Handy-dandy compilation for reference! Collect all ten disturbingly unvetted disturbing facts!http://www.alternet.org/election08/97198/?page=entireTop Ten Most Disturbing Facts and Impressions of Sarah PalinBy AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted September 2, 2008.
It's not hard to stir up negative publicity when you advocate gunning down wolves from airplanes and deny the human causes of climate change. Sarah Palin was named John McCain's vice presidential nominee just three days ago, yet it seems that weeks have passed in terms of the mountains of controversy it has stirred up. An overwhelming amount of negative publicity and sometimes shocking information has come out about her and her relatively short political career.
Choosing Palin has been called alternately a brilliant stroke that reinforces McCain's maverick image and a desperate, irresponsible "Hail Mary" pass in the face of an almost sure defeat in November. The fundamental question being raised: Why Palin? True, her personal narrative has lots of color: former fisherman, NRA hunter, mother of five, small-town mayor, short-term governor of a state with a small population, etc. But that does not qualify her to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Anathema to Moderates, Liberals and Progressives
George Lakoff, in an accompanying article, lists some of the issues swirling around Palin:
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A commentator to the article appearing on the Time Magazine blog BlankSlate wrote:
Only someone in the throes of a serious mental condition could have make a pick this astonishing. This focus group confirms the Rasmussen Reports polling that, among undecided voters, the Palin pick makes 6 percent more likely to vote for McCain and 31 percent less likely to vote for McCain. About 59 percent of these undecided voters do not think Palin is qualified to be president. It is a stunt gone terribly amiss. And the hilarious thing is that the right wing really believes that this is going to turn everything around. Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Local Media Unhappy with Palin
Greg Mitchell, the editor of Editor & Publisher, checked out the Alaska newspapers to see how they felt about their governor. He found that they were nervous to say the least:
The pages and Web sites of the two leading papers up there have raised all sorts of issues surrounding Palin, from her ethics problems to general lack of readiness for this big step up. Right now the top story on the Anchorage Daily News Web site looks at new info in what it calls "troopergate" and opens: "Alaska's former commissioner of public safety says Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's pick to be vice president, personally talked to him on two occasions about a state trooper who was locked in a bitter custody battle with the governor's sister."
A reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, Gregg Erickson, even did an online chat with the Washington Post in which he revealed that Palin's approval rating in the state was not the much-touted 80 percent, but rather 65 percent and sinking -- and that among journalists who followed her, it might be in the "teens." He added: "I have a hard time seeing how her qualifications stack up against the duties and responsibilities of being president."
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What's Next?
With the Republican National Convention delayed by Hurricane Gustav's arrival on U.S. shores, there must be lots of discussion and soul-searching going on in Republican circles as to how the Palin candidacy will hold up over the next two months. The biggest question perhaps is whether the McCain inner circle, perhaps in a major concession to the extreme right wing, which hasn't been friendly to McCain, has made a drastic error to woo its support. Or in fact, as some would suggest, McCain is crazy like a fox. Under that scenario, Palin will weather the initial avalanche of negative publicity that paints her far outside of the political mainstream, and she undermines many of McCain's efforts to appear to be the maverick moderate. Palin becomes a strong campaigner, and her extreme positions get lost in her efforts to support McCain.
AlterNet editors have collected a list some of the major issues that are bubbling up about Palin. Here are our top 10 most disturbing facts, rumors and impressions of Sarah Palin, gathered in the past two days:
1: Palin supports gunning down wolves from planesSarah Palin is no friend of wildlife. And let's not blame this on her being a hunter. Plenty of subsistence hunters respect animals. But Palin reportedly came out against legislation introduced by Rep. George Miller, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, that would "end Alaska's policy of allowing people to shoot wolves from airplanes."
Miller is among a large number of folks who believe the practice is not only cruel, it's unnecessary (proponents say it is to keep caribou and moose numbers up for other hunters) and a violation of federal law banning airborne hunting.
Palin has also tried to make gunning down wolves (and even bears) from the air easier and financially rewarding.
As the Huffington Post reported:
Last year, the state offered a $150 bounty as an incentive for pilots and aerial gunners to kill more wolves. And leading up to this week's statewide vote on Measure 2 to stop the aerial shooting of wolves and bears, Palin's Board of Game spent $400,000 of public money on brochures and radio ads to influence the election. She not only took an inhumane and unsporting position at odds with the principles of wildlife management and fair chase, but did it in an undemocratic and underhanded way.
Palin has been said to have a "failing record" on wildlife -- including being in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- and she has opposed efforts to protect beluga whales in the Cook Inlet (whose numbers have dropped to just 375) because it might adversely affect the oil and gas industries.
2: Palin doesn't believe global warming is man-madeAt every campaign stop, McCain says that human activity is the driving force behind global climate change.
For the first time in its history, the GOP caught up to the rest of the planet by accepting the reality of man-made climate change in its 2008 platform. It reads, "The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere," and "increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth."
But Palin is among the conservative fringe that rejects the scientific consensus. According to the Washington Post, "Sarah Palin told voters there she wasn't sure climate change wasn't simply part of a natural warming cycle." Palin told the conservative Web site NewsMax, "I'm not one ... who would attribute it to being man-made."
This may help explain why Palin announced this year that Alaska would sue the Department of the Interior over its decision to add the polar bear to its list of endangered species. If people are "over-reacting" to global warming, as Palin has said, then the polar bears' rapidly dwindling habitat should be fine and those bears can fend for themselves. As Palin explained in an op-ed in the New York Times, "I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. ... The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears' habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future."
3: Palin is the candidate of powerful far right-wing cabal; her nomination seals their support for the little-wanted McCainAs Max Blumenthal reports:
Last week ... the country's most influential conservatives met quietly in Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.
CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges. ... This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain.
What happened at the secret meeting was the topic of online commentary by one of its attendees, top Dobson/Focus on the Family flack Tom Minnery.
Minnery described the mood as CNP members watched Palin: "And I have to tell you, that speech -- people were on their seats applauding, cheering, yelling ... That room in Minneapolis watching on the television screen was electrified. I have not seen anything like it in a long time."
Minnery added that his boss, Dobson, has yearned for a conservative female leader like Margaret Thatcher to emerge on the American scene. And while Palin is no Thatcher, "she has not rejected the feminine side of who she is, so for that reason, she will be attractive to conservative voters."
The members of the Council for National Policy are the hidden hand behind McCain's Palin pick. With her selection, the Republican nominee is suddenly -- and unexpectedly -- assured of the support of a movement that once opposed his candidacy with all its might. Case in point: While Dobson once said he could "never" vote for McCain, he issued a statement last week hailing Palin as an "outstanding" choice. If Dobson's enthusiasm for Palin is any indication, he may soon emerge from his bunker in Colorado Springs to endorse McCain, providing the Republican nominee with the support of the Christian right's single most influential figure.
4: Palin staunchly opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incestSarah Palin is strongly anti-choice, but she has taken her views on abortion to an extreme that may prove unpopular even among Republicans. Palin only supports abortion if the mother's health is in danger. Rape and incest don't register with her as legitimate reasons to honor a woman's right to choose -- not even if the women is her own daughter. In 2006, when her daughter Bristol was only 14, Palin said that she would not support choice even if her daughter were raped.
She made that announcement at a time when Alaska was plagued with a rape rate more than twice as high as the national average.
"This is absolutely outside the mainstream. Even in South Dakota they rejected (outlawing abortion in cases of rape) in '06 because it has gone too far and everyone can identify that in a case of rape or incest a woman should have the chance to make the decision with their family or doctor," Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro Choice America, told the Huffington Post. "Women voters are going to reject both her and John McCain, and I think we see it specifically because we reach out to Republicans and independent pro-choice women. They live in the suburbs and exurbs. They are very much part of the mainstream America. And woman in general will reject that ticket."
5: Palin takes unnecessary risks with the health of her own child, supports failed abstinence-only programsAmid the now-disproven rumors that the Palins' fifth child, Trig, was the son of her 17-year-old daughter, are reports that Sarah Palin seriously endangered her child during labor. Palin was in Texas delivering a speech when she allegedly began to leak amniotic fluid. Instead of immediately checking into a hospital, Palin finished her speech. She then flew to Anchorage, Alaska, where she drove to a hospital 45 minutes away to give birth.
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