Late last night, I wrote about my personal reactions to Sarah Palin’s speech — gut feelings about her that had very little relationship to politics. She really is a very different candidate, and yes, she does change the dynamics of this election cycle.
I like her. I admire her spunk, and I think she has enormous potential.
But… before she can hope to realize that potential, she’s going to have to stop telling lies.
Even allowing for spin geared toward the target audience, her truth-stretching — about her own record, and also about Obama’s — put her in a very bad position. The bit about how she killed “The Bridge to Nowhere”, in particular, is quite a whopper, and claiming the high ground on earmarks was a real thigh-slapper. The MSM is going to eat her lunch with it.
In fact, they’ve already started:
PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”
High time the press remembered what it is they’re supposed to be doing. (Is that what happens when you’ve decided the press is your enemy? Too bad that’s what it takes, if so.)
One more thought: the attacks on Barack Obama were exactly in line with her role as a Vice-Presidential nominee. The common term here is “attack dog” — and she herself defined the breed. It surprises me that some people seemed to expect her to somehow be “kind and gentle”.
And an exit question: Are we still allowed to use “attack dog”, when the role’s being filled by a woman? (Does anybody but me think we’re about to hear a WHOLE lot about sexism and terminology?)