Rachel Maddow on Sarah Palin-Troopergate (Part 2)

Troopergate. The key issue is whether she used her state office to pressure the public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law. Here's what she stated on the record in mid-July if this year: "To allege that I, or any member of my family . . . directed disciplinary action be taken against any employee of the Department of Public Safety, is, quite simply, outrageous," Palin said in a statement in mid-July after Monegan's dismissal. Here's Wikipedia's account, with links to the original sources: In July, Palin's ethics advisor urged her to apologize for "overreaching or perceived overreaching" to get Wooten fired.[120] Palin publicly acknowledged in August that "pressure could have been perceived to exist, although I have only now become aware of it,"[121] She also apologized to Alaskans for the distraction.[122][123] On August 13, after an internal investigation, Palin acknowledged that her staff had contacted Monegan or his staff about two dozen times regarding Wooten. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-lies-of-s-1.html#more For the past two weeks serious commentators and columnists have been asked to take the candidacy of Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency of the United States seriously. Formerly sane people have written of the McCain campaigns selection of this running mate as if it represents a new face for Republicanism, an emblem of can-do western spirit, a brilliant ploy to win over Clinton voters, a new feminism, a reformist revolution, and a genius appeal to the religious right. Im afraid I cannot join in. In fact I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. Does Palin believe that the men who planned and carried out the 9/11 attack are in Iraq? The hijackers are all dead, but Bin Laden and Zawahiri and the rest of the gang are, as far as we know, in Pakistan. Nobody believes they are in Iraq. Then we have the now mountain of lies that follow Palin everywhere she goes, lies she keeps repeating as if they are not subject to factual scrutiny. In her first interview she said it was common for vice-presidential candidates never to have met a single foreign leader. Untrue. Every living vice-presidential candidate has met some foreign leaders before being picked. She said she did not deny that climate change was man-made. But she has clearly stated that on the record. A year ago she said: Im not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist, blaming the changes in our climate on human activity. She keeps repeating as a defining political motif that she said: Thanks, but no thanks for the Bridge to Nowhere. But we now know that she originally lobbied for the bridge in Alaska paid for by federal funds. And she never returned the money. And she even wore a Nowhere, Alaska sweatshirt to push back against the McCains of this world who derided the bridge as a pointless boondoggle. She boasts that she secured a new oil pipeline for Alaska, but closer inspection finds that nothing has even begun to be built, and that the state may end up owing billions if the pipeline is never constructed. She says shes a fiscal conservative, but as mayor she increased her tiny towns debt service by 69%. When she took office, the town of Wasilla had no long-term debt. By the time her term was over, the debt amounted to $3,000 per citizen. She is the biggest joke to be put on a ticket in national politics. The most accurate thing said about her in the past two weeks was said on the day she was picked. It was said by Alaskas Republican state senate president, Lyda Green: Shes not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice-president or president? Look at what shes done to this state. What would she do to the nation? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4746999.ece?print=yes&randnum=1221348138515

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YouTube | September 16, 2008

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