# Sarah turns opaque. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 16, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856 "2008-09-16T16:46:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/281 "2008-09-28T02:38:52Z")
I’m thinking that Grandpa McCain really should have had more than one 15 minute interview with this woman before selecting her as his running mate. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/282 "2008-09-28T02:45:43Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > You know who I think is secretly enjoying Palin’s constant failures. Me!!! She’s the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/283 "2008-09-28T02:49:21Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > Me!!! She’s the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. 😃 Yeah, but that’s a secret to absolutely no one. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/284 "2008-09-28T03:12:03Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > Me!!! She’s the best thing that could have happened to the Democrats. 😃 One of us needs to recalibrate his secrecy meter. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/285 "2008-09-28T05:33:49Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > You know who I think is secretly enjoying Palin’s constant failures. > > McCain. > > I think there is a little part of him that is cheering with an “I told you so, we should have taken Lieberman” to his party. I have to wonder if he’s also just a little annoyed that she’s bringing out the rubes to the rope lines when he has trouble filling a high school gymnasium by himself. No matter what he says, McCain is a guy who loves the attention and craves celebrity. He loves to scmooze the Press, he lives for the appearances on SNL and Leno and GMA. He’s like an ex-jock who was once great but is now living on past glory and basking in media adulation. Deep down inside, in a place he would never admit exists, he’s basically a fame whore.\* That’s why he’s so obsessed with Obama’s popularity and has wasted so much time and money in futile attempts to make it look like a weakness by mocking it. He thinks that adulation is supposed to be his. He’s seething with resentment that a guy he views as a presumptuous kid with a slick rap is stealing all the love and the moment McCain thinks was supposed to be his (and I think Hillary felt exactly the same way). Then he chose Palin and, initially at least, she gave him a boost in the polls and helped him draw crowds again, but he’s STILL wasn’t the star of the show. When they tried to start making separate appearances, McCain’s draw dropped right back down again. People were going to see Palin, not him. Not only that, but I think she was starting to get a swelled head about it, swaggering around like she was running the show, answering questions from the crowd about whether she had tirned McCain around on ANWR yet, and – worst of all – bragging about the “Palin-McCain” ticket. Don’t think _that_ didn’t piss him off. I would bet that, while it might not be great for his campaign, he’s probably still taking some satisfaction in seeing her piss down her leg in these TV interviews. Hillary too, probably. It’s what they both wanted to see happen to Obama and it must be killing them that it never does. I think the suspension stunt probably had something to do with trying to get the cameras back on him too. \*For the record, I think McCain has some genuine greatness in there somewhere too, but that part of him is getting stuffed down by the fame whore right now ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/286 "2008-09-28T12:45:12Z")
> [@Hamlet](#): > > You know who I think is secretly enjoying Palin’s constant failures. > > McCain. > > I think there is a little part of him that is cheering with an “I told you so, we should have taken Lieberman” to his party. That’s why I’m going to be watching the aftermath of his loss (assuming he doesn’t somehow get his campaign turned around and flying right). If he decides that he sold his soul to the Karl Roves and the “agents of intolerance” and got dick all to show for it besides a front-row seat to Obama’s inauguration, he might lash out in a very entertaining – and, perhaps, ultimately good for both the GOP and the American political system as a whole – way. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/287 "2008-09-28T12:48:19Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > **Top Ten Excuses Palin Will Use to Skip the VP Debate:** > > 1. She’s trapped on the Bridge to Nowhere. She told Congress thanks, but no thanks. **If she wanted rescued** , she’d do it herself. OT: Are you from Ohio or anywhere near there? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![BlackNGold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BlackNGold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackNGold)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/288 "2008-09-28T13:20:17Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Scared? When Palin is free falling in the polls? Here is what you need to worry about: People will now see that Republicans are ignoring a basic rule of law like subpoenas, and they see now that the possible future Republican administration is just the same as the Bush administration in this and other subjects. Doesn’t matter. They have figured out that no matter what you **say** or what you **do** , 48% of this country will still vote for you. Your just haggling for that 4% in the middle, and that turns on what happens in the last 4 microseconds before they vote. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/289 "2008-09-28T15:26:06Z")
The mainstream media has _finally_ picked up on the [Pebble Mine/Bristol Bay story](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/27/AR2008092702834.html?nav=hcmodule). > [@](#): > > . . . > > Then, six days before the Aug. 26 vote, with the race looking close, Palin broke her silence. Asked about the initiative at a news conference, she invoked **“personal privilege” to give an opinion. “Let me take my governor’s hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 – I vote no on that,”** she said. “I have all the confidence in the world that [the Department of Environmental Conservation] and our [Department of Natural Resources] have great, very stringent regulations and policies already in place. We’re going to make sure that mines operate only safely, soundly.” > > . . . > > Three days later, Palin was named Republican Sen. John McCain’s running mate, throwing Alaska into a media frenzy. But the fallout has lingered from an episode that may stand as one of the most consequential in Palin’s 21-month tenure. **The state ethics panel is examining whether her comments violated the law against state advocacy on ballot measures** ; it had already ruled that a state Web site was improperly slanted toward mining interests. > > . . . > > A week before the vote, Palin spoke with initiative opponent Mead Treadwell, the chairman of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. He sensed that the governor was seeing things his way. "Palin said, ‘I can’t take a position, but if anyone asks me what I think, I’d say that I don’t like it,’ " Treadwell recalled. “And about an hour later, someone asked her.” > > She stated her opposition without warning Rick Halford, a conservative Republican and former state senator. A main initiative supporter, he had worked hard for Palin’s election. The two had talked during the summer about Pebble, and “she was cautious and trying to figure it out at that point,” he said. > > Art Hackney, a political consultant and director of Alaskans for Clean Water, speculated that Palin may have been irked by complaints about the biased language on the state Web site. “It was her way of waving her wand, as she is wont to do,” he said, “. . . and poof, undercut this effort with one fell swoop.” She is really an evil, back-stabbing, self-serving bitch, isn’t she. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/290 "2008-09-28T16:34:25Z")
> [@BlackNGold](#): > > Doesn’t matter. They have figured out that no matter what you **say** or what you **do** , 48% of this country will still vote for you. Your just haggling for that 4% in the middle, and that turns on what happens in the last 4 microseconds before they vote. On the most recent polls today, Research 2000 and Rasmussen have Obama at 50 and McCain at 43 and 44 It does matter when people have to face the realty that McCain really cannot choose people well or is showing a propensity for stunts like the “suspending the campaign to save the economy” while doing neither. And I think the percentage of people that do not care is closer to the low 40’s than the high 40’s ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/291 "2008-09-28T17:35:57Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > The mainstream media has _finally_ picked up on the [Pebble Mine/Bristol Bay story](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/27/AR2008092702834.html?nav=hcmodule). Interesting story, but what do you mean _finally_? Was this mentioned before in this or another Palin thread and I missed it? Because if not, how did you find out about it _prior_ to this Washington Post story? I’m asking because I must admit I’m dependent upon the SDMB for all of my Palin info. I don’t watch TV or read any other message boards and I only go to news/political sites if someone links to them, such as the one you just linked to for this story. That’s awful to admit, but that’s the way it is. Just a couple of weeks ago I was trying to avoid almost anything regarding politics, but Palin changed that. It’s not just the RW base she energised. She kinda woke me up too. The more I learn about her the more fascinated (and horrified) I become, since I think she’ll be the 45th POTUS and it’s like watching a trainwreck in slow motion. You know it’s coming, but there’s nothing you can do about it. So, for my sake, people, if you have dish on Sarah, please share it here. I can’t be the only one who is getting their info (and not just about Palin either) _first_ here. I appreciate it too. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/292 "2008-09-28T17:58:34Z")
Two good editorials in today’s local rag, both by Republicans. One is a [conservative attack dog](http://www.adn.com/opinion/comment/story/539462.html)without much cred (but he thinks Palin is a liberal), and the other is [Andrew Halcro](http://www.adn.com/opinion/comment/story/539459.html), who ran against her for the governor’s slot (also a Pubbie). Biden would do well to read the Halcro opinion piece about debating her. It would be a mistake to underestimate her. On another note, there was a rally yesterday where people were demanding Sarah’s recall as governor, and the firing of her AG because of Troopergate. The local McCain campaign flacks called it a partisan event by Obama supporters and just another indication of how poor Sarah can’t get a fair and unbiased hearing. What horseshit. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/293 "2008-09-28T18:12:25Z")
> [@Equipoise](#): > > Interesting story, but what do you mean **finally**? Was this mentioned before in this or another Palin thread and I missed it? Because if not, how did you find out about it _prior_ to this Washington Post story? There’s one blog, in particular, run by an Alaskan resident, that is very informative, and is where I seem to recall first learning about Palin’s mining ethics investigation; [Mudflats](http://mudflats.wordpress.com/category/sarah-palin/). There’s also Andrew Halcro’s [blog](http://www.andrewhalcro.com/), but I don’t necessarily consider that one unbiased, since he has a clear axe to grind, having lost his bid for Governor to her, so I tend to look for corroboration from other sources before relying on him. Even still, if you do a Google search on [Palin Pebble Mine Bristol Bay](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=palin+pebble+mine+bristol+bay&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8), you get mostly obscure blogs, nothing mainstream. If you click on the “news” link to search those terms under News stories, the WaPo article (and another one on the subject) are the only two that address this issue directly. There are other results, but if you click through to follow them, you’ll find they might be tangentially related, but not on point. The only major newspaper that I can find that’s ever really reported on this issue is the Seattle Post Intelligencer, and they don’t get the national exposure the Washington Post does. > [@Equipoise](#): > > So, for my sake, people, if you have dish on Sarah, please share it here. I can’t be the only one who is getting their info (and not just about Palin either) _first_ here. I appreciate it too. > > Thanks! My pleasure. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/294 "2008-09-28T18:41:00Z")
Oh, I also get a lot of great links through Mark Halperin at The Page, as well as through the [barackobama.com](http://barackobama.com) blogs. One poster in particular, Celtic, posts in every blog, every day, a long list of links to news and blog articles from all over the web. He inserts them right at the top of each thread, usually the 2nd or 3rd post down, so they’re not difficult to find just by clicking any blog post. [Example here](http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gGxBKK/commentary). ---
**Author:** ![BlackNGold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@BlackNGold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlackNGold)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/295 "2008-09-28T18:59:03Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > On the most recent polls today, Research 2000 and Rasmussen have Obama at 50 and McCain at 43 and 44 > > It does matter when people have to face the realty that McCain really cannot choose people well or is showing a propensity for stunts like the “suspending the campaign to save the economy” while doing neither. And I think the percentage of people that do not care is closer to the low 40’s than the high 40’s Umm, agree, but even if the number is 42%, that doesn’t make me feel any better. I admit to pulling 48% out of my ass, but I think the larger point holds. I’m not ragging on Republicans here, in fact I am a Republican (admittedly of the extinct species _Smallus Governmentus_). I think one of the main problems is that our system of government was not set up to handle political parties. I’m also of the opinion that two was the worst number of parties we could have ended up with. It offers an illusion of choice even when there’s no real difference. Not that that’s the case here, but you end up going with “your” guy way too often. It’s a really superficial reason for pulling a lever when you haven’t bothered to pay any attention at all. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/296 "2008-09-28T19:18:37Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > the other is [Andrew Halcro](http://www.adn.com/opinion/comment/story/539459.html), who ran against her for the governor’s slot (also a Pubbie). > [@Halcro's editorial](#): > > On April 18, 2006, Palin and I sat together in a hotel coffee shop comparing campaign trail notes. As we talked about the debates, Palin made a comment that highlights the phenomenon that Biden is up against. > > "Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers and yet when asked questions you spout off facts, figures and policies and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, ‘Does any of this really matter?’ " Palin said. Yikes. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/297 "2008-09-28T19:41:35Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > Oh, I also get a lot of great links through Mark Halperin at The Page, as well as through the [barackobama.com](http://barackobama.com) blogs. One poster in particular, Celtic, posts in every blog, every day, a long list of links to news and blog articles from all over the web. He inserts them right at the top of each thread, usually the 2nd or 3rd post down, so they’re not difficult to find just by clicking any blog post. [Example here](http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/amandascott/gGxBKK/commentary). Thank you Shayna (and Chefguy) for the links and information. It’s nice to go to the links, and click through to other links, when I have downtime at work, but I can’t impress enough how much I appreciate that you guys are keeping up with this stuff and re-posting info and links here. I say that not with a “…so I don’t have to” attitude, but with a “…because I (and a lot of other people, I assume) can’t” admiration toward you. THANK YOU! ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/298 "2008-09-28T20:01:33Z")
You are really and truly welcome! Here’s the latest, as linked through The Page: > [@](#): > > [AP Investigation: Palin got zoning aid, gifts](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PALIN_ETHICS?SITE=CAGRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT) > > By BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE > Associated Press Writer > > WASILLA, Alaska (AP) – Though Sarah Palin depicts herself as a pit bull fighting good-old-boy politics, in her years as mayor she and her friends received special benefits more typical of small-town politics as usual, an Associated Press investigation shows. > > When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception - and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard. > > . . . > > That year, records show, she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man’s fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn’t have the authority.\* > > . . . > > Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city’s repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time. > > . . . \*What’s not clear is the timing of this, vs Ms. Palin’s anger at the City Attorney issuing a Stop Work order against one of her supporters, [prompting her orchestrating the firing of said City Attorney](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&hp&oref=slogin). From the NY Times: > [@](#): > > . . . > > In 1997, Ms. Palin fired the longtime city attorney, Richard Deuser, after he issued the stop-work order on a home being built by Don Showers, another of her campaign supporters. > > Your attorney, Mr. Showers told Ms. Palin, is costing me lots of money. > > “She told me she’d like to see him fired,” Mr. Showers recalled. “But she couldn’t do it herself because the City Council hires the city attorney.” Ms. Palin told him to write the council members to complain. > > Meanwhile, Ms. Palin pushed the issue from the inside. “She started the ball rolling,” said Ms. Patrick, who also favored the firing. Mr. Deuser was soon replaced by Ken Jacobus, then the State Republican Party’s general counsel. > > . . . ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/299 "2008-09-28T20:18:32Z")
> [@](#): > > …and I ask myself, ‘Does any of this really matter?’ " Palin said. This makes more sense when you realize that Ms Palin adheres to the existentialist branch of Pentecostalism. ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856/300 "2008-09-28T21:14:51Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > You are really and truly welcome! > > Here’s the latest, as linked through The Page:…[!!!] Whooo-eee! She’s gonna have a field day as VP and POTUS isn’t she? A snap of her fingers and the FBI and CIA will be at her disposal. Anyone who ever crossed her will be shaking in their boots! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sarah-turns-opaque/463856.md?page=16)