Palin on Pork and RNC reaction

Since becoming the GOP's nominee for VP, she's said repeatedly that she's an enemy of earmark spending, echoing McCan't all the way. Except now this surfaces:



Go ahead -- click on it and expand it. If you can't read the scribble to the side, it reads: "Council - FYI, State funds we are now going to receive: This does not include our $ nearly One Million Dollars from the Feds for our Airport Paving Project. We did well!!!"

But wait, there's more... this from today's Los Angeles Times (via the Chicago Tribune):

For much of his long career in Washington, John McCain has been throwing darts at the special spending system known as earmarking, through which powerful members of Congress can deliver federal cash for pet projects back home with little or no public scrutiny. He's even gone so far as to publish "pork lists" detailing these financial favors.

Three times in recent years, McCain's catalogs of "objectionable" spending have included earmarks for this small Alaska town, requested by its mayor at the time -- Sarah Palin.

And now McCan't touts his new running mate as a reformer, just like him.

This is almost too easy; Palin has a clear record that contradicts nearly every position she now claims to hold (even some of that God stuff like that Jews for Jesus sermon). She even claims that her family is off-limits, but if you watched the speech (I depended on bloggers for play-by-play commentary) there was shot after shot of her kids with the baby being passed around, apparently including to his new auntie, Cindy McCan't). Then, Todd Palin, the strapping snowmobile riding champion (how's that for an environmentalist? A "sport" that causes damage to terrain, contributes to significant noise pollution, and burns fossil fuels?) comes out after the speech, carrying the new GOP prop named Trig. Off-limits, huh? It's dumbfounding how little respect the Republican party has for the intelligence of American voters.

Still, I come back to my earlier point when I wrote that Palin's ascension to the VP slot might be the final step converting the Republican Party to the party of theocracy that has been the aim of the Christianists since long before W was installed as President (think Moral Majority). Imagine Iran's Supreme Council of Muslim clerics, and you can imagine what an American theocracy would look like, especially with book-banning Sarah Palin in the driver's seat. (That's right, I went there and took her out of the shotgun seat -- except for that upcoming wedding for her pregnant daughter).

Having read the text of her speech (not gonna link to it), I can say that it was deliberately short of issues, since the Republicans don't want to feed her to the Democrat wolves (ah, who are they kidding? We're feasting on that bimbette already!). It was, however, full of lies and half-truths and sarcasm and mockery of the first African American presidential nominee in US history. Instead of celebrating an America that can produce that, you get Giuliani saying, in a mocking tone, "Only in America" could Obama become the nominee. In fact, Rudy's speech was, to borrow from the late Molly Ivins, much better in the original German.

Polarization, thy name is McCan't, and thy wife's name is Palin (and thy excrement is Giuliani).

Finally, this from Joe Klein:

The more I think about it, Palin's was an authentic, sarcastic, white working-class voice--absent the economic pain at large in the country, the fact that median families have lost $2000 in disposable income during the Bush presidency. The Democrats are betting that the pain will trump the sarcasm this year; the media reaction you're seeing, including my own, comes from the knowledge that sarcasm has trumped pain so often in recent history. The question remains the one Obama raised last week: will this be a big election or a small one?

Actually, Joe, Obama talked about the Republicans making big elections about small things. He never would have suggested that this become a small election. It is the biggest, most important election since 1968.