As the RNC wrapped up earlier tonight, I looked over the handful of stories I've come across in the news about ThePalin Unit and wondered if they'd be relevant after McCain's big speech. Then I decided that it really doesn't matter if they were "news" so long as they were important.
So, here we go. It seems like there's a lot to not like about ThePalin Unit. The first big thing I came across I posted about a few days ago. Check it out here: http://thepete.com/…-scare-me/
In that post you'll find a video of a guest sermon Sarah Palin gave way back in the dark times of June of this year where she identified herself as the governor of Alaska and then compared a million-dollar pipeline and the Iraq invasion to a mission from God. She then asked the congregation to pray for these "causes."
Hm, just a BIT of a violation of the separation of church and state, there.
That story, picked up initially by HuffingtonPost.com and reblogged by me, ended up on Twitter and on Andrew Sullivan's blog in a post here http://is.gd/2dVe
The AP also picked it up in an article I found on MyWay.com here: http://is.gd/2eU6
The story also landed on C-SPAN 2 (video to come) where yours truly got a nice mention (thanks Leslie!). So, if you feel like picking up the story of the Palin/Pastor video and running with it a bit, that'd be great.
I think this kind of behavior from an elected official is scary--she's allowed to believe what ever she wants and practice what ever religion she wants, but as an elected official she's not supposed to be jumping up in front of a bunch of church-goers and telling them to pray for business deals and military actions (especially when it's pretty obvious both are politically motivated).
But this is not the only problem facing Palin. RichPav who runs the blog HerroFlomJapan.com posted (here: http://www.herroflomjapan.com/…-on-palin/ ) about comments made by columnist, Peggy Noonan, John McCain's former campaign manager, Michael Murphy, and MSNBC host, Chuck Todd on MSNBC while they thought their mics were off.
Hear their words for yourself in the video for this post or read a transcript grabbed from a post at TheAtlantic.com (find it here: http://is.gd/2eug ) who originally got it from HuffingtonPost.com (here: http://is.gd/2bHm ):
"Murphy: ...because I come out of a blue swing-state governor world. Engler. Whitman. Tommy Thompson. Mitt Romney. Jeb Bush. And I mean, and these guys, this is all like how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And, IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.
Noonan: IT'S OVER.
Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good
Chuck Todd. [Unintelligible]... think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson?
Noonan: ...saw Kay this morning.
Todd: [sounds like 'she's not comfortable talking about it????]
Murphy: They're ALL bummed out
Todd: Is she really the most qualified woman?
Noonan: Most qualified? NO. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives.
Todd: yeah, they went to narratives.
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time Republicans do this, because that's not where they live, and that's not what they're good at, they blow it.
Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is "no cynicism" and this is cynical.
Todd: And as you called it, "gimmicky""
Yeeeah. Your own pundits in the press are saying your VP nom is "gimmicky". Nice. I posted the whole transcript here because I think it's important to get the context. You can see the video in Rich's post (here: http://www.herroflomjapan.com/…-on-palin/ ) Noonan apparently qualified her comments, you can see them at the HuffPost, uh, post.
Meanwhile, back when she first became mayor of the reasonably small Alaskan town of Wasilla, she apparently fired a librarian who told ThePalin Unit she would not be cool with "censoring library books," according to an article at ADN.com (here: http://www.adn.com/…15512.html ).
So, censorship, violation of the separation of church and state, and, what else? Ah, well, there is this: http://www.andrys.com/…kenny.html
That's a link to a letter that was sent from someone who claims to have known Sarah Palin before she was picked as a VP--so like, last week. Here are some highlights:
"Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents."
Here's more from a bit later on:
"As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.
She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the
basis of who proposed them."
There's a LOT more to the letter than this. Before my buddy Morgan found it on Andrys.com, it was originally posted as a comment at WashingtonIndependent.com here: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/…-candidate
As I wrote this, my friend Morgan (he sent me Andrys.com link) just IMed me this link: http://www.crosscut.com/…ment/17341
There, it claims to reproduce the letter in full WITH the permission of Anne Kilkenny, the writer of the email. So, it's legit
And this one also comes from Morgan and goes to an article on Palin NYTimes.com: http://is.gd/2eXk
Personally, Palin's church video had me worried enough (the original was taken down from the church's website, BTW), but I was concerned even before then with my post on her being under an ethics investigation (read that here: http://thepete.com/…al-bringer ). Seems her Wikipedia entry got whitewashed, too. Both of these things seem fairly minor next to violating the 1st amendment in that church video.
In the end, Palin sure seems like every other politician--of course, this shouldn't surprise us. You've got to imagine that *any* person of either gender doing well in this system is a person who is happy to play the politics game. There's a reason I call it "politricks."
Mobile post sent by thepete using Utterz. So, here we go. It seems like there's a lot to not like about ThePalin Unit. The first big thing I came across I posted about a few days ago. Check it out here: http://thepete.com/…-scare-me/
In that post you'll find a video of a guest sermon Sarah Palin gave way back in the dark times of June of this year where she identified herself as the governor of Alaska and then compared a million-dollar pipeline and the Iraq invasion to a mission from God. She then asked the congregation to pray for these "causes."
Hm, just a BIT of a violation of the separation of church and state, there.
That story, picked up initially by HuffingtonPost.com and reblogged by me, ended up on Twitter and on Andrew Sullivan's blog in a post here http://is.gd/2dVe
The AP also picked it up in an article I found on MyWay.com here: http://is.gd/2eU6
The story also landed on C-SPAN 2 (video to come) where yours truly got a nice mention (thanks Leslie!). So, if you feel like picking up the story of the Palin/Pastor video and running with it a bit, that'd be great.
I think this kind of behavior from an elected official is scary--she's allowed to believe what ever she wants and practice what ever religion she wants, but as an elected official she's not supposed to be jumping up in front of a bunch of church-goers and telling them to pray for business deals and military actions (especially when it's pretty obvious both are politically motivated).
But this is not the only problem facing Palin. RichPav who runs the blog HerroFlomJapan.com posted (here: http://www.herroflomjapan.com/…-on-palin/ ) about comments made by columnist, Peggy Noonan, John McCain's former campaign manager, Michael Murphy, and MSNBC host, Chuck Todd on MSNBC while they thought their mics were off.
Hear their words for yourself in the video for this post or read a transcript grabbed from a post at TheAtlantic.com (find it here: http://is.gd/2eug ) who originally got it from HuffingtonPost.com (here: http://is.gd/2bHm ):
"Murphy: ...because I come out of a blue swing-state governor world. Engler. Whitman. Tommy Thompson. Mitt Romney. Jeb Bush. And I mean, and these guys, this is all like how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And, IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK.
Noonan: IT'S OVER.
Murphy: Still, McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech and do himself some good
Chuck Todd. [Unintelligible]... think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson?
Noonan: ...saw Kay this morning.
Todd: [sounds like 'she's not comfortable talking about it????]
Murphy: They're ALL bummed out
Todd: Is she really the most qualified woman?
Noonan: Most qualified? NO. I think they went for this, excuse me, political bullshit about narratives.
Todd: yeah, they went to narratives.
Murphy: I totally agree.
Noonan: Every time Republicans do this, because that's not where they live, and that's not what they're good at, they blow it.
Murphy: You know what's really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is "no cynicism" and this is cynical.
Todd: And as you called it, "gimmicky""
Yeeeah. Your own pundits in the press are saying your VP nom is "gimmicky". Nice. I posted the whole transcript here because I think it's important to get the context. You can see the video in Rich's post (here: http://www.herroflomjapan.com/…-on-palin/ ) Noonan apparently qualified her comments, you can see them at the HuffPost, uh, post.
Meanwhile, back when she first became mayor of the reasonably small Alaskan town of Wasilla, she apparently fired a librarian who told ThePalin Unit she would not be cool with "censoring library books," according to an article at ADN.com (here: http://www.adn.com/…15512.html ).
So, censorship, violation of the separation of church and state, and, what else? Ah, well, there is this: http://www.andrys.com/…kenny.html
That's a link to a letter that was sent from someone who claims to have known Sarah Palin before she was picked as a VP--so like, last week. Here are some highlights:
"Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative". During her 6 years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over 33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents."
Here's more from a bit later on:
"As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.
In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.
She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits, but on the
basis of who proposed them."
There's a LOT more to the letter than this. Before my buddy Morgan found it on Andrys.com, it was originally posted as a comment at WashingtonIndependent.com here: http://www.washingtonindependent.com/…-candidate
As I wrote this, my friend Morgan (he sent me Andrys.com link) just IMed me this link: http://www.crosscut.com/…ment/17341
There, it claims to reproduce the letter in full WITH the permission of Anne Kilkenny, the writer of the email. So, it's legit
And this one also comes from Morgan and goes to an article on Palin NYTimes.com: http://is.gd/2eXk
Personally, Palin's church video had me worried enough (the original was taken down from the church's website, BTW), but I was concerned even before then with my post on her being under an ethics investigation (read that here: http://thepete.com/…al-bringer ). Seems her Wikipedia entry got whitewashed, too. Both of these things seem fairly minor next to violating the 1st amendment in that church video.
In the end, Palin sure seems like every other politician--of course, this shouldn't surprise us. You've got to imagine that *any* person of either gender doing well in this system is a person who is happy to play the politics game. There's a reason I call it "politricks."
Replies.Orignal From: Problems With and For Palin #RNC08
No comments:
Post a Comment