Lies, Damned Lies, and Sarah Palin

Is Sarah Palin:

GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is effectively turning over questions about her record as Alaska’s governor to John McCain’s political campaign, part of an ambitious Republican strategy to limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.

Republican efforts include dispatching a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York, Ed O’Callaghan, to assist Palin’s personal lawyer working to derail or delay a pending ethics investigation in Alaska. The probe, known as “Troopergate,” is examining whether the governor abused her power by trying to remove her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.

O’Callaghan is just part of a cadre of high-powered operatives patrolling Alaska as reporters and Democrats scrutinize every detail of Palin’s tenure in government, plus her family and friends. One strategy: Carefully coordinate any information that’s released. The McCain campaign is demanding that it becomes the de facto source for answers about the operations of Alaska’s government during the past 20 months.

She still has not had a press conference or any contact with the media.

*** Update ***

I should read my own damned website. Michael covered this earlier.

The Real Manchurian CandidatePost + Comments (19)

Why should we believe he can run the world’s largest economy???

Because SHUT UP! That’s why!

Update: This…

GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is effectively turning over questions about her record as Alaska’s governor to John McCain’s political campaign, part of an ambitious Republican strategy to limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.

It’s not like she’s actually been answering questions anyway.

If He Can’t Run a Corporation….Post + Comments (12)

Sarah Palin, July 2008, discussing the firing of Walter Monegan:

I’ve said all along, hold me accountable.

Walter Monegan, September 2008, discussing his firing:

“She’s not telling the truth when she told ABC neither she nor her husband pressured me to fire Trooper Wooten,” said Walt Monegan, the Alaskan official whose dismissal by Sarah Palin is the focus of a state investigation known as “Troopergate”. “And she’s not telling the truth to the media about her reasons for firing me.”

Sarah Palin, September 2008:

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will not cooperate with a legislative inquiry into her firing of an Alaska official, her campaign said, labeling the probe “partisan.”

Spokesman Ed O’Callaghan said Monday the investigation had become “tainted” by Democratic state lawmakers targeting Palin, the governor of Alaska who Republican White House hopeful John McCain chose as his running mate late last month.

She is going to fit right in.

*** Update ***

They are worried. The McCain campaign is firmly behind her defense now, and are trumping up charges of insubordination against Monegan after the fact, and then circulating the coverage, as this email to the Politico’s Ben Smith from campaign flack Brian Rogers demonstrates:

—–Original Message—–
From: Brian Rogers
Sent: Tue 9/16/2008 9:34 AM
Subject: Anchorage Daily News: Monegan Accused Of Insubordination

They are scared to death of this, and you should ask yourself why.

Straight Talk Express, Klondike EditionPost + Comments (20)

This is a great find– while the McCain campaign has Sarah Palin hermetically sealed in a press free zone, terrified that she might speak without a teleprompter, and while they are getting the vapors about things like… opposition research, it might be instructive to remember what certain campaign operatives thought about fact-finding in headier times. For example, how did our intrepid right-wing citizen journalists and conservative mainstream journalists react to noted politician and seventh grader Graeme Frost? Take it away, Mark Steyn:

The Democrats chose to outsource their airtime to a Seventh Grader. If a political party is desperate enough to send a boy to do a man’s job, then the boy is fair game. As it is, the Dems do enough cynical and opportunist hiding behind biography and identity, and it’s incredibly tedious.

Graeme Frost- Tougher than the Original Mavericks. And he has never even gutted a moose.

So TruePost + Comments (55)

Apparently some crazy people at the DNC have decided to attempt the herculean endeavor of counting and chronicling all of the lies coming from the McCain campaign. I have no idea how they have time to sleep, but here is what they have so far. They might want to head over to Think Progress, where we learn that even Fox news reporters are calling the McCain campaign liars.

For his part, Andrew Sullivan is chronicling the lies of Sarah Palin, with three initial installments: the lie about firing Monegan, the lie about the Bridge to Nowhere, and the lie about firing the librarian and the police chief.

Maybe this is the McCain campaigns unemployment solution- lie so much that an army of fact checkers is needed to keep up with all the bullshit.

*** Update ***

Sullivan already has two more- the lie about the Endangered Species is #4, and #5 is the Pipeline.

What is so crazy about all this is that we are not dealing with differences of opinion, or spin, or things in which there is some nuance and people can disagree. These are just plain, simple, outright lies.

McCain’s Pathological Lying Creating a Cottage IndustryPost + Comments (36)

Did I mention that after dropping her Bridge to Nowhere lie for three days while she was in Alaska and people know better, Palin was out west yesterday repeating the lie again?

Pathological liars.

This Needs To Run In Every StatePost + Comments (47)