Lest We Forget, Lest We Forget

Sarah Palin's candidacy is now widely viewed as a political liability. As a result, the substantive threat posed by her candidacy is in danger of being overlooked. But the more we find out about her, the worse she looks.

A new article in The New Yorker makes clear that Palin's trajectory to national prominence was, in fact, powered by her anti-environmental instincts.  In 2007 The Weekly Standard and The National Review both ran cruises to Alaska for conservative heavyweights. The cruises stopped in Juneau. Governor Palin had William Kristol, the Standard's Washington-based editor; Fred Barnes, the magazine's executive editor; and Michael Gerson, Bush's former chief speechwriter, over to the governor's mansion for lunch. The article then goes on to describe how Palin's rise to national prominence got its start:

According to a former Alaska official who attended the lunch, the visitors wanted to do something "touristy," so a "flight-seeing" trip was arranged. Their destination was a gold mine in Berners Bay, some forty-five miles north of Juneau. For Palin and several staff members, the state leased two helicopters from a private company, Coastal, for two and a half hours, at a cost of four thousand dollars. (The pundits paid for their own aircraft.) Palin explained that environmentalists had invoked the Clean Water Act to oppose a plan by a mining company, Coeur Alaska, to dump waste from the extraction of gold into a pristine lake in the Tongass National Forest. Palin rejected the environmentalists' claims. (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Coeur Alaska, and the dispute is now before the Supreme Court.) Barnes was dazzled by Palin's handling of the hundred or so mineworkers who gathered to meet the group. "She clearly was not intimidated by crowds -- or men!" he said. "She's got real star quality."

By the time the Weekly Standard pundits returned to the cruise ship, Paulette Simpson said, "they were very enamored of her." In July, 2007, Barnes wrote the first major national article spotlighting Palin, titled "The Most Popular Governor," for The Weekly Standard. Simpson said, "That first article was the result of having lunch." Bitney agreed: "I don't think she realized the significance until after it was all over. It got the ball rolling."

So her campaign was born because of her defiance of the Clean Water Act. But Palin has also shown a stunning disregard for other environmental values, as a recent article in The New Republic makes clear.  Alaska, for example, has a birth-defect rate that's twice the national average -- and its Arctic regions end up as the final sink for persistent organic pollutants released all over the Northern Hemisphere. Palin can't do much about airborne toxics -- but when she has a chance to deal with local toxic threats, she comes down consistently against the public health. She opposed a requirement that schools give parents 48 hours notice before a school was to be sprayed with pesticides and other toxic chemicals.

And sometimes Palin's indifference to environmental protection means creating toxic risks for others. In the summer of 2007, Palin allowed oil companies to move forward with a toxic-dumping plan in Alaska's Cook Inlet, making it the only coastal fishery in the nation where toxic dumping is permitted -- putting America's food supply at risk. Running for governor, she was opposed to the proposed Pebble Mine, but once elected she helped the mining industry defeat a citizen initiative that would have controlled toxic run-off from the mine. And Palin refused to help local communities get the U.S. military to clean up the toxic waste mess it left behind at Alaska bases.

Palin looks likely this year to help drag John McCain's candidacy down to defeat, or at least make his struggle harder. But she is already being talked about as a potential presidential candidate in 2012 for the Republicans. Environmentalists need to make sure that never happens.

Paid for by Sierra Club Political Committee, www.sierraclub.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

Follow Carl Pope on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlPope

Comments

[GregJL]

"She opposed a requirement that schools give parents 48 hours notice before a school was to be sprayed with pesticides and other toxic chemicals."

This makes no sense to me. I can't even see a reason from a conservative point of view for opposing this. Seriously. I'm pretty damned good at understanding why conservatives do what they do, and this STILL makes no sense except on the basis of progressives wanted it, so it must be bad.

[DennyCrane]

Palin won't be a serious presidential contender for 2012. The Republicans will blame her for McCain's loss. At this point, the likely contenders will be Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Jeb Bush.

[Terriac]

This woman is toxic. I can't imagine that she would ever actually have a viable future in high-level politics. She just doesn't have what it takes, and most people recognize that she's completely unqualified and unready, and that's unlikely to change.

[MariosResponse]

Carl, as a PR professional, I can tell you that, unless Palin does something stunning like propose a master economic rescue program that immediately turns the global economy around, she doesn't have much of a real future as a viable political candidate on a national level. Intellectually, she is simply unable to rise to the level of insight and knowledge such an effort requires.

She is also developing a public image as the kind of person that people "love to hate," reminiscent of Amorosa from The Apprentice. I'm sure she loves the crowds she's attracting - and she can have a great future as a fundraiser for the Republicans - but I cannot see any politician, unless they're running on a highly conservative ticket, directly welcoming her endorsement. She's tainted goods!

Finally, she has completely lost the “love” of the press. The press had a love affair with her for a single instant immediately following her acceptance speech - but that quickly evaporated as her handlers had her taking potshots at media and quickly ducking for cover before they could return fire. Notice that the press no longer cuts he any slack on anything she does.

[The Lorax]

Why does she hate the environment and animals?

[Gidster]

There is no profit in conservation.....

[kadene]

It's a religious thing. Human life has value, but not those other life forms that support it.

[LeftRight]

"She opposed a requirement that schools give parents 48 hours notice before a school was to be sprayed with pesticides and other toxic chemicals."

This one scares me more than the rest. My wife is HIGHLY allergic to pesticides. So much so that when one of her co workers had sprayed her house two days before for ants, my wife had to be taken from work to the emergency room! Think what would happen if we let our kids go to school when they were spraying!

[ChrisCann]

There is no way they could run her in 2012. do they think the american people will forget about everything they saw this election. Of course she could learn things and get experience. yet there are qualitiies that a president needs that can not be learned. Second i think her political life may be over. she is going to need to be reelected. i think the people of Alaska have learned alot about palin that they didn't before and i think it will be a lot harder for her to be reelected.

[kadene]

Palin for President 2012?

The Republicans have an aversion to educated, critical thinkers as their presidential candidates. All they need are puppets.

[LHoney]

I wish Obama would take some of the monry I have given him and put out ads about this (if he hasn't already)!! THis woman has been getting a free ride from the press and the Obama/Biden campaign. Nice guys finish last...

[Satyra]

Here lies the truth about Sarah Palin. Go to
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Troopergate_Palin_lies_and_videotape

[sticksnstones]

Why would anyone think Palin would be any different than any other Republican governor, president, senator, or representative in the past 30 years? I swear, they all go through the same cookie cutter. The national Republican party only steals elections for candidates who show disdain for EPA regs. Those pesky agencies and all those unnecessary regulations are seen as interfering with big profits. The result is a governor whose only utterance ( I swear this is true ) in this entire campaign which is a complete sentence is " Drill, baby, drill ".

[zanzig]

Very interesting. This article (link below) from the London Review of Books seems to indicate, however, that Palin was a lot more calculating about her rise to national prominence, than implied by the statement that "I don't think she realised the significance until after it was all over". I think she did.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n19/raba01_.html

[ohioan73]

I guess she doesn't care about ruining Alaska because its gonna be the world's refuse after the Rapture....oh wait...