Sarah Palin is a liar (she should meet David Emerson)

Ok, so I've been seething about Sarah Palin since the moment she was named by John McCain as his running mate. Well, maybe not since that exact moment. As I recall, when I flipped to CNN that fateful Friday morning and heard the news, I believe my initial reaction was "who the fuck is she?" But I digress, although it is important to note that until John McCain plucked this woman from relative obscurity as the Governor of the third-smallest state (by population) in the union, almost nobody had heard of her.

Sarah Palin has touted herself as a maverick. She's not. A maverick breaks with popular opinion to do what's right. Sarah Palin has a history of doing one thing, and then reversing herself anytime it was politically expedient to do so. And just in case that's not enough, she throws in a bit of historical revisionism to make her pitiful record look better than it really is. In almost every speech we've heard, Sarah Palin goes on about how she was against the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere" (for those of you who don't know about this, the Bridge to Nowhere was a much derided project linking Ketchikan with a small neighbouring island that's home to the local airport, and very few people. It was sponsored through a pork-barrel earmark by powerful Alaska Republican Senator Ted Stevens, now the subject of a number of corruption charges). Anyhow, as it happens, when Sarah Palin was running for Governor of Alaska, she supported that Bridge to Nowhere. She oversaw the beginning of construction on roads to feed that very bridge. Then, public opinion changed, and so she followed up by canceling the project, seemingly in defense of taxpayer money, right? Well, that might have made sense, other than the fact that she didn't return a single dime.

Oh yes, that's right. The next story we hear about is the luxury jet purchased by her predecessor. In her speech, Palin notes that she put the jet on eBay, and John McCain went so far as to say that she did that, and sold it for a profit. Well, as it happens, Palin did put the jet on eBay, at which point nobody bought it. The Alaska Legislature went ahead and hired a broker to sell the jet, which the state purchased for 2.7 million dollars. The jet sold for 2.1 million dollars, not to mention the fees paid out to the broker, and an additional 50 thousand dollar bill thanks to unexpected maintenance issues. So she didn't sell that jet for a profit. In fact, she failed to sell it at all. Good job there Sarah.

Of course, we move on to Gov. Palin's teenage daughter Bristol. I agree with Barack Obama, and every other politician who says that Bristol Palin's pregnancy is a family matter that is off limits. I'm not going to ridicule her for not practicing her mother's abstinence-only policies. I'm not going to ridicule her for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Bristol Palin, after all, is not responsible for her mother's stupid policy stances. But I am going to hold Sarah Palin to account, because she noted that Bristol Palin had done the right thing. She said that her oldest daughter had chosen to keep the baby, certainly a laudable decision. But here's the thing: that was a choice that she allowed her daughter to make, all the while running on a campaign platform promising to take that same choice away from every other American woman should she ever be in a position to do so. Like I said, I won't ridicule Bristol Palin. I will, however, ridicule her mother's blatant hypocrisy.

Those who know Sarah Palin have consistently said that she is not a gracious person. Anybody who disagrees with her becomes public enemy number one. Said one former colleague "she takes it personally." Remind you of anyone? Perhaps the current "uniter, not a divider" President. This is precisely the LAST thing that America, and the rest of the world needs right now. Sarah Palin needs to be honest about her pitiful record, and stop relying on her not-quite-good-enough-to-be-Miss Alaska looks to get her places.