The hunt for Sarah in Alaska
Bookworm on Sep 05 2008 at 7:53 am | Filed under: Sarah Palin
Mataharley (great name), who posts at Flopping Aces, has pulled together the procedural details of the challenges Palin faces with regard to her ex-brother-in-law, the hard drinking, hard tasering, hard threatening, hard illegal hunting Wooten.
It’s a remarkably interesting post in that it is less concerned with the substantive details of the whole Wooten thing, and more concerned with the procedural manoeuvrings going on way up north. It looks very much as if Palin’s political enemies — and her bipartisan attacks on corruption have left her with many on the both the Left and the Right — are banding together to use process to create an October surprise.
In other words, the post isn’t about the he saids/she saids of the fight. Instead, it spells out the ways in which Wooten’s backers (aka Palin’s political enemies) are manipulating the system to time the investigation so that it has the maximum negative effect on a national election.
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18 Responses to “The hunt for Sarah in Alaska”
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Reminds me a lot of the Whitewater investigation and the Paula Jones lawsuit (bought by the conservative Scaife family), all of which were abruptly dropped when it no longer served GOP political ends (i.e., the embarrassment and paralysis of the Clinton administration). It’s justified when on one foot and unjustified when on the other. I love the hypocrisy of policiticians and ideologues.
Friday Links…
Flopping Aces: Trooper’gate: Different charges, new battlefield, and the planned October surprise
Bookworm Room: The Hunt for Sarah in Alaska
Beldar Blog: Palin seeks truth from state agency with jurisdiction, refuses to cooperate with political hatc…
Forgive me Book.
dg, you are a lying ass. I will no longer read or respond to you after this post. To do so would simply be a waste of my time.
As much as I distrust Wiki, here you go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Jones
You are so misinformed that it is not inconceivable that you are just lying.
Inform yourself!
Well, dg, you say:
“Reminds me a lot of the Whitewater investigation and the Paula Jones lawsuit”
But, just as with Obama in his acceptance speech, you never QUITE draw to a conclusion that blames both sides. (Did you notice that in his acceptance speech, by the way?)
So, dg, you end with: “It’s justified when on one foot and unjustified when on the other. I love the hypocrisy of policiticians and ideologues.”
I am prepared to say that Bill Clinton lied under oath about an extramarital affair, and such a thing does NOT, and I mean does not ever, justify the impeachment of a President of the United States. Not over an extramarital affair. The Republicans were wrong. The Democrats will be wrong over this “October surprise” of theirs.
So, dg, I challenge you. SAY IT. Spell it. Tell us: “The Democrats will be wrong over this October surprise of theirs”, this nasty manipulation of the process to tar and feather, with unjustifiable excess, a political opponent. Can you say it? Can you?
Dg, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so vociferous, but please understand, I watched both Obama’s and McCain’s acceptance speeches for the first time tonight and then within minutes checked into Book’s site. So my lather was (and is) up.
Obama claims to be for non-partisan reform. Yet despite a few toss-aside comments, he never mentioned Democrat failings. You’ll note that McCain certainly did - and the crowd at his convention wasn’t exactly happy about it.
I kept re-listening to Obama’s phrasings, and I kept foundering. It was very diplomatic and lawyerly, meaning, there was loads and loads of wiggle room whenever I was hoping to figure out exactly what he was saying.
One particular example that struck me was this one. It’s lengthy and I apologize for that, but here it is, from at about the 38:00 minute mark:
I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer, and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values.
And that’s to be expected, because if you don’t have any fresh ideas,
then you use stale tactics to scare voters.
If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone
people should run from. You make a big election about small things.
And you know what? It’s worked before, because it feeds into the cynicism
we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises
seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to
stop hoping and settle for what you already know.
I get it.
- If you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.
- If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.
This is precisely what both sides have been doing to each other. And yet by context Obama makes it clear that he is castigating solely the conservatives. Over and over he does this. If on occasion he had said anything like: “Now, listen to me, this is important. Republicans and Democrats have been engaged in these tactics of destruction. I’m running because I want to end the partisan divide. (etc,etc).” But he did not.
And that’s why I was so clued into the fact that you did not, at least yet, explicitly say that you truly do regard this attack from within the progressive Alaskan community as scurrilous. I just watched the Democrat candidate for the presidency wiggle his way around actually blaming both sides. I truly am intensely interested in whether you will explicitly be able to define what they are trying to do as scurrilous. The caveat applies of course: that there is no substantive heft to their argument; that it is merely a tar and feather show that will be designed to explode in late October. That is why I so strongly asked, “Can you?”
Mike, of course I’ll say it. Even if it turned out that Twig is Palin’s grandkid, I would not really care. I’d think her a pretty bad mother for allowing her daughter to get pregnant twice as a minor, and I’d take her abstinence-only sex-ed policies to task even more harshly than I do now. But I wouldn’t think that it should disqualify her from becoming Vice President or McCain President. I have enough by way of policy disagreements to not have to reach into the private lives of candidates, but I fear that the Evangelicals or conservatives will not be as understanding as I will be…
I don’t know whether you saw the ABC interview of Alaska State Senator Hollis French (D). He is the one in charge of the troopergate investigation. The investigation is in its opening phases. In the ABC interview, he questioned the Governor’s veracity and stated that he expected that the findings would implicate the governor.
It turns out that French is listed on the Obama website as a supporter. It is as unethical an act on the part of French and ABC as I can recall seeing.
dg
Reminds me a lot of the Whitewater investigation and the Paula Jones lawsuit (bought by the conservative Scaife family), all of which were abruptly dropped when it no longer served GOP political ends (i.e., the embarrassment and paralysis of the Clinton administration). It’s justified when on one foot and unjustified when on the other. I love the hypocrisy of policiticians and ideologues.
So your way of combating the hypocrisy of politicians and “ideologues” is to defend the politicians and ideologues of the Left, exclusively. Interesting.
I’d think her a pretty bad mother for allowing her daughter to get pregnant twice as a minor, and I’d take her abstinence-only sex-ed policies to task even more harshly than I do now. But I wouldn’t think that it should disqualify her from becoming Vice President or McCain President.
You are already prejudiced against her on this score, absent the facts and independent corroboration.
While it’s nice that you want to remove that bias and prejudice from the consideration of Palin as VP, it continues to be a source of prejudice and bias on your part, personally, which influences your views in ways that neither you nor I can comprehend fully.
Y, any mother of a 17 year pregnant girl is prima facie partly responsible for that unfortunate outcome. This is not about politics, but common sense and a recognition that parents who are actively engaged in their kids’ lives greatly reduce the likelihood that their kids engage in such risky behaviors as drugs or premarital sex. This is not a prejudice against her but a judgment, based upon statistics, against all parents of kids who end up in these bad situations.
Also, I attack the left on their blogs and the right on their blogs, thus encouraging everyone to think outside the box a little more than they normally would. Some respond positively to this, while others do not. It’s your choice.
>>This is not a prejudice against her but a judgment, based upon statistics, against all parents of kids who end up in these bad situations.>>
So you’re in favor of tightening up the restrictions on divorces for couples who have children? Or are you saying that the state should support single parents who have children so that they don’t have to work?
DG - do you have children?
Danny, I do have children and say what I do as a parent as well as one who knows a lot of other parents. My wife teaches school (although she used to be a doctor) and can with great accuracy determine within 5 minutes how her students will do in the class based upon the parents she observes during the school orientation at the start of the year. The dirty little secret is that parents have a much bigger impact on their children than the schools or friends that also come into contact with them. Children, it is widely believed, turn to reckless behavior because they do not receive enough love or attention from their parents. If my children resort to this type of behavior, I will blame myself above all else.
SueK, I am not in favor of anything you are proposing in your last post. And those are not the only logical conclusions to draw from mine. My comment goes as far as it does but no further, and I think it speaks for itself.
From the lefty land of SF–Bookworm’s neck of the woods, I believe–comes an interesting article on Palin’s flip flop on the bridge-to-nowhere:
Contradiction Watch: Palin’s Neverending Fib to Nowhere
The San Francisco Chronicle
GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin is a newcomer, but she’s using the oldest political tactic ever: If you repeat an inaccurate statement enough times, it becomes fact — at least in the ears of folks who barely pay attention to politics. As GOP consultant Mike Murphy would say, this is all so “cynical”.
In its quest to transform someone with only 21 months of governing something more populous than the Cow Palace into the next Teddy Roosevelt, the McCain campaign repeats this error about Palin in a TV ad it dropped Monday: “She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.”
It’s not “stopping it” when it was virtually dead by the time she had a chance to kill it. Congress decided to pull funding for the bridge TWO YEARS before Palin’s decision. “It wasn’t really a bold move when she did it,” said Lois Epstein, who opposed the bridge as a memember of the Alaska Transportation Priorities Project.
Besides, she totally flip-flopped on the project, supporting it before she opposed it. In October 2006, Palin responded to a written questionnaire from the Anchorage Daily News. One question: “Would you continue state funding for the proposed Knik Arm and Gravina Island bridges?”
Palin: “Yes. I would like to see Alaska’s infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist.”
That’s the Alaska King Crab of Flip Flops. Or, as the nonpartisan Politifact called it, “We rate Palin’s position a Full Flop.”
Full article is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=14&entry_id=30024
All the stuff dg said is about the same as what Jeffrey, at Grim’s Hall, spoke concerning how Petraeus could have gotten the exact same results in the surge, if Petraeus got loss troops than he said would be necessary for the surge.
This kind of historical revision, of self-denial and illusion, is not a good thing.
CHanging the past, whether you call it Yellow Cake Niger, No WMDs, intelligence was sexed up, Bush mislead the nation, are all attempts to wear away at the energy of McCain and Palin in crafting real solutions to real problems now.
Once you have leeched their attention and the attention of their supporters to the causes you wish to speak about, that you wish they would devote their energies to defend, then you speak about how McCain and Palin aren’t getting anything done, now.
It’s classic strategy.
That’s the Alaska King Crab of Flip Flops. Or, as the nonpartisan Politifact called it, “We rate Palin’s position a Full Flop.”
You people can’t even read Amanie’s intentions, let alone Palin’s. Cause you can’t even see your own intentions and the intentions of your allies in a true light. How can you comprehend what Palin was speaking of: how can you comprehend that Palin sees a difference between Congress mandating a project for Alaska and Alaska deciding to build their own infrastructure according to their views of what is profitable and economical?
Y, actually, the classic strategy is yours: AVOIDING A DIRECT REBUTTAL OF THE FACTS SUPPLIED and instead falsely analogizing to a completely different situation. Try rebutting the story I supplied above, or admit that the author is right and you are wrong. It isn’t hard to use logic, and it’s a great way to make mental progress. All else is propaganda and noise. This is why Bookworm and others would rather remain silent. There are no tar babies when facts and numbers are used, because they tend to clean up the stickiness very quickly. I’ve had great debates on this site with some because we’ve engaged each other without fear of where an analysis of the facts might lead. It’s too bad not everyone is so honest and forthright in their discussions.
Y, you said: “how can you comprehend that Palin sees a difference between Congress mandating a project for Alaska and Alaska deciding to build their own infrastructure according to their views of what is profitable and economical?” But this question is not really relevant because it is not what she said, nor what she is being held up as (i.e., the virtuous crusader against pork and earmarks).
Here is Palin’s quote: “Thanks, but no thanks, Congress.” This implies rejecting money from Congress, does it not. It kind of implies that Congress was trying to give her something and she turned it down, no? Is that really what happened here? Not really. She kept the money for other pet projects. That is not fiscal reform. That is like saying someone else robbed the bank but I elected not to return the cash… Not very virtuous or maverick-like, I would think.