Thread: About Sarah Palin...

From a woman named Anne Kilkenny who's known her for many years...

Keep in mind this is just one person's opinion:

ABOUT SARAH PALIN

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Sarah since 1992.
Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a
first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her
father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a
first name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more
City Council meetings during her administration than about 99% of the
residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she’s like the most popular
girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice and
won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because
she is a "babe".

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She
kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents
for seven months.

She is "pro-life". She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby.
There is no cover-up involved, here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out
there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a
champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin’s kind of job is highly
sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his
work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or
so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their
major source of income. Nor has her life-style ever been anything
like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000
(at the time), and less than 2 years as governor of a state with about
670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6
years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenues during her mayoral administration
weren’t enough to fund everything on her wish list though, borrowed
money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt, but left it
with indebtedness of over $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage
the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said
she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? or a
new library? No. $1m for a park. $15m-plus for construction of a
multi-use sports complex which she rushed through to build on a piece
of property that the City didn’t even have clear title to, that was
still in litigation 7 yrs later--to the delight of the lawyers
involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the
community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it
would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5m for road projects that
could have been done in 5-7 yrs without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office
redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus
in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will
make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as Governor she
proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she
recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while
she proposed distribution of surplus state revenues: spend today's
surplus, borrow for needs.

She’s not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas
or compromise. As Mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t generated by
her or her staff. Ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits, but on the
basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected
City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from
the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents
rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's
attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew
her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the
Librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the “old boy’s club” when she first ran for
Mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys". Palin
fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the City and as
Governor she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people,
creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally
grateful and fiercely loyal--loyal to the point of abusing their power
to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the
case of pressuring the State’s top cop (see below).

As Mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla’s Police Chief because he “intimidated”
her, she told the press. As Governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top
cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure
and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that
an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't
fire her sister's ex-husband, a State Trooper. Under investigation
for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than 2 dozen
contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she
later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to
replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded
for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew
her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in
help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town
introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council
became one of her first targets when she was later elected Mayor. She
abruptly fired her loyal City Administrator; even people who didn’t
like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything
publicly about her.

When then-Governor Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got
the best, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission: one
of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no
background in oil & gas issues. Within months of scoring this great
job which paid $122,400/yr, she was complaining in the press about the
high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the
structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this
Commission (who was also the State Chair of the Republican Party)
engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some
undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all
her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and
garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a
gutsy fighter against the “old boys’ club” when she dramatically quit,
exposing this man’s ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As Mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from
Senator Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel
politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the “bridge to
nowhere” after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As Governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget
guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing
projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative
action restored most of these projects--which had been vetoed simply
because she was not aware of their importance--but with the unobservant
she had gained a reputation as “anti-pork”.

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The State party
leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated
them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a
fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla there are people who went to high school with Sarah.
They call her “Sarah Barracuda” because of her unbridled ambition and
predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly
stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made
point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's
mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and
experienced manager, ran for Mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

The rest, in the comment section here:

The Washington Independent � The Reform Candidate?

Palin wants to be able to ban books?

Yes, according to the Republican that Sarah Palin beat to become mayor of Wasilla.

[Former mayor] John Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

This comes from a TIME article filed from Wasilla, where journalists are busy doing the vetting that McCain left to a secretive ultra-right group, the Council for National Policy.


The TIME article goes on to describe how Palin back-stabbed early supporters and put gag-orders on her department staff, telling them they couldn’t speak to reporters without her permission. It also outlines how she’s changed what is important to her in successive elections, always taking a position she believes will win her votes rather than taking a principled stand.


But have you noticed, as one of my C&L colleagues pointed out to me, how Palin uses that “not giving full support” phrase as the reason for attempting to have those who disagree with her fired? It’s implicit in her defense on Troopergate and seems to have played a part in her firing of her original police chief in Wasilla too. He, on the other hand, alleged big-politics interests behind her move.

[Irl] Stambaugh, the police chief and a member of Palin’s step-aerobics class, filed a lawsuit for wrongful termination, alleging that Palin terminated him in part at the behest of the National Rifle Association, because he had opposed a concealed-gun law that the NRA supported. He eventually lost the suit. The animosity spawned some talk of a recall attempt, but eventually Palin’s opponents in the city council opted for a more conciliatory route.

So this is the true Sarah Palin. Not only a devoted and principled believer in ultra-right causes and authoritarian control but also a cynical and manipulative politician willing to use underhanded methods and authoritarian edicts to get her way. (Yes, I know - in other words, a Republican.)


As my C&L colleague also says: “This woman is quickly moving from unqualified to downright scary.”

Crooks and Liars � And Banning Books Too?

i think a better name for her is Sarah Tyrant.

[quote=Ronin Tetsuro;678745]Palin wants to be able to ban books?



That makes her the perfect VP for a McCain (3rd Bush term) Presidency!

Yeah, that is kind of what I'd expect people to find about Palin. Just a gut reaction, though. And I suppose this might not be true. But I don't trust her.

Actually, there are some forms of literature and lyrics that should be banned from public libraries catering to kids. Scream "book banning" all you want. Let's talk about the content of those books before judging.

Considering she was vetted ONE DAY before the announcement, when McCain's campaign dicked around for THREE MONTHS, I don't trust her either.

Fun Fact: Your spellchecker will recognize McCain, but not Obama.

Define "vet."

Originally Posted by Howe Itis

Actually, there are some forms of literature and lyrics that should be banned from public libraries catering to kids. Scream "book banning" all you want. Let's talk about the content of those books before judging.

Wrong. In this case, she wanted to ban books some people found to have offensive language. From a public library. This was not a 'improper materials given to children' issue, and even if it were, that's the responsibility of the library and it's staff, not a legislative issue.

Unless you strongly believe in a nanny government. I don't.

Edit: The article states that her basis for banning was her 'religious beliefs'. Your argument holds no water.

Ahh the bridge to no-where. I'm sure it's already been discussed

Nation & World | Palin's swift rise wins both admirers, enemies | Seattle Times Newspaper

Crafting an image
Her critics say that Palin often appears to be better at crafting her image than digging down into the policy details that make government work.
They note that Palin failed to appear at four major debates conducted during the 2006 general-election campaign that pitted her against former Gov. Tony Knowles and Andrew Halcro, an independent. Knowles said that when Palin did show up for debates, she typically kept a stack of cards cached behind her lectern's nameplate. Knowles said they were color-coded for different topics, full of notes, and that Palin constantly referred to them as she answered questions.
"When the questions came up, she would roll her fingers down to the right area ... ," Knowles said. "It was quite bizarre."
Knowles also recalls one memorable debate in Ketchikan, when the national press had pounced on a giant federal earmark to fund a $233 million bridge connecting this southeast Alaska town to an island airport. It had been dubbed "the bridge to nowhere," and attacked by Sen. John McCain and others as a shameful example of misguided pork-barrel spending.
During that debate, Knowles, local reporters and politicians recall, Palin was quick to back the bridge. "We're going to make a good team as we progress that bridge project," she was quoted in the Ketchikan Daily News in September 2006.
In September 2007, Congress finally appropriated money for major Alaska projects, with no dollar amount specified for the bridge but containing enough funds to cover its construction.
Palin accepted the federal money but then directed it to other projects, and she announced her decision to scuttle the bridge project in a pre-dawn press statement released to meet East Coast media deadlines, according to Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein.
Many in Ketchikan feel betrayed, the mayor said.
When Palin introduced herself to the nation last Friday in Dayton, Ohio, as McCain's vice-presidential pick, she recalled the bridge project.
"I championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress," Palin said as a crowd of thousands cheered. "In fact, I told Congress — I told Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks' on that bridge to nowhere."