Palin Tanning Bed Installed In Governor's Mansion

Al Giordano of Narco News first reported that Sarah Palin has a tanning bed installed in the Alaska Governor's Mansion:

"The governor did have a tanning bed put in the Governor's Mansion," Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, confirmed to this newspaper. "It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion."

Ben Smith of the Politico confirmed the report.

"She paid for it with her own money," Wetherell told Smith in an email.

UPDATE: US Weekly has more:

According to Wetherell, the tanning bed was purchased used, from a health club.

Tanning beds can cost up to $35,000 to install in a home - not including the cost of parts, Color Me Tan manager Erin Weise told the Narco News.

"I don't think it's normal for people to have a tanning bed in their house, " Wiese, who is based in Fairbanks said. "It's expensive."

Palin's running mate, presidential candidate John McCain battled skin cancer in 1993, and again in 2000.

"I coat SPF 30 on myself first thing in the morning, and wear long sleeves and a hat whenever I'm in the sun," McCain has told Newsweek.

Palin declared May 2007, "Skin Cancer Awareness Month." In the press materials it was noted, "Skin cancer is caused, overwhelmingly, by over-exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun and from tanning beds."

Comments

[Iluvbush3]

a

[mezz1962a]

She paid for them with her OWN money. Just another Obama 1/2 truth I thought he was going to run an honest campaign

The Obama lies will catch up to him

[appleknocker]

Why is this newsworthy?

[amirtalai]

bc it seems like the kind of thing someone from the Hollywood Elite would do, not a down-to-earth hockey mom who's just like you and me.

[RickTheScribe]

And because it hardly confirms the portrait the McCain campaign is trying to paint of her as a reformer and fighter against government waste. What could possibly be a more frivolous waste of taxpayer money than installing a tanning bed in the governor's mansion?

[Brute]

Seems Obama “hears the little voices” also; just like Palin. I wonder if Matt Damon will weigh in here and ask Obama if he believes that the Earth was created in 6 days?



Today, Greg Sargent posted a brochure which the Obama campaign is distributing in South Carolina which seem to include religious appeals at least as overt and explicit as anything Huckabee has done. The center page of the brochure proclaims -- in the largest letters on the page -- that Obama is a "COMMITTED CHRISTIAN," and includes three pictures of Obama, all of which show him praying or preaching in a Church, and also includes a fourth picture: of the interior of a Church with a large cross lurking in the background. The page also says that Obama is "guided by his Christian faith" and quotes Obama saying: "We do what we do because God is with us."

That same page prints Obama's views "on the power of prayer," and -- using the same language George Bush has frequently used as a signifier to evangelical voters -- says that Obama is "Called to Christ," "Called to Bring Change" and "Called to Serve":

-Salon Magazine

[theprez21]

It is hard to hunt Moose with tan lines.

[vulvina]

she would rather tan his mem ber than lose the e rec tio n

[silasporter]

I agree. So long as she paid for it with her own money, I don't see the problem with it. And don't get me wrong, Palin/McCain terrify me and have compelled me to donate money and time to the Obama campaign. But the truth is: There's plenty of legitimate concerns with Palin's record and temperament to warrant derision and question. Why mitigate the importance of the significant with such an insignificant complaint?

[coldcanuckinwhite]

Let's see the bill.

[freedog]

FYI - I lived in Anchorage for 2 years. The winters are nearly 8 months long. They sell tanning beds in costco there as a form of light therapy. I realize living in SoCal you don't have to think about these things but it is an issue when there are only 3-4 hours of daylight.

Quit being so petty and ignorant.

[splendidbeast]

Sarah Palin is in the dark 3/5ths of the time. that explains it.

[RobinSeattle]

Unfortunately, what you're talking about, Heliotherapy, a kind of light therapy,.i­s not a favored treatment by most doctors for seasonal affective disorder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_therapy

Palin herself has released no statement defending her purchase of said tanning bed. Indeed, no other governor in Alaska history has seemed to need to avail themselves of an in mansion tanning bed.

The Mayo clinic also offers the following:

"However, light therapy hasn't been officially approved as a treatment by the Food and Drug Administration because of a lack of definitive evidence about its effectiveness in clinical trials. Results of some clinical trials have shown light therapy to be effective — and in some cases even more effective than antidepressants — while other research has shown that it's not effective. In addition, most studies have lasted less than six weeks."
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/seasonal-affective-disorder/MH00023

I also have qualms about having someone who is susceptible to seasonal affective disorder with her finger potantially on the nuclear buttom.

Geez, she hs sounding like a cross between Agnew and Eagleton.

[BBDisk]

Schmucks. I know a couple of people with tanning beds in their homes, why is this an issue withou people?

What if Obama has a commercial grade espresso machine in his personal library?

Grasping at straws, you people are. And you are completely missing the point. While all the writers here are busy preaching to the choir and back-patting the rest of the converted, you're missing the entire rest of America that thinks you're a bunch of snooty, overeducated commies.

And they have more votes than you.

If you can't change their minds about Democrats, you're screwed.

Again.

And Again.

Figure it out before it's too late.

Punks.

[coldcanuckinwhite]

My, my, we are touchy today, aren't we??

[BBDisk]

Well think about it. Why wouldn't I be touchy? The democrats are absolutely squandering the opportunity here .. all the little fish in the democrat school are gladhanding each other about how superior they are to Sarah Palin, and how they found a little GOTCHA moment with their tanning bed issue.

And while all the little dems swim around in their little school pretending that, because they make SO much sense that "people of sense" must think like they do ... they are missing the fact that most of the country think that they are narrow-minded elitists.

So - Obama can kiss it goodbye. Not because he is doing too much damage to himself (the bibles-n-guns comment was a bad one, though), but because his most vocal and visible followers are snooty elitist condescending nose-wavers ... and the rest of America cannot relate. Indeed, refuse to relate.

If the DINK elite are the most visible democrats, America at large will run the other way.

And for all the bellyaching about McCain being another four years of Bush, the fact is - the more the DINK Dems open their snobby intellectually superior mouths, the more they are *guaranteeing* another 4 years of Bush-style politics.

Obama will be shown the door come election day, mostly thanks to the fact that his *most visible and most vocal supporters* look, act, and believe nothing like most of America.

And if you're wondering who all these elitist snobs are ...

It's You.

(take a bow)

[Franksa]

Another ironic twist to this ticket first the absentence only mom has a daughter with a bun in the oven but no hubby, and now McCain a 66% chance to have a recurrence of his skin cancer before 2010 and hockey mom uses a tanning bed YIKES!

[Brute]

Franksa,

Abstinence: (noun)

A-B-S-T-I-N-A-N-C-E

Restraint from indulging a desire for something, e.g. alcohol or sexual relations.


Sorry, one of my pet peves.

[BBDisk]

See?

You can't help it.

Intellectually Superior Snob.

Amazing.

[the964kid]

Nothing at all elitist about this - LOL!

I wanna see the receipt and see if Alaskan tax payers paid for her tanning bed. What else is in that house?? Where are Palin's tax records??

[freedog]

She paid with it with her own money. BTW...as they have told you for a week, they are coming this friday.

Where are your tax records?

[vulvina]

we need to see if she paid taxes on the per diem. why do most of us thnk she is a tax cheat? because of the other fine attributes displayed. we shall see soon. but i think they will have to be pried from her.

[ofbbg]

And FDR installed a swimming pool in the White House. And someone else installed a bowling alley. And someone else installed a putting green. What's your whining little point?!

[MotherGinSling]

The point isn't so little, ofbbg. The state paid electric bill for running a tanning bed has to be huge. Tanning beds use twenty to thirty bulbs of 100-160 watts each (yes, 2000-4800 watts for 15 to 20 minutes) and require special installed wiring. That's a huge cost difference from the examples you cited. Uncool. Not exactly eco-friendly either, unless it was powered by a moose on a treadmill.

[RobinSeattle]

Also, "he's doing it so why can't I" is no excuse for wasteful spending of taxpayer money.

Again, moral and fiscal relativism is imbued in the GOP.

[the964kid]

ofbbg: "What's your whining little point?!"

ofbbg, do you have a tanning bed in your house?? This is the kinda stuff 'celebrities' have. I thought Palin was from 'small town' hard working america...

[vulvina]

listen, ofbbg. does your name mean you are, well, screw ed up?

[neocon666]

That's exactly the point -how is she so different from the "big government" republicans talk about as if they weren't the ones in charge for the last 8 years. It's just amazing that the republicans are trying to sell themselves as an alternative to themselves.

[mirandawilde]

Yes, I am aware of that. They are displaying inappropriate boundaries, too. If you allow personal issues to color professional relationships, if you fire someone simply because you disagree with them, you're not being a leader- you are being a bully.
Sarah Palin and John McCain have bullying down to a science. I realize that many Americans mistake this for strength, and that's unfortunate. Bullying is not a quality appropriate for public office at any level.

[lioness39]

Wish I could have slipped in the room and turned the tanning bed on FRY!

[DrDemon]

Oh So Sexist ! (kidding)

Does the tanning bed have a "burnt" setting?

[ZellaBee]

This just shows the superficiality of this woman and the priorities she has.
Tanning beds look like coffins because they are. I am a skin cancer survivor from unprotected exposure as a child. I want to see all people to stop tanning in these death traps. They should be illegal. The damage will not be evident until its too late for many. I've warned many people close to me but they want a tan more than their life.
It always amazes me that the government wants to control vitamins and supplements and take healthy stuff off the market but allows dangerous equipment like this and irradiates our food. HMMMM?