(Photo: Heath Family, via Associated Press)
The Wasilla City Council, with Sarah Palin, the future governor and vice-presidential nominee, at the center, in a 1998 photograph. Throughout her career, Ms. Palin has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and blurred the line between government and personal grievance.Palin bags a big one
http://drawger.com/show.php?show_id=36&image_id=1137
Copyright Zina Saunders 2008 * http://www.zinasaunders.com/
I have written a couple of times on this and I was wrong both times.
The first time, I thought Scott Richter’s emergency Alaska court filing to have his divorce papers sealed was to conceal an affair he had with the moose hunter from The Alaskan Tundra (I was not the only one but that does not absolve me of responsibility for jumping to conclusions).
The next time, taking Scott’s side, I thought he filed the action simply because he wanted privacy for himself and his son.
The Wall Street Journal today reported that the reason Richter wanted the papers sealed was to conceal that he had called Sarah Palin to tell her someone on her staff was having an affair with his wife.
Sarah Palin and John Bitney go way back. They were in the same junior-high band class. Mr. Bitney was a key aide in Gov. Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign. When she took office, she gave Mr. Bitney a job as her legislative director, and a few months later stood beside him at a news conference and praised his work.
“Whatever you did, you did it right,” she told Mr. Bitney and his team.
Seven weeks later she fired Mr. Bitney for what her spokeswoman now describes as “poor job performance.”
Bitney was seriously mistaken in how close he was to Gov. Palin, who was already upset with him for getting a divorce. The affair with Richter’s wife ticked off Palin and her husband. It turns out the Palins were even tighter with Richter:
“They were, you know, professionally my bosses, but they were my friends,” Mr. Bitney said of the Palins. “And so what caused them to want me to leave the governor’s office was my relationship, my divorce, my dating a woman with whom they had a personal relationship.”
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Allies of Republican presidential nominee John McCain like to point out that his running mate is the governor of the largest state in the union. But at times, Alaska seems more like a small town, run by folks with overlapping professional, political and personal ties that can be difficult to untangle.
Gov. Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, were also close friends of the Richters. Ms. Richter served as treasurer of Gov. Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and her inaugural committee. After taking office, Gov. Palin put Ms. Richter in charge of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division at the Department of Revenue. The fund allocates oil revenues to Alaska residents; this year each Alaskan is expected to receive $3,269.
The two couples owned property together on Safari Lake, north of Wasilla, according to Gov. Palin’s financial disclosure reports. Each couple had its own cabin on the land, where the families would vacation side by side, according to Ms. Richter. In the most recent disclosure form, the governor reported that she and Mr. Palin now own the property with Mr. Richter alone.
The Journal story, the whole sordid mess, continues here . . .
My friend, Chiara, sent me this note on Thursday, the final day of the Republican National Convention. I managed to miss the note and I’m offering it now for your consideration.
Last night, my sister-in-law, Joyce, a nurse, mother of three, and grandmother of many, wrote to a number of us in the family to express her views about the presidential election. Joyce focused on an aspect of a potential and unthinkable Republican victory that I think few of us — certainly not I — have considered at any length. I believe Joyce’s take on a McCain/Palin administration is worthy of contemplation and so I’d like to share with you the note she sent to us from Santa Rosa last night, at the conclusion of the Republican National Convention.
Yes, we can.
Chiara
Dear Kim, Tami, Erik, Steven, Deena, Todd, Chiara, Lucia, Kathleen and Eddie
As most of you know I am very pro Obama. I had the opportunity to watch all major speeches for the Democratic convention and now I’m giving equal time to the Republicans. Two very different takes on patriotism. I was heartened by Obama, Biden, and Michelle Obama. This week, I watched John McCain become animated over his sudden secret weapon, Sarah Palin. I listened to the speeches last night and heard similar slurs in each one, obviously written by the same team. No lies told, but less than the truth said. The crowd went wild. There are lots more at home who believe and will vote.
Tonight, after listening to Cindy McCain’s profile (she has been an international relief worker!!) and her well delivered speech following Sarah Palin’s rousing rendition of the republican working super mom last night, I know big work must be done if the White House is to stay in the hands of the party that I believe is more fair and balanced.
But my greatest fear is that, if the McCain/Palin ticket wins, my grandsons, Jeff, Brennan, Justin A and Justin C will be registering for the draft before the end of 2009. Devin won’t be far behind. There are simply not enough volunteer bodies to fill the battle needs in the many places our hawk leaders feel we should go. I was a fierce mother against the war in Vietnam when Steven was a child and I can do it again. And be even more involved this time because watching my grandsons go off to war for oil and power doesn’t feel patriotic to me.
I’m calling the local democratic party headquarters tomorrow. I will volunteer however they need me because I now have the time to go with my passion that the charismatic folks running on the republican ticket are defeated in Nov.
John McCain just finished the most compelling speech I’ve ever heard from him. Almost, but not quite eloquent. That the crowd is going wild is an indication of what’s happening in front of millions of American TVs. Scary.
Oh woe, we have lots of work to do. Both parties want change in Washington, but only one party wants to escalate war in several world regions.
Going forward, I’ll keep the grandson faces in front of me to remember why the war mongers cannot win.
With love,
Mom, Joyce
Along with the prego teen daughter, trying to fire everyone who ever crossed her, views that are out of the mainstream with most Americans, among other things, it turns out Sarah Palin’s bulging and very colorful closet may spill yet more secrets.
Andrew Sullivan says: Todd Palin’s former business partner files an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Oh God.
The Central Virginia Progressive-The DAVISReport sent us this message:
I’ve got to give her props, Sarah Palin has redefined chutzpah.
There is something very unseemly about this self described pit bull mom. As the mother of three daughters and the aunt of a special needs child this woman is really making me angry. Will this woman stop at nothing and yet point the finger at her opponents for playing the gender card and and drawing her children into the dialogue? You can’t play the gender/mom card and then cry fowl when your opponent brings it up.
In her convention speech she referred to herself as a mother at least five times. She then opened with “As a mother of a special needs child you’ll have an advocate in the White House.” Well my sister who has fought for 30 years to get her son the services and education he needed to become a functional adult, was not impressed, and in fact, thought her shout out was just the beginning of the evening’s overall exploitation of her children to “excite the base” and found it disingenuous.
Next came her foreign policy position pitch which began and ended with, “I’m a Mom with a son in the national guard who leaves next week for Iraq . . . (cue to camera closeup on the kid). Again the Mommy card played face up, her son used as a deflection, why? Because a month ago when asked to discuss foreign policy, she stated, “I really haven’t focused much on the war in Iraq”-ouch!
It should be noted here that Biden and McCain also have sons who have, are currently, or soon will be deployed to Iraq, and they have had the class to leave their son’s out of the fray. In fact, taking his cue from Va. Sen. D. Jim Webb, John McCain, when pressed on the subject in an interview recently, stated: “Id rather not discuss my sons military service if you don’t mind”. (Perhaps McCain and Palin need a sidebar)
But the coup de grace of the evening was yet to come. Talk about Brass Ovaries! All while demanding her daughter be left out of the campaign rhetoric, she flew the baby daddy of her 17-year-old pregnant daughter in from Alaska, to the convention, and then pranced the gum-chewing man child around on stage with the moose in the headlight daughter!
As a mother of three daughters ( I’ve got a mommy card of my own to play) I found this disturbing on so many levels it hurt my heart and head.
The Inmates have taken over the Asylum!
Ms Palin, As I try to process what I saw and heard I have questions:
1. In light of recent events, do you revisit your decision to cut funding earlier this year to Passages, a teenage crisis center? According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “teen mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”
2. You oppose all funding to prevent teen pregnancies, “sex-ed programs will not find my support,” you wrote in a 2006 questionnaire distributed among gubernatorial candidates but you cut funding for the teenage mothers who do not have the family or socioeconomic support your own daughter will have the privilege of-please explain how this connects you to the needs of everyday people?
3. Will the time missed out of high school classes qualify baby daddy an excused absence? cool!
4. Social Conservatives decried the movie Juno, complaining it glorified teenage pregnancy ( teen gives baby up for adoption), and indeed a spike in teenage pregnancy was dubbed the Juno effect. So I ask, with all this prancing about, can we expect a Bristol effect and what are you going to do about it if you’re the VP?
5. You decreased teen pregnancy services, but increased funds for aerial wolf shooting, please explain?
One more thing, being pro choice is not pro abortion, what part of that is hard to understand?
The DAVISReport
Posted by www.EileenDavis.blogspot.com The Davis Report – The Voice of Central Virginia and the Capital City.
If I had to pick one word to summarize my impression of Gov. Palin’s speech tonight, it would be “shrill.” It was a fiercely partisan speech, a mocking speech, a culture-war speech. It was ably written and ably delivered, but it came with a sneer. While it may be the kind of speech that plays well in the convention hall, I have my doubts about its ability to persuade the shrinking number of undecideds remaining to vote for a McCain-Palin ticket. We’ll see.
What may be most significant about the speech, however, could be what it portends for the fall campaign. Palin’s goal, it seems to me, was pretty simple: make common folk dislike the Democrats again. It was a speech very loosely grounded in fact but deeply rooted in division. She threw around the old canards (and some new ones, too) with aplomb. I think this is a sign that we may be in for a bitterly negative campaign.
On that level, I’d have to pronounce the speech a success. Palin proved herself to be at least a decent attack dog. One needn’t have any foreign policy experience to fill that role and fill it well. She came out swinging and never let up.
Democrats who’ve scoffed at her will have to think again. Obama’s weakness since the beginning has been his inability or unwillingness to throw an effective counterpunch. Unless his campaign quickly figures out a way to do that against a self-professed Hockey Mom, I think we just might have been looking tonight at the next Vice President of the United States.
UPDATE: A conventional wisdom seems to be emerging that this was a speech designed to energize the GOP base. I disagree. By and large, I think the base is energized by Sarah Palin already. To me, this was a speech designed to drive up Obama’s negatives with swing voters. The only question is whether she succeeded and will succeed despite the ugly sneer that accompanied her negative broadsides.
Cross-posted from Facebook
Our friend, Eileen Davis of the DAVISReport, sent us this message:
Say hello to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John MCCain’s VP select ,the governor of a state where its citizens by birthright get checks sent to them up to a couple thousand a year, that represent oil profits gained on state owned land.
Yes Virginia, Alaska, the sparsely populated other world of Alaska, the Kuwait of the United States, fat with oil money, sparsely populated, and except for remote pockets of indigenous eskimoe communities,largely caucasion, is where John McCain has found “the best person” to serve as our VP?
As I ponder McCain’s choice, knowing that he believes that this decision will help deliver purple Virginia, I dig deeper and get more astounded that he thinks he has made the sale.
Virginia, with both urban and rural poor,immigration issues,(Henrico County Schools alone have 90 plus languages registered in ESL classes), with our population density and DC proximity terrrorism issues, military and port concerns, highway infrastructure issues and commuter issue(good old 95)- with all of this Virginia is ranked number one best run state and is also ranked best place to raise a child with the outcome of it being solidly educated. My question is why do these honors go to Virginia and not Alaska with more money and less challenges to successful outcomes?
Seems to me Alaska should easily have these rankings. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel for them , compared to the challenges we face here in Virginia, but yet we prevail. But that’s my point, a first term Governor of Alaska whose last job was a town smaller than Ashland can’t really be expected to step into the VP gig ground ready, and cross training is not an option. Bluntly stated, she doesnt know what she doesn’t know.
Choosing your VP is the first big decision the candidate is judged on and John McCain has shown himself to be a reckless flyboy who must think woman are really stupid. Too stupid to notice she is in way over her head, too stupid to realize that a Hillary supporter,to vote for Palin just because she’s female would have to abandon every social and political position most Hillary supporters share. Why?; because Palin is an ultraconservative,a gun toting NRA member, Anti Choice even in cases of rape and incest.
The idea that one woman is as good as another is arrogant pandering, and will result in blowback that McCain will regret. The arrogance is also compounded by the fact that this 72 yr old with 4 bouts of cancer thinks no one will consider the heartbeat away question, does he really think that we are so giggly to pick a chick we won’t think this possibility through?
“Ms Palin, I know Hillary Clinton, and you are no Hillary Clinton”
Posted by www.EileenDavis.blogspot.com The Davis Report – The Voice of Central Virginia and the Capital City
Have you seen People magazine’s exclusive photo of the McCain and Palin families?
Four members of the McCain and Palin familes are absent from the photo. Palin’s eldest son, Track, and McCain’s youngest son, Jimmy, are in the military and on deployment. McCain’s older son, Jack, is at the Naval Academy.
Where’s Bridget McCain?
Bridget is the McCain’s adopted daughter. She’s originally from Bangladesh and is very brown-skinned. She’s 17 years old — older than three of Palin’s children who appear in the photo and the same age as the fourth.
Are the McCains ashamed of their brown child?
Cross-posted from Facebook.
(Photo by Michael O’Neill:Left to right: Sarah Palin’s daughters Bristol and Willow, Sarah Palin with her husband Todd, their baby Trig, and daughter Piper, John McCain with his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan)Word is out this evening that Sen. McCain is finalizing his vice-presidential pick tonight. Because we may know as soon as tomorrow who he’s chosen, it’s now or never for another round of veepstakes.
If I were advising McCain, here’s who would be on my suggested short list:
Tom Ridge
Kay Bailey Hutchinson
As a Democrat, those are the only two that I think could be game-changing. Tom Ridge might piss off the lunatic fringe, but I just don’t think that they’d abandon the party at the end of the day. Not for a guy who’s going to be spending the next four years going to funerals.
Hutchinson, in my view, has almost no downside. She’s not an excellent campaigner, but I don’t think that’s a big deal in this campaign. McCain’s best hope of attracting die-hard Clintonites is to pick a woman, and Hutchinson’s the best of the bunch. She might also present a good contrast to Biden in the debates. Hutchinson is the pick that I fear the most.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is worthy of serious consideration, but she arguably wouldn’t meet the ready-to-be-president criterion. I don’t think she gets McCain anything that Hutchinson doesn’t get him already.
Meg Whitman might also be worthy of serious consideration. But her inexperience and at least questionable record at eBay could be liabilities. She also doesn’t get McCain much that Hutchinson doesn’t get him already.
Finally, Mike Pence and Rob Portman might also be worthy short-listers. I have long thought that Pence would be an excellent candidate, but he’s almost completely unknown. He’s the Chet Edwards of the GOP veepstakes. Mike who? Portman is a solid if uninspiring choice. He’s got economic experience, but that could be a liability — it might be seen as a pick from weakness rather than strength.
Although McCain has some good choices, my guess is that he’s going to go for Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty. For some reason, the conventional wisdom sees both candidates as relatively safe picks. My guess is that the McCain camp feels pretty good about their current position in the polls, and they don’t want to rock the boat. I think that’s a mistake.
Romney has an almost unique ability to inspire loathing. People don’t like him. Even though he holds all the right positions for the Republican electorate, he came in third in the primaries. Pawlenty has an amazing ability to inspire sleep and would look like a dope next to Biden.
I think McCain really wants to pick Joseph Lieberman, but he’ll realize in the end that Traitor Joe would be more repulsive to his base than he can handle. Lieberman gets him little that Ridge doesn’t and pisses off more people.
Wild cards include David Petraeus and Eric Cantor.
Who do I, as a Democrat, want McCain to pick? If Jeb Bush and Dick Cheney are unavailable, I’d be delighted if McCain picks Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, or Carly Fiorina.
Who do you think McCain should pick? Who do you think he will pick?
Cross-posted from Facebook.
