes to the central role violent rhetoric now plays in the McCain campaign. Milbank describes how Palin told the crowd in Florida that Obama has close associations with a terrorist who sought to bomb the Pentagon and the U.S. Capital, in response to which the crowd responded with a threat on Sen. Obama's life:

"Now it turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers...And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,'" she continued.

"Boooo!" the crowd repeated.

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Palin went on to say that "Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's living room, and they've worked together on various projects in Chicago." Here, Palin began to connect the dots. "These are the same guys who think that patriotism is paying higher taxes -- remember that's what Joe Biden had said. "And" -- she paused and sighed -- "I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America, as the greatest force for good in the world. I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as 'imperfect enough' to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."

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."

The 'dangerous road,' however, is not just a generic attack on Sen. Obama's trustworthiness or honesty. Rather, the McCain campaign has chosen to stand before campaign rallies and accuse Sen. Obama of hiding sympathies with domestic terrorists--to accuse their opponent, essentially, of being a terrorist.

With the McCain campaign now using the Palin stump speech to accuse Sen. Obama of hiding a terrorist agenda, the McCain campaign has staked its future on rhetoric that skirts the boundary between character assassination and incitements of actual violence against their opponent.

Meanwhile, while McCain is not yet accusing Obama of terrorism in his own stump speech, the crowds at his rallies are.

In a recent video clip from MSNBC, McCain asked a rally, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" In response to McCain's rhetorical question, a voice from the crowd can be clearly heard to shout in response, "Terrorist!"

Since the start of the election campaign well over a year ago, voters have been subject to ongoing smear campaigns in emails and push polls accusing Sen. Obama of ties to and sympathies with domestic and foreign terrorist groups. No matter how many times these smear campaigns have been exposed, they continued. Now that John McCain and Sarah Palin have echoed these accusations--the idea that Sen. Obama is secretly a terrorist has the stamp of approval of a presidential campaign, but of a multi-term U.S. senator and a U.S. governor.

One wonders at this point how the various agencies charged with the responsibility of protecting the Presidential candidates from violence will respond to this latest tactic from the McCain campaign. If, for example, a McCain supporter threatens the life of Sen. Obama by shouting 'Kill him!' at a Palin rally, should Sen. Obama's Secret Service contingent launch an investigation? Having been accused of terrorist ties by the McCain campaign, will Sen. Obama's name be put on the 'No Fly' list, effectively making it impossible for him to engage in normal airline travel?

An even more basic question, perhaps: Is Gov. Palin trying to incite violence against Sen. Obama as part of an ill-conceived campaign strategy to change the topic from the economy at any cost?

Time will tell how law enforcement will respond, but one thing is already certain: the more Palin and McCain incite calls for violence against Sen. Obama, the more their chances of achieving a victory in November disappear.

-Jeffrey Feldman