Nothing Political, Just Personal

In law, in business, in politics, in many professional callings, the adversaries in a particular case may act as if they are bitter personal enemies during the proceedings and then go out for coffee together. Business is business, separate from personal feelings. For Sarah Palin, politics is personal.

Sarah was involved in Wasilla (a town in Alaska, not a reindeer infection) city council politics in the 1990s. She became mayor of the town in 1996. During this time, she had help from local politicians. Being super ambitious, she made friends, jealousies and did not hesitate to “cut [former supporters] off at the knees” if they weren’t in her camp. The Gadfly Revelry & Research gang ( Grr), in their investigations, found that Barracuda Sarah got to be mayor of Wasilla via a dirty campaign against John Stein,who had held that office for the previous nine years. John had originally recruited Sarah four years before to run for city council. But, four years later, she moved beyond John’s schedule. It was time for Sarah to be mayor — just ask her. One of Sarah’s first acts was to rescind a 1994 directive that banned guns from City Hall and other such public buildings. How else to protect yourself against Council members? Sarah’s “unitary executive” riled a city council member, Nick Carney, another early supporter of Palin. He introduced an ordinance to ban guns from liquor stores, bars, playgrounds and government buildings. Carney, an obvious Communist, had to be opposed by any means possible. When the ordinance came before the city council, she arranged to have the chamber packed with loud gun lobby people brought in from the outside. Only one citizen of Wasilla was in the gallery. Carney’s proposal lost, and he earned a place on her enemies list. When Dick Deuser, ten years the city attorney, stopped Sarah from filling two vacant council seats without a council vote, it was clearly time for Deuser to find another line of work — maybe Constitutional law. Of city law, Sarah said, “it’s not rocket science.”

An examination of Sarah Palin’s relationship with Lynda Green, the president of the Alaska state senate, is worth many pages of personality analysis in finding out what Sarah is all about. Lynda is Republican and conservative both socially and fiscally, but they are no longer buddies. Lynda says that, as governor, Sarah looks down her nose at leaders of the legislature and refuses to consult with them. Any difference of opinion on policy (Sarah’s policy) becomes very personal, anger and all. Green, a 69 year old veteran politician, decided to stay neutral in the governor’s race in 2006, and Sarah took umbrage. Lynda considered it spoiled brat behavior. Sarah never learned to be a professional. She is neither well experienced nor well educated. Her interview with Katie Couric showed she would not even make a good talk show host. At one point Couric became exasperated at Palin’s repeated obfuscation and non-answers. She said “I’m just going to ask you one more time for specific examples of his [McCain’s] pushing for more regulation.” Sarah’s shameful response was “I’ll try to find you some and bring them to you.” Just imagine an interview on “Meet The Press” or “Face The Nation,” not to mention a confrontation with Dmetri Medvedev or his ventriloquist Vladimir Putin.

Another clue into Sarah’s nature is her belief in personal power and entitlement. As mayor of Wasilla, she was a champion of action, whether legal or not. She was quoted to the effect of “I’m the mayor and I can do anything I want until the courts tell me I can’t do it anymore.” When she got to be governor, she and her husband pressured the public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper who just happened to be her former brother-in-law who had gone through a difficult divorce with her sister. But, by now everyone has heard about troopergate. Add to that her billing the state for per diem travel while she was actually at home and the billing for her children on official trips to events that never invited said kids. During The recent debate, she opined she would like to stretch the limits of the office of the vice president beyond the dreams of Spiro Agnew and Dick Cheney. She really wants to be president of the US. In one Freudian Slip,
she actually talked of a “Palin-McCain presidency.”

Sarah has all these skeletons, and no redeeming features, except maybe her perkiness. She has no experience in foreign policy & no knowledge of economics outside of taxing the oil produced in Alaska; she doesn’t write her own speeches (like McCain doesn't “author” his own books); she holds extreme positions on social issues; and it’s a wonder why McCain chose her as a running mate. The reason for her selection is now plain and simple: McCain has a lifelong gambling addiction. In a front page NY Times article an investigative reporter caught McCain at Foxwoods, a favorite Indian casino in Connecticu. His favorite is the craps table; but the political scene offers plenty of supplemental gaming, witness the selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate. He only met her once or twice, and she hasn’t been fully vetted. Sarah has a bachelor of arts in journalism ( not accredited) from the University of Idaho after attending bits and pieces of five
colleges. That’s the extent of her education — no law degree, no masters, not even a course in dog sledding.

But McCain needed headlines, and he was willing to gamble. It turned sour after the Couric interview. So he doubled down, had his staff prepare her for a vice presidential interview with talking point cards and then suspended his campaign to address the economic melt down by suggesting that capital gains taxes be eliminated and no small businesses be taxed. Does he count General Motors as a small business? He would bet that the trickle down effect would take care of the more than 10 trillion dollar national debt and all the failing investment banking houses. The last person we need in the White House in a hostile world is a gambler. Oh, did I forget to mention that McCain has been a long time member and twice chair of the Indian Affairs Committee which says what Indian casinos can and cannot do. Corruption? Oh, we know a Senator would never do that.

John and Sarah

John McCain’s judgment, going back to his days at Annapolis, has been unpredictable. It was his trademark through school and in active service. The genetic codes of his father and grandfather admirals are formidable forces. John’s only consistency was his warrior mentality -- war here, war there, war anywhere. McCain’s goal was historical -- he would set the record for the longest war of all time, 101 years, even if he only began it.

His studied judgment comes into question with the selection of Sarah Palin as running mate. He had met her only twice and she was inexperienced in foreign policy, domestic affairs and educational background. Why, she occasionally brought a child to work with her, demonstrating, at least to an older generation, that she was not a real professional. But she represented youth and femaleness on the ticket.

Against a Democratic campaign led by Barack Obama and Joe Biden -- youth and experience, strength in domestic and foreign policy, and accuracy from the 3-point line — McCain needed a running mate to make headlines. Sarah is a governor (despite her less than two years on office), female & good-looking, mother of five very different children, hunter and fisher, and rather opinionated because God agrees with her. Her acceptance speech had been written for her, and she read it off a teleprompter. Her Katie Couric interviewthereafter, without teleprompter, was a disaster. Fearing a repeat of that interview in the debate against Joe Biden, the McCain handlers gave her a batch of cards with talking points to select from for each question. For one question during the debate, she had no relevant cards, so she simply said she would not answer the question but talk directly to the American people [about oil & gas in Alaska].

On most matters, Sarah is totally out of touch. She is in conflict with a) the Democrats, b) McCain at many times in his Senatorial career, and c) Republicans outside the neo-con political-social persuasion. You can blame it on Sarah Palin, and she can blame it on Alaska's youth in the Union. Alaska is a young state and they make up their tradition as they go along. Ernest Gruening, Alaska’s first Senator, voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. Ted Stevens, a Senator since 1968, has a strictly opportunist record in matters of war or peace. He is more interested in cronyism, gifts, and personal favors. He is presently under indictment for same. Stare decisis hasn’t had enough time to become tradition in Alaska. Roe v. Wade, only 25 years the law of the land, may get there in the 21st century.

As an example of Sarah’s personal politics, she would ban abortions for any reason except to save a woman’s life. Rape and incest are insufficient excuses. Bristol Palin (age 17) has/had every choice. Her mother, Sarah, would have childbirth as the only option for everyone else. She says it is her personal view, and that of the states. So young women don't have to make the abortion or not choice, she offers abstinence-only sex education (no-sex education, that is).

Sarah Palin has a solid history of poking her powdered nose into local community affairs, not to mention those of the boudoir. She would have the public schools teach creationism alongside evolution — theory v. theory. The former has it that dinosaurs coexisted with homo sapiens and the passenger pigeon, as taught in the literal Bible. Once you get past a couple of thousand years, either your attention span dissolves or all the ancient cultures are alike. All the species ever are crowded into six or seven thousand years. It’s too much for anyone, even archeologists.

Immediately before becoming Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin was
mayor of Wasilla, a town of less than 10,000. One of Sarah’s first acts as Mayor, was to visit the library and set up a banned book file. The librarian pointed out that the freedom of speech and freedom of the press is guaranteed in the First Amendment. But Sarah is not a Constitutional scholar (except for the Second Amendment which allows for bearing arms as part of a well-regulated militia). The librarian was fired, of course. Next on her agends as mayor (she of the anti-pork recency) was government funding of local projects., That would be proof of politricianship. So, as mayor, she hired a lobbyist to gain access to Senator Ted Stevens to get some federal aid for suburban Wasilla. In return she supported the Bridge to Nowhere.

She also is proud of her advocacy for drilling for oil & gas in the breeding grounds of the Arctic National Wildlife Preserve (the last 5% of the north coast of Alaska). But, we know the Governor of Alaska has responsibilities, and China and Japan need energy to compete with the US.

In Sarah Palin, we have the raw future. We have gone beyond the present, and circled around to robber baron days. Today, Sarah is out of step on Roe v Wade, global heating, the theory of the double helix, the sportsmanship of hunting wolves from planes, and the need for polar bears to exist outside of a zoo or a rug on the floor. Real sportsmen are asking whether Sarah ever entered the Iditarod. with real dog teams, not snowmobiles. Further, I wonder what she thinks of the 19th Amendment.

Sarah barely has a bachelors degree, but on the job training requires only gut feelings and enough people to repeat the lies that built the house that George W swaggers around in. Maybe she could take courses in history from Howard Zinn and read Rachel Carson’s classic, Silent Spring. Some basic economics from James Galbraith (son of John Kenneth Galbraith) wouldn’t hurt either. She certainly wouldn’t learn anything about economics from John McCain, who alternates between mantras of drill, drill, drill and bomb, bomb, bomb. The essential philosophies of war and peace could come in a situation room private showing the the Marx Brothers classic anti war film “Duck Soup” followed by a discussion of metaphor.