HelloDollyLlama
Member
As we know, the campaign for 2012 has already begun. Believe it or not, candidates are tramping through Iowa, networking among national politicians and figuring out how to raise money.
I started putting together a few notes on the most likely candidates, and wound up with perhaps half a page each on Romney, Huckabee etc. I saved Palin for last.
Then I dove into the World Of Palin.
Oh. My. God.
Even throwing out all the unsubstantiated internet fodder reports of her affair with a business partner, passing off her grandson as her son, etc the rock-solid information, substantiated by real sources, ran on for seven pages.
The short version:
Palin is positive that she is ready to be commander in chief, despite repeatedly betraying a dangerous level of ignorance on national and world affairs. Her one exposure to real economics came in one of the five cow colleges she attended, where she got a D and gave up. She is ignorant of the world of money, as she betrayed with her answer on the Freddie Mac question.
As an executive she is so weak that even the post of Wasilla mayor, which her predecessors had handled themselves, so overtaxed her that she had to hire a city manager. That, and her tactics, almost led to a recall by the voters.
Even the Republican leader of the Alaska Senate said she was unready for the governors job, let alone the presidency. The governors job is a breeze for a competent executive, since most of the state is owned and run by Washington, and all the governor needs to do is dole out the federal pork and oil money. But even with those advantages and with her habit of stealing pension money and jacking up taxes on consumers, she couldnt get control of the budget. She went through police chiefs one after the other, finally settling on a guy who had to be fired immediately because he was a sexual predator sloppy vetting. She wrecked a series of local and state projects, wasting millions. Alaskans are angry because she is so busy showing off on the national stage that she is ignoring local issues like schools and energy problems.
She violated per diem laws, tax laws, small business laws, privacy laws, ethics laws; she has obstructed justice, and may have perjured herself. She used tax money for personal and political purposes. Her behaviour has already been condemned by a legislative investigation and by a sitting judge.
She brought an unprecedented level of nastiness to local and national politics. She betrayed the Wasilla politician who helped her get her start. She used Ted Stevens as political patron and then threw him under the bus. She lobbied for earmarks and pork and then claimed to oppose them, blindsiding her voters; she also screwed over her constituents on sales taxes and on the bridge to nowhere. She screwed over McCain, defying him publicly on issues, badmouthing him behind his back, and blaming his campaign for the 2008 loss. She repeatedly terrorized and fired employees suspected of insufficient loyalty, and sacked people who dared to question her opinions. She and her husband repeatedly abused her power to terrorize family enemies and political opponents. She tried to fire a librarian just because she wouldnt go along with her book-banning crusade. She was slapped down for trying to illegally pack the City Council with her supporters. She fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her loyalists. She was caught on tape laughing hysterically as the Alaskan Senate President, a cancer survivor, was called a cancer and a bitch. Her diva-like behaviour, micromanagement and harassment led to incredible personnel turnover. She publicly humiliated her own daughter to save her own reputation, used her office to persecute her own brother-in-law, and ran a political smear campaign against her own mother-in-law.
Her support among moderates and independents, the people who pick all the presidents, is toxically low, because she is a right-wing extremist. She campaigned and raised money for Pat Buchanan. She belongs to an extremist church which wants to cure homosexuality, and sat patiently as her preacher said Jews deserve to die because they are unbelievers. She wants a Constitutional amendment overturning Roe and opposes abortion even in cases of rape. She opposes sex ed, stem cell research, equal treatment for same-sex couples; ironically she cut funding for a program to help teen mothers! She wants creationism taught in our schools and tried to fire an opponent of book-banning. Shes to the right of Bush on the environment (she even sued Bush regarding environmental protection), and her energy policy is to the right of Exxon; she thinks global warming is a hoax. Her bombs-away foreign policy is a neocons dream. She favors regressive taxes which hurt the middle class, and opposes fixing the health care system. She supports a violent Alaskan secession party that hates America.
Her only real political skill is to look right at the camera and say something completely dishonest or hypocritical, without blinking. For example, her implication that she was mayor when Obama was a community organizer was hogwash: Obama was an organizer before he even went to law school, while Palin was busy flunking out of her third or fourth cow college.
Already other GOP leaders are getting sick of the Sarah Palin show, and she is getting into more scraps with the media.
The full-length version of this sucker runs for pages. I thought I'd just start with this one.
I started putting together a few notes on the most likely candidates, and wound up with perhaps half a page each on Romney, Huckabee etc. I saved Palin for last.
Then I dove into the World Of Palin.
Oh. My. God.
Even throwing out all the unsubstantiated internet fodder reports of her affair with a business partner, passing off her grandson as her son, etc the rock-solid information, substantiated by real sources, ran on for seven pages.
The short version:
Palin is positive that she is ready to be commander in chief, despite repeatedly betraying a dangerous level of ignorance on national and world affairs. Her one exposure to real economics came in one of the five cow colleges she attended, where she got a D and gave up. She is ignorant of the world of money, as she betrayed with her answer on the Freddie Mac question.
As an executive she is so weak that even the post of Wasilla mayor, which her predecessors had handled themselves, so overtaxed her that she had to hire a city manager. That, and her tactics, almost led to a recall by the voters.
Even the Republican leader of the Alaska Senate said she was unready for the governors job, let alone the presidency. The governors job is a breeze for a competent executive, since most of the state is owned and run by Washington, and all the governor needs to do is dole out the federal pork and oil money. But even with those advantages and with her habit of stealing pension money and jacking up taxes on consumers, she couldnt get control of the budget. She went through police chiefs one after the other, finally settling on a guy who had to be fired immediately because he was a sexual predator sloppy vetting. She wrecked a series of local and state projects, wasting millions. Alaskans are angry because she is so busy showing off on the national stage that she is ignoring local issues like schools and energy problems.
She violated per diem laws, tax laws, small business laws, privacy laws, ethics laws; she has obstructed justice, and may have perjured herself. She used tax money for personal and political purposes. Her behaviour has already been condemned by a legislative investigation and by a sitting judge.
She brought an unprecedented level of nastiness to local and national politics. She betrayed the Wasilla politician who helped her get her start. She used Ted Stevens as political patron and then threw him under the bus. She lobbied for earmarks and pork and then claimed to oppose them, blindsiding her voters; she also screwed over her constituents on sales taxes and on the bridge to nowhere. She screwed over McCain, defying him publicly on issues, badmouthing him behind his back, and blaming his campaign for the 2008 loss. She repeatedly terrorized and fired employees suspected of insufficient loyalty, and sacked people who dared to question her opinions. She and her husband repeatedly abused her power to terrorize family enemies and political opponents. She tried to fire a librarian just because she wouldnt go along with her book-banning crusade. She was slapped down for trying to illegally pack the City Council with her supporters. She fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her loyalists. She was caught on tape laughing hysterically as the Alaskan Senate President, a cancer survivor, was called a cancer and a bitch. Her diva-like behaviour, micromanagement and harassment led to incredible personnel turnover. She publicly humiliated her own daughter to save her own reputation, used her office to persecute her own brother-in-law, and ran a political smear campaign against her own mother-in-law.
Her support among moderates and independents, the people who pick all the presidents, is toxically low, because she is a right-wing extremist. She campaigned and raised money for Pat Buchanan. She belongs to an extremist church which wants to cure homosexuality, and sat patiently as her preacher said Jews deserve to die because they are unbelievers. She wants a Constitutional amendment overturning Roe and opposes abortion even in cases of rape. She opposes sex ed, stem cell research, equal treatment for same-sex couples; ironically she cut funding for a program to help teen mothers! She wants creationism taught in our schools and tried to fire an opponent of book-banning. Shes to the right of Bush on the environment (she even sued Bush regarding environmental protection), and her energy policy is to the right of Exxon; she thinks global warming is a hoax. Her bombs-away foreign policy is a neocons dream. She favors regressive taxes which hurt the middle class, and opposes fixing the health care system. She supports a violent Alaskan secession party that hates America.
Her only real political skill is to look right at the camera and say something completely dishonest or hypocritical, without blinking. For example, her implication that she was mayor when Obama was a community organizer was hogwash: Obama was an organizer before he even went to law school, while Palin was busy flunking out of her third or fourth cow college.
Already other GOP leaders are getting sick of the Sarah Palin show, and she is getting into more scraps with the media.
The full-length version of this sucker runs for pages. I thought I'd just start with this one.
