Sarah Palin will not go away, apparently unaware that losing an election requires the loser to cede power to the victor. Staying in the limelight, she is now assigning blame for her failures, conveniently never pointing the spotlight on herself. Introspection requires some self-awareness, something she apparently lacks completely. Her latest missive is to blame her running mate, after blaming Bush, after blaming the liberal media, after blaming everybody but herself, now claiming that "McCain's biggest mistake was hiding me."
Surely that is a typo, and what Palin really meant to say is, "McCain's biggest mistake was hiring me." I know she meant "hiring" instead of "hiding" because otherwise we would have to conclude that Palin is completely delusional about her abilities and about the election she just lost by wide margins.
If Sara the Moose Killer would take a quick look in the mirror, she would see that her winking, obnoxious visage is the face of a rigid, unthinking, uninformed, incompetent ideologue who has no place on the national scene. She has become like a wart that just keeps coming back. The election was the equivalent of freezing off the offending growth with liquid nitrogen. But she stubbornly pops back through the skin like the precancerous growth she is. We just suffered eight years of buffoonery as a result of unyielding faith in obstinate ignorance. We don't need the female version of George W. to take us further down the path of destruction. That Palin believes she is capable of being president of our country is proof of her gross incompetence and psychotic delusions.
After nothing but vitriolic diatribes against the liberal media, she now claims implausibly that if only she did more interviews with those same media, she would have won the election. Her revealing and disastrous performances with Katie Couric and Charlie Rose were, according to Palin, not embarrassing because she lacks ability, but only because she chose the wrong interviews. This is one extremely sick puppy.
For those of you who have already forgotten the nightmare called Sarah Palin, let us review a few basic facts about this walking political abomination.
Palin is a religious zealot. In her world, the idea that Church must be kept separate from State is merely a quaint relic of liberalism. Palin's extreme religious views do not reflect mainstream American thought, and undermine a fundamental tenet of our Constitution. The Governor made the following statement about our troops in Iraq at the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God church: "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan." This lays bare the idea that the war is a Christian Crusade. God supports her war against Islam. If that conclusion is still in doubt, consider that Palin's long-time religious leader, Pastor Kalnins, has openly preached that our invasion of Iraq is a war over the Christian faith. Conveniently, he happens to know that Jesus himself has called upon believers to sacrifice their lives for the war effort. He claims to speak directly to God.
In her latest interview, Palin said, "[My] reliance on God's direction in all that I do - that is good enough for me." In a debate during the 2006 gubernatorial election, Palin stated that religious leaders should be able to support a particular candidate from the pulpit, ignoring IRS statutes that prohibit political campaigning by any tax-exempt religious group. That is not terribly surprising coming from her. Her religious mentor, Pastor Kalnins, told followers they would go to hell if they supported Senator Kerry during the 2004 presidential election.
Palin denies a woman's right to choose. Palin wants the government, the same one she decries endlessly, to prevent a women from choosing her own reproductive destiny. Palin actually said she would oppose abortion even in the case of rape, even if the victim were her daughter. Even among abortion opponents, her views are extreme. In spite of quite obvious evidence that teaching abstinence does not work, particularly within her own family, Palin opposes sex education. Yet she slashed funding for programs that supported pregnant teens. Palin made women pay for rape kits in Wasilla. Palin's policies and actions are clearly, unambiguously driven by her religion, with wanton disregard for constitutional niceties like separation of Church and State.
Palin denies the reality of climate change. Palin believes she is smarter than 2500 climate experts from 166 countries who conclude unambiguously that climate change is real, and caused by human activity. She dismisses climate change as a left-wing conspiracy. She denies that the dramatic melting of arctic ice has anything to do with global warming caused by human activity. "The jury is still out," according to Palin.
Palin does not support renewable energy or energy independence. Palin's energy platform is to "drill baby drill" and "drill here and drill now." That includes drilling in ANWR. She believes we can drill our way out of the energy crisis, completely ignoring the conclusions of virtually every expert on the subject.
Palin is a danger to endangered species. Palin argued strenuously against listing polar bears, stating with no foundation other than her faith that the decision would be based on "unproven long-term impacts of any future climate change on the species." All biologists know that shrinking polar ice threatens the survival of polar bears, yet Palin dismisses the entire problem - both the shrinking ice itself and the cause of that shrinking. Palin, now a self-appointed environmental scientist, promoted initiatives to let citizens shoot wolves from airplanes and helicopters, and promoted weakening hunting laws in order to reduce bear populations. She did so in order to increase the moose and caribou herds to draw big-game hunters to the state.
Palin is corrupt. Special Investigator Stephen Branchflower concluded that Palin abused her power in trying to have her former brother-in-law Mike Wooten fired as a State Trooper. When Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan refused to fire Wooten, Palin fired Monegan. The report shows "a coordinated application of pressure on Monegan so transparent and ham-handed that it was almost certain to end in public embarrassment for the governor." Palin consistently denied any role in Wooten's firing, and the report proves that a lie. Her corruption is well-documented.
Palin is untruthful. How can we forget Palin's insistent and obnoxious claim that she "told Congress 'thanks but no thank' on that bridge to nowhere." The problem is that everything about that statement is absolutely false. The infamous bridge was planned for the city of Ketchikan, and officials there confirm that Palin supported the bridge during her run for governor. During that campaign, Mayor Bob Weinstein claims that Palin went as far as saying she was insulted by the term "bridge to nowhere" in the press.
Palin's support for the bridge cannot be disputed. In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News on October 22, 2006, a reporter asked Palin if she "would continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?" Her response was: "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."
The bridge created a tempest of protests because the span linked Ketchikan to sparsely populated Gravina Island, hardly in need of the bridge. In campaign rallies, Palin told Ketchikan residents that she felt their pain when other called the city "nowhere" ignoring the obvious reference to Gravina Island. When the $223 million earmark became public, the bridge became the poster child of pork barrel spending out of control. Finger to the wind, Palin eventually backed away from supporting the structure. She then lied about her support over and over and over again on the presidential campaign trail.
Palin lied about firing her government chef. As with the bridge to nowhere, Palin constantly repeated the story about her fiscal prudence in eliminating the position of chef for the governor. "...and you may have heard, we did lay off the governor's personal chef. Though I do admit with that one, my kids aren't starving, but they sure do miss her." As with that silly bridge, everything she said here is a lie. In fact, she did not fire the chef, who was simply reassigned to cook at the state legislature, largely because Palin spent so little time in the capital.
Palin lied about her membership in the Alaskan Independence Party, which advocates Alaska's succession from the Union. She joined knowing full well the Party's platform, not a big mystery given the name. This from a politician who's motto was "America First." The hypocrisy of that is beyond measure.
Palin is fiscally irresponsible. The town of Wasilla had a balanced budget when Palin became mayor; the town was burdened by a debt of $22 million when she left office. Much of the debt comes from Palin's support for a $15 million multi-use sports complex. Sadly, she built on a plot of land to which the city did not have clear title, giving lawyers more than seven years of income through continuing litigation. Palin did not spend any funds to install a badly-needed sewage treatment plant. Nevertheless, government spending increased more than 33% during her six year tenure. Much of that was funded through an increase in sales tax. This philosophy of spending and borrowing followed Palin to the governor's mansion, or more accurately, to her house for which she submitted per diem reimbursements. Alaska ranks as number one among the 50 states in taxes per resident. That dubious distinction means that each resident suffers under a tax burden that is nearly 2.5 times that of the national average.
Palin supports the politics of hate and division. At campaign rallies across the country, Palin never reprimanded members of her audience who were advocating violence against Obama. That is complicit endorsement of those disgusting sentiments. Palin also claims there is a "real America" and areas that are "pro-America" and that her opponents are un-American, unpatriotic and do not love this country.
This list of outrages is just the tip of the iceberg. Of course if Palin ever came to power, there would be no more icebergs. Palin has soiled our public discourse, debased the political process, degraded us before the world, and insulted the intelligence of the American electorate. Our worst enemies could not have wished upon us a more dangerous agent of devastation and destruction.
McCain's biggest mistake was to cause America's deep suffering by bringing Palin onto the national stage. No person to run for office has ever been so grossly under-qualified. She makes Dan Quayle look like Thomas Jefferson. For her own sake, and for the sake of the country, Palin needs to go back to Alaska and stay there. We rejected her, her politics of hate and her embrace of ignorance. She lost. We don't care who she blames for her failures, because we know only she is responsible, no matter how delusional she may be in denying that basic truth.
Let us never forget her extensive list of failures, lies, and abundant examples of colossal ineptitude and ignorance if Palin ever tries to resurrect her pathetic attempt to go national. She must be stopped using every legal measure at our disposal. She absolutely must never be allowed to hold public office beyond the borders of her state.