Greg Sargent has a “scoop”:
One of the chief reasons Sarah Palin has given for resigning as Governor of Alaska is that her state’s taxpayers are being forced to spend money defending her government against ethics complaints that would otherwise fund teachers, cops, and road repair.
But in response to our questions, a spokesperson for the Alaska governor’s office just gave us new information that casts serious doubt on this assertion. The revelation makes the resignation episode even stranger, and raises fresh questions about the real reasons for her abrupt departure.
During her resignation speech last week, Palin presented herself as a heroic defender of the taxpayer. She said that money being spent on government lawyers to defend against these “frivolous ethics violations” could be “going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research.” Palin repeated exactly the same point this week.
But David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints.
Scoop was in quotes o’ sarcasm, because it is not necessarily a scoop catching Sarah Palin lying. Every sentence our of her mouth is a verifiable lie, an exaggeration, or wrong. In order to catch Sarah Palin lying, all you need to do is record anything that comes out of her mouth. This is, after all, the candidate who lied about the Bridge to Nowhere for months after it was proven she was full of it.
I suppose it is nice to have this documented for Sullivan’s list, but it is hardly a big find. Of course she was lying.
That is what she does.
*** Update ***
Oh look, there were only three pending ethics complaints. Yawn.
A Mom Anon
So is this a common thing? Governors have attorneys on retainer I guess? Or the state does,just for this sort of thing?
I wonder how the cost of this stuff in Alaska compares to other states,is there a way to find out? It would be interesting to compare.
Comrade Dread
`When I use a word,’ Sarah said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
`The question is,’ said the blogger, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
`The question is,’ said Sarah, `which is to be master — that’s all.’
BDeevDad
Is it a lie if you don’t understand the finances of the state you’re elected to run?
Comrade Stuck
No wonder they love her so. A walking talking monument to the GOP alternate universe.
taylormattd
John,
That’s totally sexist of you. Palin doesn’t deserve such a trashing. Palin is just like Hillary.
/Peter Daou
Joshua Norton
She quit because she’s going to start the “Sarah Palin Pity Tour”. She’s going to charge big bucks for people to listen to her professional victim spiel. She’ll never get enough backing to be a political player again, but there’s enough suckers who will line-up to hear her whine and talk jibberish for an hour.
Laura W
I know that I know that I know that you meant: “Every sentence out of her mouth is a verifiable lie.”
Waders.
clonecone
You shouldn’t call Palin a liar. She was once a little girl.
b-psycho
As the days drag on & she gives “explanations” that make it even more confusing, I’m getting closer to suspecting burnout.
Normal people sink into depression & shy away from attention. Sarah Palin is not normal, so she just cranks the starbursts to 11, threatening to create a black hole with the sheer weight of her nonsense.
JGabriel
John Cole:
The thing is, while Palin lies all the time, she actually believes half of it.
It’s been said before, and no doubt will be said again: George Bush with a vagina.
.
jl
@Joshua Norton: I think so. Interviews, media and book bucks, another fun campaign, and a wingnut media gig after the dust clears.
She can still make a good run in the GOP primaries.
GOP still with her after the resignation:
According to the nationwide poll, close to 67% of Republicans want Palin to be “a major national political figure”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl435
It beats working.
CapMidnight
@taylormattd:
We are all like us!
LD50
@CapMidnight:
[raises hand] “I’m not!”
Incertus
JGabriel, that’s what Harry Frankfurt was talking about when he wrote “On Bullshit,” a masterful discussion of the subject.
Litlebritdifrnt
Follow the money, she knows she can make a boatload from here on out, out of the governors office, in it she is restricted to her salary and whatever per diem she can score. This woman is a grifter, once you understand that it all becomes clear.
WereBear
Geez, I didn’t need to know that.
There aren’t as many Republicans as there used to be, but still, why are the ones who aren’t Palin fans still hanging in there?
Do they really think it’s going to get better?
feebog
Its not the lying so much as the absolutely horrifying, nasal voice spewing out contorted platitudes and patriotic gibberish. I expect politicians to lie. But I also expect them to do so in complete sentences so that I can actually understand the lie as it comes out of their mouths. With Palin it is simply a never ending stream of words with no discernable coordination, context or syntax whatsoever.
KG
the funniest part, John, is that the most costly “defense” was from an investigation that Palin initiated because the Legislature’s investigation was tainted, or some such bullshit.
Demo Woman
So those are the real people and real Americans that Mika Brzezinski talks about.
If you did not watch Sarah’s 7 minute rambling I’m not quitting speech, but in stead watched a sound bite on FOX you might think Sarah is a sane individual.
JC
As usual you miss the Elephant in the room.
Her defense is not just the lawyer fees. It includes her staff’s time, salary, & expenses.
I’m not saying she ain’t lying as she lies all the time.
But, I am saying your source is wrong.
The lawyer fees are not the extent of time and money.
That is black & white jack.
dbrown
@BDeevDad: If the very reason you are leaving the job is full of shit, either it is a lie or you are even more stupid than anyone has ever thought. Get real, these lawyers were meeting with her and she didn’t ask her people how they were being paid? Unless her head is more up her ass than cheney’s hand was up bushwhack’s ass, I find it hard to believe.
gbear
Didn’t Sarah proudly pull Reagan’s ‘There you go again!’ line out of her bag of tricks during her debate with Biden? She used it like she’d kept it waiting in ambush for hours, from what I remember. I might be lying…
Edit: Ahh. Further research reveals that I was thinking of her ‘Say it ain’t so, Joe!’ zinger. I use the term ‘zinger’ loosely.
demkat620
There’s nothing to improve, to them she’s Mary Poppins.
Practically perfect in everyway!
sloan
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Sarah Palin elected because she ran against Frank Murkowski on a platform of transparency and reform? I thought those ethics rules she always complains about were the same rules she vowed to enforce while campaigning for Governor.
And now she’s blaming those very same laws for forcing her out of office. Even though that’s the whole reason she was elected in the first place.
Comrade Stuck
I don’t know if anyone has noticed in her voice, that sometimes when she is making a matter-of-fact statement, she adds a sort of linguistic lilt to her voice that projects there could not be any doubt about it’s truth that makes me see red, because it is usually something casting her as a victim that is utter bullshit.
arguingwithsignposts
@Demo Woman:
to be accurate (and fair), her full speech was more like 18 minutes. they clipped out the first half on most shows. the first half actually made more sense (a parade of her “accomplishments” as gov.), while the second half was word salad.
I don’t think there’s any way to chop up that video to make her into a “sane” individual, but I’ve been cured of the wingnut virus.
BombIranForChrist
Palin is actually and empirically crazy. Sure, sure, we use a lot of hyperbole on the ole blog message boards, so maybe the word “crazy” has lost its meaning a little, but no, in this case, crazy = crazy.
She is a pathological liar. She may even be a sociopath, even though that is not really an official DSM-IV designation. She is ill, ill, ill. No hyperbole. Ill.
JGabriel
Comrade Stuck:
I know exactly what you mean, if by lilt you mean a grating incoherence combined with an obnoxious tone of exasperated false certainty.
.
jl
@JC:
The state personnel board put its cost of dealing with the complaints at about $300,000 — around two-thirds of which was in addressing the “Troopergate” issue last fall. *Palin herself initiated the personnel board investigation on “Troopergate,”* saying that the state Legislature’s investigation of the matter was politicized and she was seeking the appropriate venue to deal with it.
Palin said Monday she didn’t view the cost as just the $300,000 for the personnel board — but rather $2 million for the state. It is a figure her administration now uses — not meant to be actual checks written by the state but to also reflect time of state employees.
It is a per-hour calculation *that the Palin administration put together,* involving time spent by state lawyers deciding which public information to release as a result of all public records requests, time spent by governor’s office staffers responding to media inquiries about ethics complaints, and time technicians spend on retrieving requested e-mail, among other things.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/855907.html
Sorry, I am not biting on that ‘Elephant in the room’.
Comrade Stuck
@JGabriel:
That be it.
dbrown
@jl: So she had a big hand in creating the costs, knew exactly how much because she was told, so how did she not know it was already in the buget (which she would have to approve?)
ChrisB
@A Mom Anon: There are many, many lawyers who are employees of the states just like there are many lawyers who are employees of the federal government. They handle the legal work of the state from prosecuting criminals to drafting or reviewing contracts.
It’s not like they’re on retainer or being paid several hundred dollars per hour for their time (though states may on occasion hire outside counsel). Instead, they’re employees who are paid a salary, receive health benefits, take paid vacations, etc. They work for the state and devote their time to such tasks as their supervisors may assign.
Here’s what the New York City Law Department says about itself:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/law/html/about/about.shtml
Comrade Jake
I think some of you are assuming Palin has sufficient critical thinking skills to either:
1) know this was budgeted, or:
2) be referring to her staff’s time, etc
There is no evidence for this level of thought. In fact, the abundance of evidence suggests Palin’s dumb as a rock, and has at best a fifth-grade reading level. I’m not sure she makes it past round one of “The Duel” spelling bee. Ask her to spell “throne”, next time you see her.
In other words, if an ignoramus makes something up out of whole cloth because it sounds right to them, is that technically a “lie”? Department of Law, also.
Calouste
If Palin had ethics to start with and actually tried to avoid impressions of unethical behaviour, like not making calls to the employer of her ex-brother-in-law, the state of Alaska wouldn’t have to spend all those dollars and attorney hours in the first place.
Mike in NC
How soon before “to pull a Palin” enters the lexicon? The definition being applied to somebody who suddenly quits a lucrative job for no comprehensible reason.
JGabriel
@Calouste:
Yes, they would have. But it would have been spent on corporate oil corruption instead.
Which, I suppose, means that there’s something positive to be said for garden variety personal corruption – at least it doesn’t involve ripping off as many people.
Not that this lets Palin off the hook, as she is likely engaged in both varieties.
.
Bob In Pacifica
I think you are making fun of Trig again, Cole, you evil, godless bastard.
JGabriel
Mike in NC:
Probably never – too many variants.
To “pull a Palin”:
1. To give an interview while fowl murder takes place in the background;
2. To cut off a line of difficult questioning by going terminally cute: “I’ll have to get back to ya on that one!”;
3. To lie about things that can be easily looked up on the internet, like your support for the Bridge to Nowhere or whether the Alaska Independence Party has secessionist goals;
4. To suddenly quit a lucrative job for no comprehensible reason;
5. To show up completely unprepared for an interview, then blame the media for asking “gotcha” questions.
.
Jill
Sarah Palin very smartly quit her job because it was hampering her ability to capitalize on her current earning potential, which is probably in the tens of millions of dollars. She is very shrewd and wasn’t willing to risk she would be able to command the same money two years from now, when her term as governor was completed. She is enamored with stardom and money and the subsequent power and respect that is afforded people who have a lot of both those qualities. Her willingness to accept that she may have killed her political career with her recent decision is genuine. The power alone that comes with the position of Governor or even President is of little or no interest to her. She doesn’t need an elected position to get what she wants, just look at Rush Limbaugh.
dopeyo
you libruls has all caught teh stoopid. sarah is executing a well-thought-out plan:
1. quit cushy state job.
2. ???
3. profit!
however, us 67% of the remaining 23% are going to flock to her speeches and rallies. we’re going to throw fistfuls of money, and chant ‘run sarah run’. she will talk and talk, and throw little starbursts, never get elected to anything again, and never leave.
it’s your worst nightmare. a permanent state of stoopid. then, a made-for-tv movie!
Michael
The fun part is that the wingnut welfare pie has only so many slices and has shrunk. She may find that her opportunity to gain Her Royal Entitlement is somewhat constrained in an era of deflation, and those with established audiences will be loathe to give her too many inroads into their little moneypots.
The rubber chicken circuit in front of hordes of assorted trailer dwellers isn’t nearly so fun when your “per speech” compensation consists of $387.65, some wads of pocket lint and a partially sucked, poorly wrapped spearmint candies.
I’m feeling a cooling of Palin ardor by the monied class is coming soon. That’ll leave the goobers, and goobers don’t pay for shit.
JGabriel
dopeyo:
I hardly think it’ll be permanent. When Sarah Palin gets older, and her looks fade, her striking ability to sound like the drunken racist aunt at the family picnic is hardly likely to evoke Margaret Thatcher-like gravitas. At that point, the GOP will toss her aside, and Palin will either fade away or become the spokeswoman for the Conservative Party, the AIP, or – Phyllis Schlafly-like – whatever scam institute she’s formed to rake in the bucks from her deluded worshippers.
.
LD50
Well, I don’t know how John feels, but if this doesn’t go in his pile for Best Posts o’ 2009, there is no justice in the world.
HRA
Beyond her stupid attempts to speak coherently, the reason for her leaving her office of governor is like an old song about “how’re going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen NY” That’s the closest to the lyrics in my memory bank and I have no idea where it was sung or who sang it. I sort of think it was from a musical.
She got a taste of the limelight, the luxuries, etc. and it was her dream come true. I can believe the kids said “yes”. They enjoyed it as well.
She can’t admit it. Thus she made up reasons for doing it and did a damn poor job of it.
Funny how I have not seem anyone address those gasps she was making while running through the statement. Clearly it was a sign of not being the entire truth.
Comrade Kevin
@JGabriel: Sounding kinda like this?
jenniebee
As long as wingtards are convinced that she scares liberals, she’ll be popular. Luckily, they’re as reality-independent as Sarah herself, so she may go on being the super-sparkle! gift that keeps on whining right up to the day she trips over her Naughty Monkey peekaboo pumps and breaks a hip.
I think we can look forward to years of right-wing pundit predictions that any day now she’ll study up on, you know, issues, and then we’ll all see what a force majeur she is. And we’ll continue to talk past each other: liberals will suggest that, maybe, the knowledge base is the the really important part and not something to just cram for until you sound like you maybe know something about it, and conservatives will smirk and think to themselves “this is why you don’t win elections nearly 50% of the time!”
JK
@Mike in NC: @JGabriel:
NH Dems Ask: Did Ayotte “Just Pull a Sarah Palin?”
New Hampshire’s state Democratic party released a web ad Wednesday comparing Republican state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte to Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin.
h/t http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/eyeon2010/2009/07/nh-dems-ask-did-ayotte-just-pu.html
Jackmormon
Look, people: I hate Rush Limbaugh as much as the next liberal, but seriously, we have to admit that not just any right-wing loon could hold a three-hour unscripted solo radio show every day. Ann Coulter has a sharp, epigrammatic style and holds a crowd with repartee. These people are monsters, sure, but they have some actual talent at talking. Sarah Palin seems to appeal to some people, but I really can’t see that her future lies in broadcasting. She reads off a teleprompter okay.
Josh E.
Peter Daou am cry. She is a mother, once a little girl…
jenniebee
@JGabriel: anybody else notice when she gave her speech, she’s lost a lot of weight lately, a lot of it muscle tone, too. It’s really showing on her face and neck.
I don’t think she quit from any rational motive; I think she quit because she was being criticized by people she couldn’t threaten or bully and that was extremely stressful to her, and her day job didn’t have the zing of getting to experience “wins” anymore – it’s all ethics complaints and red ink on the budget now, so she just didn’t want to do it anymore. From there, I take her speech at face value. I can totally see her rationalizing that she could “make a more effective change” or whatever outside of office, and from there it’s all just deciding to do it now.
I think we’re all having trouble figuring out what the other shoe is that’s going to drop because we’re projecting onto Palin more rationality and goal-centric thinking than she’s actually capable of. I, personally, couldn’t engage in the level of self-deception that she is to say that I was leaving office to do nothing in particular but that totally wasn’t the same as quitting, but I think she can. If I had political ambitions, I would never leave office without a clear plan for what I was going to do next and a clear analysis about how that was likely to position me for my next goal better than staying in the current office would, but Palin would.
Palin said that reactions to her speech were all ironical and cynical and not able to take what she said at face value; I really believe that the disconnect was due to so many people – including her critics – trying to spin this to make her look better – more responsible, more capable – than she actually is.
Max Peck
Maybe they got a taste of the national scene and just want out of Alaska. Why wait two years to go national and lose the nomination when you can start now? Also,
RMacholan
Will there be a special election for a new Lt. Gov.? If so, how much will that cost?
JGabriel
jenniebee:
I could see that, and it certainly fits Palin’s character, but it doesn’t quite lines up with her performance. Palin was panicked at her resignation announcement, not just angry.
I still think Palin was pushed out, though I’m surprised that the reason hasn’t been published yet. So maybe I’m wrong. Barring a scandal, your speculation is one of the best explanations I’ve seen for her quitting so far.
.
Nellcote
An Alaskan blogger breaks down the 2m meme:
http://www.henkimaa.com/2009/07/07/the-2-million-dollar-meme/
JK
@JGabriel:
Maybe, Palin was just putting on an act to fake people out.
mcd410x
one word: megalomaniac
Nellcote
@RMacholan:
That’s a whole other can of worms for LaPalin screw up before she leaves:
http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/07/buckle-up-the-palin-transition-begins/
JGabriel
JK:
Why? Is she planning to mount an insanity defense?
Or is she Sacha Baron Cohen in drag?
.
Little Dreamer
@Jill:
So you are saying Palin is only doing it for the money? In some occupations that’s called Prostitution.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
Maybe, but the idea of SP as a hooker is creeping me out ….
Little Dreamer
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
Sorry TZ, don’t think of that. I’m sure there are much better things to fill your mind with. Wipe that vision clean.
I’ll try not to do that again. ;)
JK
@JGabriel:
I think Palin should be compelled to submit to a mental competency hearing before she’s allowed to file papers for a presidential run.
ThymeZoneThePlumber
@Little Dreamer:
5683 better things I can think of. Like trees.
Little Dreamer
@JK:
based on what precedent? If McCain could run, Sarah should be able to also (don’t worry, she has not a single chance of winning).
Little Dreamer
@ThymeZoneThePlumber:
I like Trees
;)
That song always reminds me of the dichotomy between right and left politics.
Soylent Green
The Palins are guffawing all the way to the bank. Now that they are free to rake in the appearance dough, they will soon own more boats and snow machines than Jay Leno has cars. What’s so dumb about that?
JK
@Little Dreamer:
I have serious reservations about Palin’s sanity.
JK
@Soylent Green:
I want to see Palin on Celebrity Apprentice so I can watch Donald Trump tell her “You’re Fired”.
I can’t remember the last time Soylent Green aired on any channel, while so many junk films get re-run all the time.
Chuck Butcher
Money;
Well, there is some book advance thing – but.
FauxNews better make sure there’s a teleprompter and no ad-libbing allowed.
The rubes won’t have much cash and sure can’t make up for the absence of the fat cats, though there are some rich reich loons. A couple of them supported Bill Sizemore here in OR for many years, so there is money out there. (they did have illusions of winning or at least making their enemies spend)
I admit to hoping that she’s the Energizer Bunny for the GOP – centerfold Bunny even. (I don’t get a twinkle much less a starburst from this woman)
Redhand
You do have a way with words, John. Of course the larger joke behind Palin’s resignation excuse is the claim that “per diem Sarah” ever gave a sh*t about Alaskan taxpayers’ money. Not so long as it could be looted without the public knowing. Cf. Wasilla hillbillies looting Nieman Marcus coast to coast.
Tax Analyst
Yes, this is a truth. The SaraPalinator is more than 99.88% fact-free, which means it is virtually non-fact’ning. With the SaraPalinator you can lose those pesky facts and substitute any narrative you wish, no matter how absurdly ridiculous or at odds with reality it may appear to be.
If you order now you will also receive the Deluxe Sarah Palinator Vice-Presidential Speechifier Kit, which contains thousands of words and phrases that connect to mean absolutely nothing. Perfect for stimulating your low-information ditto-head base constituency. As an added bonus, if you order within the next 24 hours you will also receive a special edition of the “Joe The Plumber’s Guide to Imaginary Small Business Ownership”, and his companion-piece, “Why Phony Grass-Roots Hacks Don’t Need To Understand Income Tax Brackets To Make Tax Protesting Their Key Issue”, which also includes some don’t-miss advice about Tax and Business License fee avoidance, a complete glossary of handy ill or mis-defined issues and terms to use in media interview situations and the 43 prospective psuedonyms that “Joe” mulled over adopting before he settled on “Joe”.
Remember, this is certain to be good news for John McCain.
Tax Analyst
Oh, you mean like the substance and tone that Jonah Goldberg uses in almost all of his Op-Ed pieces.
Yeah.
Has anybody checked Sarah’s birth certicate? Maybe she was birthed and discarded at an early age by Lucien Goldberg. If I look out my back window I can almost see Jonah and Sarah as siblings.
low-tech cyclist
Many of Palin’s most enthusiastic supporters are ‘Christian right’ types. As I recall, “thou shalt not bear false witness” is one of the Ten Commandments. That Palin’s many lies don’t bother her ‘Christian’ supporters in the least just goes to show that the ‘Christian right’ in America isn’t a form of Christianity, but just another form of tribalism.
Jill
@ Soylent Green
Totally agree, she is laughing all the way to the bank!
Her nervousness is because she knows she is outright lying about her reasons for quitting. She doesn’t really care about governing or the people of Alaska, she is in it for herself, period. But of course she can’t admit that so she is forced to come up with these convoluted reasons to try and explain her actions.
DG
You folks are really sick. What is your fascination with Palin, same love/hate as Maureen Dowd? Why don’t you use a fraction of this energy to answer simple questions like: what was Obama’s GPA?, How did a low-grade stoner get into Harvard, and why? Why can’t he speak without teleprompters and staged events? Even Helen Thomas would like to know. Are you so desperate because you know you’ve been fooled, that Obama only cares about Wall Street, and the tale you’ve created doesn’t wear well? You all come across as mean girls. Obama still blames Bush and you idiots let him get away with excuses. it doesn’t matter how we got in this terrible spot, what’s the plan now? Obama and Biden simply say they “underestimated.” That fills me with fear for our future, not anything soon to be private citizen Palin says or does. What will you do for hate-object when she’s gone?
DG
BTW, how’d a low-grade stoner get through Harvard ? Guess with money the right help can get the right people anywhere. You all know so much about Palin, tell me more about Obama!
binzinerator
@DG:
As Purdum’s piece in Vanity Fair noted:
Add to that her stature among the fundie right for being an example of ‘their’ kind of feminist — her beliefs and positions (for other women, of course) which are in actuality anti-feminist.
But the biggest reason I suspect many people here have an interest in this farce that is Palin, is the one whichSullivan gave:
And I think the farce of Palin says something very disturbing about this nation, a large number of its people, and their value of truth: (from the Wiki entry for Harry Frankfurt’s book On Truth)
We are amazed time and again at the seeming lack of self-knowledge in the leaders of the GOP and in Palin in particular. We have noticed how these people seem to live in an alternate universe where up is down and truth is lies. (“We create our own reality”, as one Bushie explained to Ron Suskind)
With Palin there is a whole new level of untruthfulness beyond what we have experienced from politicians.
As John Scalzi noticed:
And Palin even topped that. It’s not that truth is optional for Palin, it’s that it is seemingly not an option. Palin is the most egregious example of this kind of flagrant disregard for the truth.
Frankfurt, quoted from On Truth “A society that is recklessly and persistently remiss in [supporting and encouraging truth] is bound to decline.”
Palin is significant because she is the manifestation (or perhaps the culmination) of this reckless negligence of valuing truth by a disquieting number of people. And she is significant because she came close to being the backup President to a septuagenarian with a history of serious health problems.
The fact that you cannot see the significance of this, that you have to have it laid out for you, supports this inability or unwillingnees to value the meaning of something.
“Facts are stupid things” — George W. Bush
binzinerator
I have no idea why my just-submitted comment is in moderation jail.
lumpenprole
Considering how often Palin gets bested in feuds and slapped around by her own words whenever anyone bothers to fact check, she really ought to stick with vague attacks on the media and commies generally.
Zuzu's Petals
Yeah, it is kinda weird, since he couldn’t even get into U of Texas.
But his daddy was head of the RNC.