Sunday, September 14, 2008
No way!
The Sunday New York Times: "Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes".
Seriously? You mean, Sarah Palin got elected and hired her friends and not her opponents? I had no idea that Alaska politics were so dirty. Nothing like here in New Jersey. Or in New York.
It boggles my mind that any newspaper that endorsed both Eliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey can accuse Sarah Palin of having "blurred the line between government and personal grievance."
15 Comments:
By 
Andrew X, at
Sun Sep 14, 04:37:00 AM:
Sarah would do very well to hold this copy of the Times up in her hand at a rally and say "Oh, look, everybody! Hold onto your hats, but..... ,the NEW YORK TIMES doesn't like me!!
Then, when the applause dies down twenty minutes later, she can go on with her speech.
By ChenZhen, at
Sun Sep 14, 05:36:00 AM:
Well I think that we've had enough of the "loyalty over competence" style of governing.
I figured that there would be plenty of people who'd look at this NYT piece and say "so what?". But this is the type of thing that gave us Brownie and a Harriet Miers nomination and Valarie Plame and complete mismanagement in Iraq.
I say pick people who can do the job right and learn to get along.
By 
, at
Sun Sep 14, 06:11:00 AM:
The car was realy fast. The whole package just worked very well. But I just did not get one clear lap. It felt like I was being held up by the slower team mates of the drivers in front of me. Then I had a spin towards the end of the session. I lost downforce as I was just to close to another car and nearly hit the wall. Lucky there is a second qualifying session tomorrow morning and the best time counts.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Sep 14, 08:53:00 AM:
Soooo...the NYT would be happier if she hired her Foes and lashed her Friends? I suppose they would.
I suspect it was that kind of scurrulous behaviour that earned her an 80% approval rating.
The old media clearly doesn't know how to handle a non-formulaic politician. They are falling over themselves for the opportunity of being the latest media outlet to enrage the public and drive voters to the poles to vote FOR Sarah Palin. Thanks, Guys!!!
Even an unknown entity from Alaska would be preferable to being an ObamaNation.
By , at
Sun Sep 14, 09:21:00 AM:
NYTimes:
Last summer State Representative John Harris, the Republican speaker of the House, picked up his phone and heard Mr. Palin’s voice. The governor’s husband sounded edgy. He said he was unhappy that Mr. Harris had hired John Bitney as his chief of staff, the speaker recalled. Mr. Bitney was a high school classmate of the Palins and had worked for Ms. Palin. But she fired Mr. Bitney after learning that he had fallen in love with another longtime friend.
—————-
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122092043531812813.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_topbox
What happened in between? According to Mr. Bitney, Gov. Palin got a call from another old friend, Scott Richter, informing her that his wife, Debbie Richter, and Mr. Bitney were having an affair. Mr. Bitney had kept that secret from the governor, even as he told her of his divorce, he said.
Allies of Republican presidential nominee John McCain like to point out that his running mate is the governor of the largest state in the union. But at times, Alaska seems more like a small town, run by folks with overlapping professional, political and personal ties that can be difficult to untangle.
Gov. Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, were also close friends of the Richters. Ms. Richter served as treasurer of Gov. Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and her inaugural committee. After taking office, Gov. Palin put Ms. Richter in charge of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division at the Department of Revenue. The fund allocates oil revenues to Alaska residents; this year each Alaskan is expected to receive $3,269.
The two couples owned property together on Safari Lake, north of Wasilla, according to Gov. Palin’s financial disclosure reports. Each couple had its own cabin on the land, where the families would vacation side by side, according to Ms. Richter. In the most recent disclosure form, the governor reported that she and Mr. Palin now own the property with Mr. Richter alone.
“They were, you know, professionally my bosses, but they were my friends,” Mr. Bitney said of the Palins. “And so what caused them to want me to leave the governor’s office was my relationship, my divorce, my dating a woman with whom they had a personal relationship.”
When Gov. Palin was notified by Mr. Richter in July 2007, she called Mr. Bitney into her office. She already knew he was going through a divorce, and, Mr. Bitney said, he had “led her to believe there weren’t going to be any more surprises.”
Mr. Bitney said the governor “indicated to me that she was hurt, disappointed and upset, and that she didn’t know what she wanted to do.”
A few days later, Gov. Palin’s chief of staff “indicated to me that I needed to leave the governor’s office,” Mr. Bitney said.
“I understand why I had to go,” Mr. Bitney said. “I accept that. I was in the governor’s office and a trusted adviser. I betrayed that trust by not being forthcoming about what was going on in my personal life.”
By , at
Sun Sep 14, 12:28:00 PM:
You don't have to look very long or hard to find politicians who are guilty of cronyism and allowing the "old boys network" to persist but they're not running on platform of reform and a promise to throw out the "old boys network" as she is! Seems to me the only thing she did differently while Governor (when she showed up) was recast it as an "old boys and girls' network."
Eighteen months into the job and her legislature took to wearing bottoms that asked "Where's Sarah?" because they never could find her? Sexist pigs. Don't they know you can't ask woman her whereabouts?
By , at
Sun Sep 14, 12:31:00 PM:
took to wearing bottoms that asked "where's Sarah?"
LOL. That should read "wearing buttons" The former might indeed be sexist
By Escort81, at
Sun Sep 14, 01:00:00 PM:
This NYT article is as strong a hit piece as the paper has published this year, painting Palin as an Evita of the Great White North -- right up until the point that some of the underlying facts are disputed and debunked by the blogosphere.
Emails to and from private email accounts that discuss state business aren't subject to subpoena? Either that quote is not accurate, or they need some better lawyers up there in Alaska.
By , at
Sun Sep 14, 01:22:00 PM:
Evidently she understand the part of the Bush Doctrine that supports cronyism:~)
Did anyone see her sophmoric and incoherent answers to questions on the economy/domestic policies?
By Brian, at
Sun Sep 14, 02:04:00 PM:
"when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency."
I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. If and when she becomes President, her knowledge of a childhood friend's fascination with storms will help her find a great new head of FEMA.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sun Sep 14, 02:51:00 PM:
*Sigh*
I've read before that sarcasm is the chosen weapon of the weak.
If you have something valuable to contribute, do so. But these little one-liners that you seem to think pass for 'discussion' are tiresome and childish. I'm sure it leaves your classmates in a blinking stupor, dazzled by your wit, but it does not impress everyone else.
By JPMcT, at
Sun Sep 14, 03:53:00 PM:
An airplane load of DNC legal sharks descend on Alaska and THIS is what they came up with???
My Democrat friends, you have this giant glass house called Barack Obama...If I were you folks, I would not be throwing stones.
By Brian, at
Sun Sep 14, 08:36:00 PM:
Sorry Dawnfire, I try to calibrate to the discussion level. The foreign policy posts here seem a little more substantive.
If it's helpful, here's something to follow JPMcT's post:
"Mike Gehke, the Democratic National Committee's chief of research, and Obama campaign spokesmen Josh Earnest and Isaac Baker said Democrats did not send anyone to Alaska. 'If I had 30 researchers, they'd be busy trying to keep track of McCain's houses,' Gehke said.
In his original item, titled 'The Hunt for Sarah October; City slickers invade Wasilla,' Fund did not report how he heard 'Democrats have airdropped a mini-army. ... My sources report the first wave arrived in Anchorage less than 24 hours after John McCain selected her on August 29.'
Fund said he will post a new blog item on the issue at noon today."
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080912/NEWS0106/809120351/
That was two days ago; if there's an update then I've missed it.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Sep 15, 01:33:00 PM:
I'll buy that Obama did not send off an army of dirt-diggers to Alaska if he says he didn't. That would be way to easy of a lie to prove.
But there's a line at the end of that article that you skipped.
"I want to be judged by what I wrote, not what other people said I wrote," Fund said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I never said the Obama campaign, I said Democrats..."
By JPMcT, at
Mon Sep 15, 08:05:00 PM:
Brian, this is the best I could do with only five minutes of rather superficial web research regarding Democratic operatives in Alaska:
--------------------------------
From Fox:
McHugh Pierre, with the Alaska Republican Party, told FOXNews.com he’s personally seen and spoken with Democratic operatives in the state looking into Palin.
“They’ve got a ton of people. They’ve got like three dozen staff here,” he said. “They’re knocking on doors. They’re everywhere.”
He said he spoke with a few who were knocking on doors in Anchorage, and who said they were working for the Obama campaign.
=========================
From The Huffington Post:
The McCain team may not have vetted Sarah Palin with boots on the ground in Alaska, but the Democrats sure did -- two years ago when she ran for governor. The oppo-research, compiled in a 62-page document with countless summaries or direct quotes, largely from local newspapers, covers all of the important issues you would expect to see, from her views on abortion and abstinence to tangled oil pipeline questions.
The Obama campaign seemed to leave a little wiggle room in its description of the situation Wednesday.
Asked about the claims, spokesman Josh Earnest took issue with the charge in the Journal and McCain ad that operatives were “airdropped” into Alaska.
==================================
And...last but not least...a picture of the Alaska Legislative Council. These are the...ahem...impartial investigators who are keeping the ridiculous "Troopergate" investigation alive. See anything funny about this picture???
http://www.floppingaces.net/2008/09/10/meet-the-alaskans-investigating-sarah-palin-in-the-troopergate-affair/
I could be a tad more incisive...but, as I write this, my wife is staring at me expecting me to take her shopping...so this is the best I can do in 5-10 minutes. TH...you got more time?
