I know facts aren't going to matter to many people buying Sarah Palin's, Going Rogue. Facts certainly didn't matter to folks who voted for her.
According to the "fact checkers":
PALIN: Welcomes last year's Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation's largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she'd had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court's ruling went "in favor of the people." Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.
THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs' lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was "extremely disappointed." She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. "It's tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision," she said, noting many had died "while waiting for justice."
When Sarah Palin was asked by Katie Couric what Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v. Wade she disagreed with, she couldn't think of one. NOT ONE! Sarah squandered an opportunity, the perfect chance to tell America our story, an Alaskan story: dozens of suicides, thousands sick from clean up, tens of thousands bankrupt from a dead fishery.
Sarah Palin is to Alaska what Velveeta is to cheese; sadly unsatisfying and empty of nutrition. She had the national stage to plead Alaska's case to citizens who had long forgotten the images of a once pristine Prince William Sound turned into a thick, black, rolling sea; the oiled sea otters and birds; unrecognizable seals and whales; an initially deformed and diseased herring run that became extinct -- costing Cordova $100 million a year. Exxon exploited Alaska and turned pain into profit.
AND NOW, Palin is claiming to be part of a victory for the people of Alaska? Reality Deficit Disorder...now in book form.
The Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker Supreme Court decision in June 2008 all but pardoned Exxon's negligence. The highest court in the land condoned the half-assed cleanup. (My radio interview on the day of the ruling with Greg Palast). Exxon, the company that set and broke Planet Earth's quarterly profit record three quarters in a row, was let off the hook. Because of this unprecedented landmark decision, future corporate punitive damages are now forever minimally capped at literally pennies on the dollar!
The Roberts Court based its activist ruling on 19th century maritime law. Really! 21st century corporations can now view punitive damages as the small cost of doing business. Due to Exxon's negligence and the corporate sympathy of the Supreme Court, one the largest acts of environmental terrorism in history was treated like an accidental littering. The RATS -- Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia, (Alito recused himself, confident that Souter and Kennedy would fill the business-friendly void) winked at their corporate masters as the Judas Court betrayed Justice.
Exxon doesn't have marked offices in Alaska. There are some pretty hard feelings even 20 years later for some pretty good reasons. When Palin was pointing fingers at Letterman in July of this year, she did it from Houston, Texas. She was there to sign a deal with Exxon on behalf of Alaska. The state's willingness to do business with Exxon was like having your parents rent the basement to the guy who date raped you on prom night. Am I clear?
So Sarah was against the decision before she couldn't remember it before she was for it. And now, courtesy of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin manages to insult and injure Alaskans who will never be made whole with yet another one of her documented lies.
The jury originally punished Exxon with $5 billion in punitive damages -- a year's profit at the time. In 2008, nearly 20 years later, Exxon reported the largest annual profit in US history at $45.22 billion. The company shattered its own record set the previous year. Would the original $5 billion in punitive damages been punishment enough? The answer is now slowly dripping onto victims at 10 cents on the dollar. Opening your mailbox to an Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Settlement check is like getting a royalty payment for the snuff film your kid brother was in. Hey, you're getting paid, but he's still dead and you got to watch.
(above) Then Governor Palin's appropriate reaction to the Exxon v. Baker decision June, 2008
Candidate Palin's stunning memory lapse of Exxon v. Baker just 3 months later...
Look for Going Rogue in the revisionist history section of your local bookstore on Tuesday...