Some of Nothing

Pure Small-Town Mavericky Goodness
Saturday, October 11, 2008

Sarah Palin tells a lie, gets caught, and responds with more lies:

Today’s report shows that the Governor acted within her proper and lawful authority in the reassignment of Walt Monegan. The report also illustrates what we’ve known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior. Lacking evidence to support the original Monegan allegation, the Legislative Council seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact. The Governor is looking forward to cooperating with the Personnel Board and continuing her conversation with the American people regarding the important issues facing the country. [emphasis mine]

As John Cole explains, the abuse of power finding released by the legislative council is "the result of a unanimous vote of 12-0, with the group composed of eight Republicans and four Democrats. Two Republicans were absent, or it would have been 14-0 with ten Republicans." Not a "partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters."

Also, those "important issues facing the country" to which she's anxious to return? Character assassination:

Palin's comments were entirely general. There were few specifics on the economy besides freezing spending and a pledge to balance the budget. Despite brief allusions to economic worries, there was no discussion of how America finds itself in this mess. To do so, she explicitly argued, was to dwell on the past rather than look to the future.

She spoke for longer than her brief Carson City rally we saw September 13 -- just under 30 minutes -- and her crowd was larger and louder here. She spent about 10% of the time talking about Bill Ayers. "Ambition explains launching your political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist," Palin said, punctuated by four or five loud shouts of "Terrorist!' from the crowd.

The maverick...it burns!

Truly, small-town abuse-of-power scandals are kind of tiresome and not really worth much attention. But these people have been running the self-righteousness meter all the way to eleven for the last week or so, and somebody's got to put a stop to it. The Yo Mama joke portion of this election is getting old fast.

UPDATE: For a more in-depth assessment of this Springer Showdown, we now turn to Time Magazine (surprisingly):

But the Branchflower report still makes for good reading, if only because it convincingly answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.
...
Not only did people at almost every level of the Palin administration engage in repeated inappropriate contact with Walt Monegan and other high-ranking officials at the Department of Public Safety, but Monegan and his peers constantly warned these Palin disciples that the contact was inappropriate and probably unlawful. Still, the emails and calls continued — in at least one instance on recorded state trooper phone lines.
...
Monegan consistently emerges as the adult in these conversations, while the Palin camp displays a childish impetuousness and sense of entitlement. [emphasis mine]

Childish? Impetuous? Entitled? I thought those words were reserved for community organizers...you know, the ones without the real responsibilities that a small-town mayor has.

Nothing New byslag at 12:03 AM