Like many, when Sarah Palin was picked for a running partner, I said, “Sarah Who?” At first blush, I thought this was just an ill conceived move in desperation to try and grab, “disgruntled Hillary Voters” and women in general. (As I suspect many others have done as well).I held off commenting on this situation at first because there was little I was going to say that hadn’t been said far more eloquently by somebody else. But as I watch this from the sidelines, I am quickly starting to understand. This was no “fluke.” Sarah Palin fits perfectly into the Karl Rove built world of politics. I was both thrilled and disappointed when I read about the hackers that had gotten into Palin’s Yahoo! e-mail account. Thrilled of course that now there was obvious proof that she was in fact doing what she was being accused of doing. She was circumventing public records Acts and using alternative methods to send e-mail so as to cover her tracks.I was disappointed that this was done, because it obviously gives Palin and her supporters the cover they need in this situation. They cry foul (which in all fairness it was), and can of course now claim that it was all a hack and that none of the e-mails were “real.” They would be lying through their teeth in doing so, but Palin (and John McCain) have both shown that even when caught, they will go right on lying. It is so bad that even Time Magazine admits,
The situation has gotten so intense that we in the media have slipped our normal rules as well. Usually when a candidate tells something less than the truth, we mince words. We use euphemisms like mendacity andinaccuracy … or, as the Associated Press put it, “McCain’s claims skirt facts.” But increasing numbers of otherwise sober observers, even such august institutions as the New York Times editorial board, are calling John McCain a liar.
I mean, how bad is it when Karl Rove is questioning your practices? No, Sarah Palin was no “accident.”
The Times reports that using webmail for official business was Standard Operating Proceedure in Alaska:
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.”Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.”Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!”
She has shown herself to be willing to make up her facts as she goes along quite nicely. Whether it is her claim that Alaska provides 20% of the nations energy (Alaska provides about 3.5%), or flat out lying when she says she told Congress “Thanks but no thanks” for funding the bridge to nowhere. After all when she was running for Governor she said during an Interview:
Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now – while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.
Oh she eventually threw the project under the bus, but not until it had been all but killed in Congress, and had become the poster project for pork barrel spending.She has also shown the same cut-throat expectation of loyalty and will fire anybody that does not give her 100% support, that we have come to know during the Bush years. In other words, refuse to give Sarah the right answer when asked if you would ban books from the library that Sarah Palin doesn’t like and you are gone. When I first saw Sarah Palin, I likened her to Geraldine Ferarro, a poor choice done out of desperation. I was so wrong. While Ferarro was a poor choice, and her inept run probably hurt the cause of women in politics more than anything, Sarah Palin is far more dangerous than that.
