The hits keep coming from the Palin trainwreck, and I think the thing that amazes me the most is the way that the right-wing has simply circled wagons around her. There really is no one on any of the right-wing blogs (other, of course, than Daniel Larison and the folks at Amconmag, who you should be reading every day anyway) trying to put the brakes on this mess. It is all spin, all nonsense, all sheer babble- they really are serious about promoting this wingnut to the #2 spot. They simply are not serious people. At any rate, more awesome from our female Bush:
Gov. Sarah Palin is being asked by a local Republican activist to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public records request, including 40 that were copied to her husband, Todd.
Palin had claimed executive privilege for documents copied to her husband, who is not a state employee, in responding to an open records request in June made by Andrée McLeod, an activist in Anchorage. The administrative appeal filed yesterday by McLeod’s attorney, Donald C. Mitchell, argued that by copying Todd Palin on sensitive state correspondence, the governor and her aides shattered the privilege rightly afforded elected officials.
“She has allowed Todd Palin — who has not been elected by the people of Alaska, who is not a state employee — to entangle himself apparently as he sees fit in the operations of the executive branch of the state government,” Mitchell said.
“From the case law, if government voluntarily opens up that internal decision-making to what I would call civilians, then that is waiver of that protection of the government policy decision-making process. That is what happened here, and it happened because Sarah Palin doesn’t understand it,” he said.
All the mendacity, shamelessness and desire to be a law-breaking crook just like Bush/Cheney, but without the technical and legal competence. But wait… It gets better:
Palin also routinely does government business from a Yahoo address, [email protected], rather than her secure official state e-mail address, according to documents already made public.
“Whoops!” Palin aide Frank Bailey wrote, after addressing an e-mail to the governor’s official state address. “Frank, This is not the Governor’s personal account,” a secretary reminded him.
***Mitchell’s appeal, addressed to Palin in her capacity as the decision-maker on the earlier records request, questions the wisdom of the governor and her aides shipping messages about state business between their public and private e-mail accounts “with complete and total abandon,” he said.
“There’s a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption,” the lawyer said. “She’s running state business out of Yahoo?”
Has anyone snatched up [email protected] yet?
And by the way, Sullivan really just nails it here. What McCain has done with his campaign and his VP choice is just disgraceful.
*** Update ***
How many days before the Palin administration has computer problems and loses all the e-mails in question, just like Bush/Cheney? I give it a week.
Incertus
The bit about the private email sounds a lot like what Rove et al were doing, saying that communications using the RNC addresses were somehow privileged but not subject to the requirement that government communications be preserved.
qwerty42
Geeze, Sully’s post is brutal.
Punchy
fizz’ixed
Jake
And she continues to lie about the bridge to nowhere. We’re up to 27 times, and counting.
It also seems that she really is giving the same speech at every campaign event, with at best minor tweaks based on the day’s events. This morning ABC had a clip of Bill O’Reilly wondering if Palin has anything else to say. So you know a little bit of the shine is coming off their new toy.
BFR
Semi serious question – does spousal privelege apply with matters of state government?
This is really bizzare – I can’t figure out if they’re really clueless about IT or really clever.
DonnaInMichigan
My father used to have a saying:
A half-truth, is still a WHOLE lie.
And in this case of McCain and Palin, their half-truths are nothing but whole lies…..
And that, my friends, is what will be their downfall.
They are surging in the polls right now. She has YET to give one interview…Right now she’s reguritating the speech that was hand written for her at the RNC, out on the campaign trail. Wait to see what the poll numbers are after she has to give interviews, and in the debates with Biden. Then we will really see who Palin is.
Dreggas
I emailed Josh Marshall yesterday wondering when we can stop calling her Sarah “Barracuda” Palin and start calling her Sarah “The Parrot” Palin. Her speech on the stump is the same, hand gestures and all, as her speech at the republican convention.
Face
Normally, I’m not clairvoyant, but I’m getting a very Zen-like aura of fortune-teller sense that someone’s about to “lose” 40+ emails from the Alaska government files…
BFR
I’ve been saying it since the GOP convention – something’s going on at Fox. They’re either off their game or they’re deliberately changing their tune this year. The GOP convention was less painful to watch on Fox than MSNBC for crying out loud.
peach flavored shampoo
“has to”? Other than this first one on ABC, she will not give a non-Fox interview. Print it.
Jake
Perhaps there’s something to the sit-down Obama had with Murdoch and Ailes. Have you read about that?
I don’t watch Fox News at all to really be able to say anything sensible, but I have caught a number of clips of Chris Wallace actually doing his job quite well. I also thought he gave one of the better interviews with Obama, some time ago. It was respectful and stuck to important issues, and afterward Wallace said he thought Obama was impressive.
Contrast that with George Snuffaluffagus this past Sunday, who acted as though Obama had taken his candy away.
Kevin
This isn’t unusual for a Murdoch outlet. Over in the UK in the 90’s, when it became apparent that John Major’s Tories were going down to defeat, Murdoch’s outlets there suddenly found a fondness for Tony Blair. Also, now that Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, is running into some trouble, and it looks like David Cameron could possibly unseat him, Labour’s getting whacked again.
gopher2b
I don’t know Alaskan law so I don’t know if they even recognize a spousal privilege but nonetheless – a spousal privilege allows a spouse to refuse to testify against their wife/husband in a criminal trial. It wouldn’t apply here.
I would also argue that she waived executive privilege by the mere fact that she used a Yahoo account to conduct state business. I’m sure there is something in the Rights and Conditions that gives Yahoo sufficient access to those emails to destroy the privilege.
AkaDad
I’m looking forward to Charlie Gibson interviewing Palin.
CG: Would you say that you’re a great Governor, or the greatest Governor ever?
Dreggas
Yahoo would turn over any and all emails if asked to by subpoena or warrant. They make that clear in the TOS etc.
thomas
she will start using the RNC account starting in 5 minutes.
Remember, Palin’s a diversion, keep your eyes on the real target.
Let’s stick with, “McCain, 10% mavric (sic), 90% Bush”
Libby
Completely OT and please forgive the drive by blogwhore. I’m knee deep in job hunting but this one is pretty juicy.
Meghan McCain says, “No one knows what war is like other than my family. Period!” Video at link.
Margarita
“There’s a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption,”
Well OK, but how about also so that there aren’t the political equivalent of two sets of books? This is shades of the duel communication channels of the official White House e-mail system and the private RNC system that came up during the US Attorney shenanigans.
Gus
Sexist!
Not My Fault
Meh.
So she misspoke. She was clearly trying to say something like “No one has a deeper understanding of the effects of war than my family.” Still debatable but not worth debating.
There is no reason to jump on misstatements when there are so many bat-shit things being said (and repeated) on purpose.
TCG
I know What is Coming Next.
I know What is Coming Next.
I know What is Coming Next.
Here it is:
I bet some wingnut uses this argument.
georgia pig
Palin’s a bush-league talent scraped from the bottom of the Republican talent barrel and is a perfect complement to McCain’s hackery. The Repub bench is really thin, which is why McCain is the nominee to begin with. He is politically inept (he let Bush steamroll him in 2000 — contrast that to what Obama did to Clinton) and, from what I gather, has not enamored himself with many other republicans, not because of idealogy, but because he’s an egotistical asshole (many of them didn’t buy that “Maverick” bullshit any more than the rest of us and view it as naked opportunistism). Barry Goldwater was the original republican “Maverick” and,to borrow from Lloyd Bentsen, “I knew Barry Goldwater, and John McCain is no Barry Goldwater.”
David
Technical and legal competence? You give them much more credit (though you clearly don’t give them much) than I am willing to give.
Incompetence, Bush is thy name.
sparky
it seems to me that the relevant question here is: when will the point be reached (ala Fox) that the people who know and dislike Palin stop being afraid of her? when those stories start coming out that will be the end of her, thankfully. but in the meantime we get these continual distractions and junior high-school antics from McPain.
Putin must be laughing at the US non-stop these days. at least in russia you can actually decide if you want to vote for the authoritiarian. here we just chase after the shiny toy. what a country of two year olds. what’s next? fart jokes?
Kirk
The yahoo email is going to give them fits in the long run, I think. As in, it’s probable that the courts will say they have to release the emails. At which point it’s discovered that they’re missing.
At which point we see two things. We see the Republicans going, “Blame Yahoo.” And we see Yahoo going, “Here’s the backup tapes, and while we’re at it here’s the logs showing who deleted what on which we’re basing our lawsuit.”
Cris
I was going to say it, but Margarita said it first.
The reason the governor should be using the official email channels is the opposite of “security and encryption.” Every communication, electronic or otherwise, sent in the role of public business is ultimately the property of the public.
Thouroughly Vetted Candidate
Hey, stop posting my top-secret email address!
bootlegger
Lipstick on a pig? Old fish?
You libnuts have nothing left but swinism and fishism. Without ham and catfish there wouldn’t be an America!
Koz
The numbers in the polls go up and up,
Up and up,
Up and up,
The numbers in the polls go up and up,
All over you.
We’ve already had the first “I’m moving out of America” moment here on balloon juice, it won’t be the last.
Notorious P.A.T.
Oh, obviously. A Republican would neeeeeeever say something slimy and dishonest. From now on, when a GOP candidate or campaign flack says something horrendous, let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.
I would be curious if Meghan thinks she has a better understanding of war than, say, John Kerry.
Notorious P.A.T.
Yes. I loved it.
She is. “I said ‘thanks but no thanks’ to the bridge to nowhere!” Maddow showed clips from 3 speeches where that same line was used–then showed a clip of Palin running for governor, saying she supported the bridge to nowhere.
Notorious P.A.T.
Oh come on, why would someone want to leave a country with a plummetting currency, a rotting economy, a barren job market, a thoroughly corrupt government, a worthless news media, and a population that is by far the easiest to fool in the world?
PeterJ
I welcome our Chinese overlords.
liberal
John Cole wrote,
Come on, JC, those guys don’t count, because they have views on foreign policy that are actually rational. Hence they must be excluded from the political conversation.
horatius
You mean Palin is really a shameless Pig? With lipstick? I knew it was true. Surely, the swine doth protest too much.
Delia
And speaking of lipstick on pigs, John Aravosis has the bestest photoshopped portrait of McLame ever. As well as the handy suggestion that we embrace the pig and run with it.
bootlegger
The Shitty Little Liars will Crash and Burn,
Crash and Burn,
Crash and Brun.
The Shitty Little Liars will Crash and Burn,
and swear in Obama.
cyntax
Yeah that’s weird–it’s almost like there was some sort of event in the very recent past that’s influencing poll results. Almost some sort of convocation of like minded McCain supporters… hmmm… can’t quite put my finger on it…
Anyway, keep counting those chickens… or pigs, or whatever it is you’re doing.
Peter
“The hits keep coming from the Palin trainwreck”
I’m sorry, are we living on the same planet, or do you live in some backward bizaro universe?
Do you think that spending a few more days talking about how Gov. Palin sometimes uses a Yahoo mail account is getting out Obama’s message. And the argument that Palin was not vetted is laughable compared to the pass Obama received.
I’ve said it a million times. For a group of people who think they are sooooo smart, Progressives sure is dumb.
jake
McPOW is using the GOP as a practice target for his bombing runs over Iran.
Seriously, if they lose the bobbleheads will spend the next 200 years discussing McPigStick’s mental state, Palin’s mental state and everything except the supposedly unbiased wanks who stained their pants over C-i-C Palin.
John S.
Obama has been vetted by the media, the public and both Democrats and Republicans running for president for what, 13 months? And you actually think this compares in ANY WAY to the exposure that Palin has had?
For a group of people that are sooooo fucking stupid, you are especially dense.
myiq2xu
Saturday night at Balloon Juice (and Mama don’t get dressed up for nothing)
dbrown
McInsane is sounding more scary than bush since bushwhack is starting to follow Obama’s ideas with respect to the war on terror.
As for Pork Queen palin, her e-mails via her office to hubby are public property and can be accessed but that does not open up all her offical e-mail to the pubic – get real. As for her mistake using a non-offical e-mail site, so what. Govs unlike real stste employee’s are not trained and can make mistakes. The real issue is her endless lying just like her daddy, McSame.
She is small patatos compared to McPow and Obama is doing real good handling those fucks. Remember, he has a strong lead by States and a lot of States are still his for the taking – McCrazy and the Pork Queen with their creationist fuck offs can go fuck themselves and the horse they rode in on… .
Tsulagi
Pretty much. This part from Sullivan about the maverick man of integrity…
Don’t care that he didn’t endorse a candidate in another party and wouldn’t expect him to, otherwise spot on for me. Prime reason no way I could vote for McCain before the primary season even began.
McCain himself during this election cycle said he knew during the first four years in Iraq there was no strategy, no planning from the admin other than for spin. Where was Country First McCain during this time? The one who as a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee during Republican control could do his maverick thing calling for oversight hearings to define the mission and strategy to achieve it during the Bush aimless retarded clusterfuck of a nation building adventure?
The maverick was busy getting his photo taken in a tender manhug embrace with his Decider. Toeing the line to get party machine backing for this run at the presidency was more important.
Country First? He’s made a mockery of it. The only thing he has put first during the last almost eight years is to get to this spot, to win this election. When the Save the Torture/Shred the Constitution MCA legislation came up, true McCain maverickyness was on full glorious display.
First he had stern reservations about MCA. Senior JAG officers testified their opinion the legislation was unconstitutional (the Roberts court later agreed on part) and not a path this country should or would want to go down. Risking careers they gave McCain political cover to do the right thing. Instead, he put his mavericky ass as high in the air as he could get it for Bush and party. He pissed on this country, he pissed on those serving past, present, and future. Fuck him.
One thing kinda funny about this VP pick. A Palin was the price to McCain for the base to enthusiastically support him. They want him to win, but many of the patriots are not too secretly sorta hoping soon after he goes tits up so they can have more Bush.
Yeah, your party loves you, dude. They want you to win, then die. Do your duty. Country first.
Delia
My, all the trolls certainly do seem proud of their trained dog in a dress. Too bad she doesn’t have much range, and she’s certainly not as nice as most pit bulls.
I suppose it’s all right to call Mrs. Palin a dog, since that’s how she referred to herself.
Blue Raven
Gosh, Mikey, did your favorite goat fail to wear the perfume you like so much? Is that why you’re frustrated that McCain is almost as pretty as she is to your eyes right now?
TenguPhule
I look forward to the posts of Republicans promising to flee the country.
And for those GOP who say they will resist the Obama government with ‘their guns’, enjoy your Hellfire Missile deposits.