Holy Crap
I was worried that McCain is too much like Bush. It seems like Palin is even more like him.
I’m wondering if the plan is to use her to win the election and then she gracefully bows out . Maybe not if they see her as a Republican rising star who can win elections.
After the past week, this is one of my biggest fears: Palin '16. Frankly, I am hoping desperately that enough dirt comes out on this woman to sink her, because I do not want her in a position to implement the policies she favors.
I found this a bit interesting; apparently she’s still relying on a teleprompter when she speaks at the rallies she and McCain have been doing. That seems really odd to me - these rallies are where politicians seem to get up and give stump speech material in a way that is supposed to connect with the crowd.
And I learned from the primaries that candidates are personally responsible for everything their pastors have said for at least the last 20 years. So…this should be stunning.
Well, that’s hardly surprising, to be fair. She’s not even been giving that speech for a week. McCain has had months to memorize his.
Serious question. We’ve heard ‘oh, that’s a local enemy’ in regards to the librarian, the letter writer, and the state legislature.
Who are Sarah Palin’s local allies? Why aren’t they supporting her? While you can judge the character of a person by the quality of their enemies, you can certainly learn a lot about them from their friends.
Give it time. The fact is, after all these things happened that are in that E-mail, when Palin ran again, the old mayor she defeated ran against her again, and she beat him by a 3-1 margin. Clearly, the people of her town liked what she did. She’s still popular there. One reporter on TV made an allusion to the fact that when they went to Wasilla to ask about Palin, it was hard to find people who would say anything bad about her.
None of us know the backstory on the woman who sent that E-mail. She may be the town busybody, certain that everyone but her is wrong about everything. Or she might be a tough-minded woman taking her civic duty seriously, and is making fair and reasonable charges. I really don’t know. I would suggest that we wait until someone actually investigates all this stuff. I did a search through the mainstream newspapers for Kilkenny’s E-mail, and found a number of papers that reported it and repeated sections of it, but not a single one did any sort of independent verification of the facts. Even Snopes, which marked it as ‘true’, only went so far as to say that it’s ‘true’ because the woman really exists, really lives in Wasilla, and really wrote the E-mail. Nothing about the content of it at all.
So let’s wait and see.
Now that’s just lame. She said “I put it on eBay”. She did put it on eBay. The bids didn’t reach the minimum bid. I believe it was listed on eBay for a while. Eventually, they found a private party to sell it to.
As for ‘selling it at a loss’… It’s an AIRPLANE. It was USED. If you sell your 87 Taurus for less than you purchased it for new, are you selling it ‘at a loss’? Should you have been expected to be able to sell it for a profit? Come on.
She didn’t say she sold it on eBay, she said she “put it on eBay.” Which she did.
Fair enough except McCain is saying they made a profit on it.
re: the plane… some crazy lefty site I read yesterday said it was used mostly (2/3 if I recall) to transport prisoners. AK rents prison space somewhere in the southwest (AZ? NM?). No idea how things get done since it is gone. Sounds like room for a juicy contract for a friend. (*wild speculation)
I know! Let’s chat about the plane instead of prison/sentencing reform! You know, just to keep the tone of the election and all.
Of course, you can name some terrorist acts committed by the AIP after that particularly nasty smear, right? Or perhaps they were busted planning some, and Palin’s name was connected to it? Or perhaps you can point to an ongoing investigation of terrorist connections in the AIP?
You do know that the AIP has official party status, right? And that their focus now is merely on States’ Rights?
FWIW, Canada has a party that still has secession in its platform - the Parti Quebecois, and they’re considered to be a mainstream Canadian political party. The Reform Party, which merged with the Progressive Conservative Party to form our current government, also had a secessionist wing. None of them were or are terrorists. The very notion of it is silly.
In any event, if you want to smear Palin by association like this, get ready for lots more questions about Obama’s relationship with William Ayers and Tony Rezko. Or at the very least, be prepared to have this crap thrown back in your face the next time you complain about Republicans trying to use guilt through association.
Get ready? Get ready? You seriously just don’t get it.
Obama has been tarred with that fucking brush for 18 months. But now, all of a sudden, when it’s your little darling, we’d better shut the fuck up, or else!
You just don’t get the irony that you’re threatening to throw something “back in our faces” when it’s you who can’t deal with having what you’ve been tossing about thrown back in your face!
Think you have that part backwards. Obama already has been answering questions about Ayers and Rezko. For months now. I think it only fair to offer up Palin to the same scrutiny the right felt so justified in tossing at Obama. Heck, Tuesday Bill O’Reilly will have Part-2 of his Obama interview where he will specifically grill Obama about Ayers and Rezko. So how about you send Palin to Keith Olbermann for similar scrutiny?
ETA: Grrr…Shayna beat me to it. I’d almost be mad if I didn’t lover her posts so much. 
BWAAAAAhahahahaha!
::wipes tears::
Oh, that’s cute.
Allow the media to question such a tender flower? Afford the public the opportunity to scrutinize the Right’s delicate rose? Why, she might wilt!
Bring it on.
If their focus is states rights they would have dumped the independent and seditious part of it a long time ago. If Obama had made a video this year(!) praising any followers of William Ayers as a Senator you bet I would be worried since it would be crap I would not support. Telling the American people she will now, honest to goodness, take into account the interest of all Americans and not just Alaskans is insulting. Looking at the trooppergate issue and others, I see her now as a female 2nd edition of Cheney with the same disdain of oversight and only willing to fight for the cause of her cronies.
Sam, do you really just not get it? If a Southern Democrat from, say, Alabama or Mississippi had belonged to and actively supported a secessionist party in their state do you really think there wouldn’t be a huge outcry of “racist” and probably “terrorist” from the Republicans? Really?
At any rate, the core issue here is that the Republicans were making gigantic amounts of stew from a single small oyster named William Ayers. At the time Obama made his acquaintance, Ayers was a full professor at the same university that Obama taught at. He was never indicted for, let alone convicted of, any crime involving his Weather Underground activities whatsoever. Obama was 8 years old during the time that Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground. Yet now that it transpires that the Palin’s were associates of Joe Vogler at a time when he was being killed for what the killer termed a “plastics explosives deal gone wrong,” suddenly the “fellow traveller” argument is wrong and mean and specious and unimportant. Much was made of the fact that Ayers does not regret his activities with the Weathermen, but nothing is said of Vogler’s statements such as, “I’m an Alaskan, not an American. I’ve got no use for America or her damned institutions” and “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. And I won’t be buried under their damn flag. I’ll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home.”
So making a loud hue and cry of an associate who had questionable dealings forty years ago but who is now and has been for thirty years a respected and respectable member of society and an active organizer for peaceful social reform causes is okay, but even mentioning the associate who actively advocated secession and seems to have been involved in questionable dealings of an illegal nature AT THE TIME THE PALIN’S KNEW HIM, fifteen years ago when the Palin’s were fully grown adults is handwaved away as non-important. It’s also more reasonable to assume that the Palin’s shared the views and aims of Joe Vogler than Obama shares those of Ayers, since Todd Palin remained a member of the AIP until 2002 and Sarah Palin attended conferences as late as 2002 and also sent a taped speech to the AIP convention in 2008, as a sitting governor.
Can’t you see that it’s the rank hypocrisy of the Republicans that is driving this animus? Do you really, REALLY believe that if McCain had chosen Olympia Snowe or Kay Baily Hutchinson that there would be this kind of outcry? Please. For one thing, both of those women have distinguished credentials and real, provable experience and gravitas. Secondly, they have lived their personal and public lives in a pretty blameless manner that precludes the kind of avalanche of dirt and muck that even the most cursory of internet searches reveals about Sarah Palin. For someone with such a slim resume to have this many ugly skeletons jammed to overload in her closet says that it’s likely there’s even more to be found, and says that choosing to put her into a position of huge responsibility and power is an extremely bad idea that no person who had given it more than a moment’s thought or five minutes research would have signed off on. If she can’t manage to handle a job as mayor of a tiny town without firing staff for petty personal reasons, having a recall movement mounted against her in very short order, using her position to gain access to confidential records and leaving the town a financial shambles, how in hell is she a good pick for vice president?
Then you add in the outright lies she tells as though they were truth–I’m sorry, but I can’t abide liars and liars who aren’t even the least bit ashamed of their lies scare me–those people tend to be sociopaths and I don’t want them in charge of my government.
Sam, I’m not asking about supporting voters. I’m curious about local allies. Who did she work with? Who was on her side? I’d like to hear people on her side that approved of her… and I’d like to know what their stances are. Might be useful to know.
This is a ridiculous argument. The only reason ‘secessionists’ in the south would be called racist is because southern secession is intertwined with the history of slavery in the south. Alaska is completely different.
And no, I don’t think a secessionist would be called a ‘terrorist’ unless he engaged in, you know, terrorism.
You might want to check your facts. From the NY Times article listed below:
In other words, Ayers got off on those charges on a technicality. He and his current wife were the FBI’s 10 most wanted list, were indicted, and got lucky when an overzealous government went to far in trying to capture them. Had the indictment not been dropped for governmental misconduct, Ayers would certainly have done a number of years in jail.
And you make it sound like he was SO innocent. Poor William Ayers. Look, there’s no dispute about what Ayers did. He talks about it openly. He wasn’t convicted on other charges because he went underground until the statute of limitations ran out.
Bill Ayers was a bomb maker. He was one of the leaders of the Weather Underground. He went underground when his girlfriend and two associates were killed when the bomb they were making to Ayers specifications blew up on their kitchen table. It killed them because it was an antipersonnel bomb, filled with roofing nails, and intended to be used at a non-commissioned officers dance at the Fort Dix Army base later that night, by Ayer’s own admission.
Nor is this the crazy antics of a young man, who has since turned into a peaceful professor. From this Interview Given to the New York Times in 2001 (at which time Ayers had been an associate of Obama’s for a decade):
Got that? In 2001, he said he had no regrets about bombing the Pentagon and 11 other places, and admits that he might do it again.
And his wife is a real prize too. This is what she said to members of the SDS after the Manson family murders:
. By the way, after that, the Weather Underground adopted a three-fingered ‘Fork Salute’ in tribute.
This is the couple that hosted a meet and greet in their home for Obama to kick off his Illinois Senate run. I guess he’s not the type you murder before supper then stick a fork into for yucks.
“Associates” of his? How so? Could you please detail their close relationship to Vogler? Had they ever met? Did they even know each other at all? Maybe a phone call?
A quick visit to the Alaska Independence Party web site turned up this:
So… Palin was never a member. Todd joined, but never participated in the party in any way. He showed up once to a convention of hundreds of people, during which nothing but some boring party business took place. And it’s not exactly a fringe party in Alaska. It has official party status, and the sitting Lt. Governor of the state was elected their party’s leader.
This makes Palin ‘an associate of a terrorist’?
I haven’t said a whole lot about the Obama/Ayers connection before, but if you’re seriously going to try to draw this thin relationship between Palin and Vogler, then you’re opening yourself up to a barrage of damning relationships between Obama and various unsavory characters that are much, much stronger. You sure you want to go there?
I swear, the Daily Kos is the worst enemy of the Democrats this year. They started the whole nonsense about Palin’s baby, and helped create a media frenzy that turned into a huge backlash and ensured that Palin would have a huge audience for her speech. Now they want to start playing ‘connect the terrorist’ games based on amazingly thin connections, at a time when Obama is trying to downplay his connections to Ayers and Rezko and others. With friends like that, you don’t need enemies. And you’re not helping by unquestionally spreading their glurge on public message boards and widening the message.
So… No difference between working through the political system to achieve independence, and running around bombing police stations and military facilities, huh?
You haven’t actually told us how they knew him. Had him over to the house, did they? Maybe she kicked off her Gubernatorial campaign with a potluck at his place?
And your definition of respectable and mine are obviously different. Ayers managed to get himself a professorship, where he still teaches radicalism and still says that he’s unrepentant for the bombings and might even do it again. The fact that he’s ‘respected’ in the circles Obama keeps is an indictment of that circle, not a justification for Obama’s friendship.
Fair enough Sam.
But Obama has been in the thick of it for many, many months now. I’m pretty sure the press and republicans have done their level best to dig out any awfulness they can to pin to him and he’s still here.
Palin has enjoyed none of that scrutiny and apparently the Reps are trying to keep her away from the press and exactly that scrutiny. Last I heard she refused to make the Sunday chat show circuit. You know, such awful lefty shows like Meet The Press.
Obama got whomped for his association with Rev. Wright. From what I have seen Sarah’s minister is a piece of work in his own right.
She is up for VPOTUS and the proverbial heartbeat away from POTUS. McCain, Obama and Biden have been through the wringer. Do you not think it fair that Palin submit to the same vetting anyone else who has ever run for that office gets?