George Bush In a Dress

Palin seems to represent more of the same – more corruption, more secrecy, more lies and more stonewalling. Almost everything she has claimed to be since her nomination has been proven to be a flat-out lie. McCain seems to think that people will be so excited about electing a woman to the White House, that we'll all just simply overlook her scandals, lies, lack of experience, poor judgment and everything else that should seem to scream to the American people, "Don't elect this woman! There's a 33% chance* she could actually be President!" (*according to actuarial tables for McCain's age, medical history)

Palin is receiving more scrutiny than probably any other Vice Presidential candidate in our recent history. However, that's not because of a biased media, sexism or any other weak reasoning (whining, really) that's been offered by their campaign. The simple fact is that she's more likely to actually become President than any other Vice Presidential candidate in our nation's history. John McCain recently celebrated his 72^nd birthday, which makes him the oldest man to ever run for (first term) President of the United States. He has a history of cancer (melanoma, though nearly eight years with no recurrence now). Given information that came out later, we now know that Reagan was losing his mental faculties toward the end of his Presidency, so we also have to consider neurological disorders that can come with age, such as dementia and Alzheimer's, in addition to the purely physical ailments and likelihood of death. Knowing Sara Palin as well as both of the Presidential candidates is crucial, as we're voting for (or against) her as much as we are for John McCain.

Back to my original point, Sarah Palin seems to be George W. Bush in a dress. Listen very closely to the things she says. Yes, they're all very vague, so it's hard to look for substance, but examine the tone and the rhetoric - the unjustified and clueless confidence, the repeating of lies over an over again after they've already been repeatedly proven false (hoping that repetition will lead us to accept them as truth), the dredging up of cultural/social issues that no one really thinks about until every four years when a conservative politician decides to bring them up to trick voters into voting for them, despite the fact that all of their policies actually adversely affect these same voters. And of course, another biggie, the topic of the Talking Points Memo article I provide for you below, the promising to cooperate with any and all investigations into her abuse of power scandal, only then to turn around and stonewall it at every turn. Does this song and dance sound familiar? Bush/Rovian politics has arrived in Alaska…

4 more years??? Say no on November 4^th.

-Ryan

Palin Under Fire At Home For Trooper-Gate Stonewalling

By Zachary Roth - September 19, 2008, 5:08PM

Over the last eight years, the Bush administration's approach to governing has been characterized by a reflexive penchant for secrecy, a willingness to stonewall legitimate investigations, and an aggressive media relations strategy, which sees the press as just another interest group, rather than as playing an important public function.

In recent days, the McCain-Palin campaign has doubled down on that same governing style in shutting down the Trooper-Gate investigation.

When Trooper-Gate first broke, Palin pledged full cooperation. But in the last week, the McCain-Palin campaign has brought in a high-powered ex-federal prosecutor and a team of communications experts to all but shut down the probe.

Essentially co-opting the office of state Attorney General, and working closely with Palin's own lawyer, the GOP operatives -- led by Ed O'Callaghan, a former terrorism prosecutor with the US Attorney's office in New York, and Megan Stapleton, a GOP operative who had worked on Palin's 2006 campaign for governor -- have ensured that many of the key witnesses subpoened in the case, including the Palins themselves, have refused to testify. (No witnesses showed up to a committee hearing today.) At daily press conferences, they've disparaged a respected former public employee, Walt Monegan, offering an entirely new line on why Palin fired him. They've made flatly false statements designed to paint the Democratic legislator overseeing the probe, Hollis French, as having overstepped his authority and as running a partisan witch-hunt. And they've aggressively challenged reporting that they've perceived as unfavorable -- in one case, as we reported yesterday, by phoning a reporter at home to complain about an accurate story.

There's little question that despite -- or perhaps because of -- these efforts, the tone of the Trooper-Gate coverage has grown noticeably more negative in the last few days. And Alaska-based commentators and bloggers have reacted with fury in recent days to the McCain-Palin camp's tactics.

In an unusually pointed editorial published yesterday, the state's most prominent newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News concluded: "Palin and McCain are trying to ignite a partisan firestorm that wipes out the Troopergate investigation until after the election."

And in an opinion piece published Tuesday in the same paper, conservative radio host Dan Fagan -- a frequent Palin critic -- referred to Palin's "transparent delay tactics," and argued that "Americans deserve to know what Palin is trying to hide before we vote her a heartbeat away from the leader of the free world."

Bloggers have been even more critical. One at Alaska Report, a liberal site that has tracked corruption in Alaska state government, wrote yesterday: "National political assassins have invaded Alaska. They were visible and in full force at the McCain-Palin press conference yesterday. Alaskans don't roll that way."

And another at Mudflats -- tagline: "Tiptoeing through the muck of Alaskan politics" -- added: "The damage that this stonewalling has had on Sarah Palin's 'image,' that the out-of-state lawyers and the McCain campaign were trying so fervently to craft, has yet to be measured."

There may be signs that the angry reaction to the GOP tactics has spread beyond opinion writers. Matt Zensey, the ADN's editorial page editor, told TPMmuckraker that letters to the editor had been running at somewhere between 60 and 66 percent anti-Palin in recent days.

"We are not alone among those who are taken aback" by Palin's abrupt transformation from a being an advocate of openness and accountability to stone-walling the investigation at every turn, said Zensey. "People are noticing the disconnect."

Zensey said that the take-no-prisoners tactics of the McCain-Palin PR team are not in keeping with Alaska's tradition of civil political discourse. "The 11-minute tirade that Megan Stapleton launched against Walt Monegan is something that was unfamiliar to a lot of Alaskans."

Zensey added: "The politics of personal destruction have come to Alaska."

Still, what ultimately matters is whether the dissatisfaction with Palin's about-face on Trooper-Gate filters into the broader narrative of the presidential campaign. Already, though, Democrats may being taking comfort in the fact that, in recent days, her national approval ratings appear to have slipped noticeably.