Alaska is full of rugged individualists who nevertheless receive checks from the sale of oil on public lands and who suck money from the lower 48 to fund public works.

Is is possible that McCain is planning on Palin imploding, so that he can bring in Leiberman amidst all the confusion?

Is that too cynical?

The problem isn't that she went after earmarks. That is what a mayor should do. The problem is that she claimed to be an earmark fighter. The Republicans could have introduced her in a different way had they properly vetted her.

The real story here is that McCain was acted without any real understanding of Palin's easily established history. That kind of impulsiveness is just scary.

Next time Obama talks about all the cool stuff we could be buying with Iraq war money, it'd be a hoot if he said a juvie shelter, a transportation hub and a rail line.

Serious. 2600 bucks of fed money to each man woman and child in Wasilla for pet projects alone.

More than 200 a month.

Do we still want to listen to what a problem welfare queens are when able bodied rugged, outdoorsy, Alaskan frontiersmen are firmly latched to the federal udder?

"(W)as acted?" Sorry "acted." I really need to proof my comments.

"Is that too cynical?"

Bwahahahaha...you can NEVAH 'out-cynical' the GOPhascisti. Sara Palin is the celebratory. GOP plunger-handle-up-the-ass of the People.

Palin doesn't strike me as very sophisticated. I suspect the lobbyists targeted her. You have to keep bringing in new business, right?

I'm sure it's OK, because she's a Republican.

And to be fair, Obama cannot endorse everything Biden did either, without logical inconsistency.

That's not patently false, but putting reality aside,

I assume you meant "that's not just patently false." I am not one to proofread others but that seems to opposite of what you were trying to say.

It's not too cynical, no. But McCain would end up with so much egg on his face that the resulting election would be (even more of) a farce. She was his only hope for regaining momentum; now his only hope is that she stabilizes and the bad news goes away.

Choosing Lieberman after Palin would essentially dowse his base in cold water. (Think of the disappointment of the PUMAs, except, y'know, sincere and politically powerful.) And I'm skeptical of the reasons why he ostensibly wasn't picked; I'm more inclined to believe that his crossover appeal was correctly estimated as virtually nil.

Yes, keep up the good work. We need commercials with clips of McCain denouncing ear marks and pork intercut with explanations of Palin's activities as mayor. Normally, one would ignore a politician's time as mayor of a small town, but since it's all she got...

All of this ridiculousness HAS to be on purpose. It just HAS to be. Could they be so incredibly stupid? It doesn't make any sense.

Instead of laughing at them, I'm started to get nervous. What could they possibly be up to?

I joked with my wife that next thing we'll find out is that Palin used to be a man. It wouldn't surprise me given what we've found out so far.

No wonder she was so successful in getting so much federal money for her little town: "she was a Director of Ted Stevens' 527 corporation, and hired his former chief of staff as a lobbyist for Wasilla"(from a previous post).

What, I'm out for a couple of weeks and The Carpetbagger Report is gone?!

Anyway, good - Steve and his fellow carpetbaggers are ready for higher visibility. Good stuff.

Funny. I didn't hear Mora Liason of NPR/Fox News mention any of this this morning on NPR? What a shock!...

To me this is a MUCH bigger deal, along with troopergate, than anything related to her teenage daughter which I agree should be OFF LIMITS and is in nothing but bad taste.

Why does the media let the McCain campaign tell so many demonstrable lies?

P.S. I know that everyone has decided that Governor Palin's much ballyhooed family is all "private" now - but why can't Govenor Palin offer medical proof that Trig is her son? I think its strange - it doesn't matter - but it's strange.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm

According to the WaPo dead tree edition, it was not just any lobbying firm, but "Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage-based law firm with close ties to Alaska's most senior Republicans: Don Young and Ted Stevens." This firm also hired Stevens' son, Ben, who "has been identified in court documents as having accepted $240,000 in consulting payments in exchange for legislative favors." Sounds to me like she became anti-corruption after her homeboys got caught.

First, did McCain know about Palin hiring lobbyists to secure more pork-barrel spending for her small town?

I'm assuming this is rhetorical, right? Because it's completely obvious at this point that when McCain picked Palin as his running mate, he knew exactly two things about her: (1) That she is adamantly anti-abortion, (2) She is a woman.

I love how the WaPo saves this for last:

"In February, Palin's office sent Sen. Stevens a 70-page memo outlining almost $200 million worth of new funding requests for Alaska."

I guess that's her way of fighting the good old boy network.

What a maverick.

[Begin sarcasm now] Look, what's 27 million between friends. I'm sure that each of those 6700 paid at least $4030 in federal taxes, so it was just them getting their money back, right? [End sarcasm]

typo:"not patently false" should read "patently false" (no "not")

She is one remarkable porker. $27 million for 6700 people is more than $4000 in federal earmarks per person. This in a rich state that has no income tax and in fact pays a welfare check to every resident with the excess from oil revenues.

Shorter "Orwell": It's OK if you're a Republican.

The fact that Palin had to request money from the feds is not unusual - it is part of her JOB.

No one here denies that. Except John McCain. He claims he picked her because she didn't do this kind of stuff. But -- big surprise -- she did. Work your cognitive dissonance out with the McCain campaign, not this thread.

Near the end of most job interviews the candidate is asked whether they have any questions of the interviewer(s). Having already done some research, I've normally taken this time to learn more about the benefits package and the like. I have left job interviews know that if they were to call and offer a position, I would have to decline.

Gov. Palin, a politician, likely wanting to be elected in every contest she'd be in didn't ask McCain any questions?

She is on record believing the Iraq war should have a timeline for withdrawal - previously admitting she gets her foreign policy briefings from cable news (maybe local?) - I think this would be important for any one thinking the war should come to an end, sometime, ever. Would she join the ticket knowing John McCain was in favor of a long term presence, or that he favors perpetual wars? That would have been a red flag had I been interviewed - I could not have excepted the offer. Maybe they are very similar?

...when McCain picked Palin as his running mate, he knew exactly two things about her: (1) That she is adamantly anti-abortion, (2) She is a woman.

Posted by: David Bailey
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Slight amendment

(2) She is a woman, with a great ass!

Seriously did you see the video showing McCain staring at her Arse when she was introducing herself, rather a GOP'd up version or herself and her family?

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I want to say - thank you for this!

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