Palin: Just Like Bush, She Believes She’s Above the Law
Wow, that didn’t take long. As McCain is hiring for her the same agent who ruthlessly smeared McCain in 2000, Palin uses Alaskan taxpayer money to hire a slick lawyer to defend her in the Troopergate scandal, and that lawyer is now using every Bush tactic in the book. First, she won’t testify, using the bogus “executive privilege” dodge–the Bush’s “screw the law, I’m not talking” tactic. Second, her lawyer wants the investigation handed over to a state review board–which is run by three appointees hand-picked by Palin herself–the Bush “we’re in charge of investigating ourselves, and we won’t” tactic.
In short, she’s trying to tell the American people, as well as the people of Alaska, that she’s better than they are–she’s above the law and doesn’t have to answer for her actions.
Meanwhile, the avalanche of scandals, lies, and generally sordid details around Palin continues. How about this one: just two weeks ago, Palin was in church listening to her pastor announce that Jews suffer terror attacks as part of god’s justice for not being Christians. Those silly Jews, they apparently don’t know that Jesus was Jewish! According to Palin’s pastor, anyway. Of course, the media isn’t reporting on this, probably because there’s no way they can verify it, I guess. Check out audio and transcripts of Palin’s church’s sermons here.
Also, it appears that Palin herself spoke at the church, calling the war in Iraq a “task that is from god,” and that in addition to Iraq being a holy war, the Alaskan pipeline is just as holy. But we all knew that.
And oh yeah, in my last post I mentioned that the McCain people who were insisting that they thoroughly vetted Palin relied on claiming to have used methods that cannot be checked out, like online searches–indicating that they were making it up. And indeed, they seem to have been doing just that. One of the methods they claimed to have used was an FBI background check. What they didn’t figure on was the FBI denying they did any such background check. Oops.
Do you think that the McCain people are keeping Palin locked up so no one asks her how well abstinence education works? Nah, that’d be too easy for Palin to take and make herself seem like a victim. Maybe they’re worried that they’ll pull a Campbell Brown and ask her to give an actual example of an executive accomplishment that isn’t embarrassingly trivial. Or perhaps they’re concerned that she’ll just say anything at all–let’s face it, not an hour goes by without some new, excruciatingly tawdry revelation about Palin coming to light (which reminds me, did you know that the ass-kicking redneck hockey-playing high schooler who knocked up Palin’s underage daughter is actually going to attend the Republican convention?) and they don’t want her to become unhinged on national teevee. Or, most likely, they’re just too busy attempting to encase Palin in a block of impenetrable plastic before anyone with an uncontrolled mic can get close to her.
Meanwhile: Obama’s Revenge. In return for McCain walking all over Obama’s speech to the nation by announcing Palin’s nomination just hours later, Obama has taken a rather daring risk himself–he has agreed to appear on O’Reilly’s show on Fox opposite McCain giving his speech. Though frankly, I’m having trouble believing this is not a hoax of some sort. While I believe Obama could argue O’Reilly into a smoking pile of cinders, I don’t trust O’Reilly to do something incredibly stupid. Which could have benefits for Obama just as easily. But then, the volatility itself is probably good for very high ratings, which could draw more people away from McCain and maybe even win some respect for Obama from conservatives.
Still, that’s just weird.
Update: Like I said, not an hour goes by. Now it appears that she fired the Wasilla police chief because (a) he made bars close at 2 am instead of 5 am so as to reduce drunk driving, and (b) the NRA didn’t like his stance on concealed weapons laws. This in addition to Palin trying to fire the city librarian after she refused to censor books Palin didn’t like.
I’ll see if I can stay up another hour and catch the next story about Palin.
levi and bristol do make a hot couple though…
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/09/03/us/mccain_600.111.jpg
I find all of this immensely troubling.
First because her only qualifications are that she has a vagina, she’s reasonably attractive, and she’s an ideological far-right-wing-nut. I would wager that 70% of Americans would be better than her. I probably know more geography, history and law in my pinky finger than she does in her whole body. But that’s okay because she’s a wing-nut. Ideology is a substitute for thinking, intellegence and a whole lot of other qualifications.
The second reason, is because the Republican party continues to put forth candidates for important positions that are wholey unfit for their jobs. Be it Harriet Miers or George Bush or Bolton, or Gooden, or Gonzales, etc… This is something the Nazis/Hitler used to do. You promote someone way above their competance level. Why? Because that creates a loyalty dependency – Gooden was so over her head, and so incompetant that the only way she could keep her job if she toes the party line.
The third reason is, despite the first two reasons, the Republicans no how to win elections despite having a massively inferior product that is ruining the nation. They don’t govern well.
This is a result of what I call the flat domino theory. Civilization is based upon structures. Structures are inherently unstable, thus we have the field of engineering to compensate. Structures are made, in effect, from standing dominos up and stacking them in ever more complex arrangements. But a flat domino can always knock over a standing domino. So it is true with ideas. Advanced civilizations are based upon advanced and complicated ideas. But flat dominos can still knock them down.
That’s how the Republican’s win elections. The take a flat domino, or a sledge hammer, to sophisticated ideas and knock them over into dust. This is why the U.S. is increasingly and rapidly falling behind internationally in nearly every field. Instead of pursuing advanced science, where introducing theology as science into the class room. This is surely an early sign of a society moving into decay, and a self impossed dark age.
Once upon a time, for a very short period in history Islamic society was the fountain of learning. In fact, Islam for its first 200-300 years, was much like the United States for its first 200-300 years. Every dynamic, every expanding and a model for emulation by it’s neighbors.
What happened to Islam? It got hit by flat dominos. Now it is hopelessly mired under the weight of fundementalism.
Apparently all the Republicans think they are, or should be above the law. I think it is past time to prosecute them all to the limit of the law.