How Do You Kill A Political Career?

Since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced that she was resigning I've heard a lot of pundits say that her political career is over with no chance whatsoever of reviving it. I thought it might be interesting by way of contrast to see what sort of things won't kill a political career.

You can be caught red-handed on drug possession charges, including being videotaped smoking crack cocaine, and serve time in federal prison without killing your political career.

You can be caught red-handed accepting bribes with $90,000 in bribe money stored in your freezer without killing your political career.

You can be a former Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan who spouts off about "white niggers" on live television without killing your political career.

You can delay ordering your city's evacuation in the face of an oncoming natural disaster until less than 24 hours remain because it would hurt the local tourism industry and, while you're at it, decline to use available school buses to aid in the evacuation, resulting in hundreds of deaths, without killing your political career.

All of these things are acceptable behavior on the part of our politicians but resigning your position because you can't get anything done due to a constant onslaught of frivolous lawsuits filed by political opponents is unforgiveable. And people wonder why we are so poorly served by our politicians.

White Trash Buy Movie Tickets, Too

A friend of Michael Jordan told Jordan biographer Sam Smith that Jordan had declined to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt's 1990 challenge to North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms because "Republicans buy shoes, too." If true, this would make Jordan a lot smarter than a lot of people.

For example, Megan Fox recently said, with regards to keeping Megatron, the villain of her new film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, from destroying the world that she would "barter with him and say instead of the entire planet, can you just take out all of the white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating people in Middle America?" I'm pretty sure that the studio is counting on those same white trash, hillbilly, anti-gay, super bible-beating Middle Americans to buy tickets to her movie and without them it will be a lot harder for the movie to turn a profit. I'm not anti-gay but I'm sure I'm still one of the people that Ms. Fox would like Megatron to take out and I won't be seeing the movie because after her comments I'm not real inclined to put money in her pocket. I was on the fence about whether to see the movie or not, I wasn't a huge fan of the first one, but I was leaning towards seeing it until she shot her mouth off so now they can do without me.

Personally I think Megan should be careful about calling others white trash when her most memorable scene from the Transformers trailers is a ¾ rear shot of her in cutoffs astride a motorcycle with her ass stuck up in the air. That's not your acting ability that the studio is promoting, dear.

Someone else who could learn from Michael Jordan is David Letterman. Letterman, of course, recently referred to Governor Sarah Palin as looking like a slutty flight attendant and then made a joke about that statutory rape of her 14-year-old daughter, Willow. In one fell stroke he managed to insult conservatives and women. When even NOW, which has a history of ignoring misogynistic attacks on conservative women, called him out on his behavior he didn't apologize but instead explained that he had meant Palin's 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, instead of Willow. So apparently in Letterman's world the rape of a 14-year-old is bad but the rape of an 18-year-old is funny. In this case Letterman should have taken a cue from Texas businessman Clayton Williams who managed to scuttle his own run for Texas Governor by remarking to reporters that the weather was like rape, you couldn't do anything about it so you might as well lie back and enjoy it. Female Texas voters were not amused and Williams' chances of being elected went down in flames.

Would Letterman have made a crack about Michelle Obama looking like a slutty gym bunny and then make a joke about the rape of Malia or Sasha? I'm inclined to think he wouldn't. In fact, I rather imagine he'd be appalled by such a joke. Perhaps in the future before making political jokes he should try applying them to his own party and see if he still finds them funny. But since Letterman apparently can't find any humor in the President getting the number of states wrong or giving the British Prime Minister DVDs that won't play on English DVD players or banning the press from a press awards ceremony, I suspect that would mean Letterman wouldn't be doing any political humor at all. And that would probably be a good thing.

Take a lesson from the Dixie Chicks who shot their mouths off, insulted their audience, and were then dismayed when their CD sales plummeted.

If you insult the people who ultimately pay your salary, don't be surprised when they suddenly decide to give their money to someone else instead.

Perspective

Many who watched Gov. Palin's speech at the RNC found themselves smiling when they saw this:



Not the media though. According to the New York Times:

In the press galleries at the convention, journalists wrinkled their noses in disgust when Piper, Ms. Palin’s youngest daughter, was filmed kitty-licking her baby brother’s hair into place.

And just so you don't think that attitude was limited to the NYT, here is CNN's "unbiased" take on it:



How sad that their hatred of Gov. Palin is such that they would even belittle her 7-year-old daughter.

Sarah Palin and Creationism

Another smear circulating about Sarah Palin is that she wants Creationism to be taught in school. What she actually said was that it didn't have to be part of the curriculum but that there shouldn't be a prohibition against discussing it if it comes up in class.

In an interview Thursday, Palin said she meant only to say that discussion of alternative views should be allowed to arise in Alaska classrooms:

"I don't think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn't have to be part of the curriculum."

She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state's required curriculum.

Gee, how horrible. A politician that thinks that school kids' religious beliefs should be treated with respect instead of their teacher telling them to just shut up.

Sarah Palin and Sex Ed

To comment further on the attacks on Sarah Palin based on her supposedly wanting to restrict sex ed classes to an "Abstinence-only" curriculum, here's what Gov. Palin actually said about sex ed:

"No, I'm pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues. So I am not anti-contraception. But, yeah, abstinence is another alternative that should be discussed with kids. I don't have a problem with that. That doesn't scare me, so it's something I would support also."

Bill Maher Fails Biology

One of the first lies about Sarah Palin to pop up on the Internet was the claim that Trig Palin was actually her grandson and she had claimed him as her own to cover up the fact that he was actually her daughter Bristol's child. This was debunked on Monday when it was announced that Bristol was 5 months pregnant, which would make it kind of hard for her to have given birth to Trig 4 months ago. Unless, of course, she was the first woman in the history of the world to get pregnant with one child while 8 months pregnant with another.

Incredibly Bill Maher, obviously an intellectual giant, continues to push the claim that Trig is actually Bristol's son. So apparently she's some weird mutant who can get pregnant while pregnant and not miscarry the new fetus while delivering the first child. Perhaps someone should explain the female reproductive organs to Bill because apparently he's not familiar with them.

In any case I thought this was a pretty stupid attack on Gov. Palin from the very beginning. Even if it were true, who cares? Are we really expected to think poorly of Gov. Palin because she adopted her daughter's special needs baby and is raising it as her own? To a lot of people that would make her a saint. Maybe it's supposed to be an indictment of Palin for promoting abstinence-only education but the public school Bristol attends teaches about contraceptives in sex ed so she didn't have an abstinence-only education and thus her pregnancy wasn't proof that abstinence-only education doesn't work. Maybe it's supposed to be proof that Sarah is a bad mother because Bristol isn't a mindless robot that does everything her parents tell her to do. Of course anyone who's ever raised a teenager know that they're not always obedient so this would make every parent in the world a bad parent.

It has absolutely nothing to do with her political positions or her ability to perform her duties. It's just a stupid lie that doesn't even make her look bad.

Liberal Lies

I really don't want this to be a political blog but some of the lies coming out of the Left are too disgusting to ignore. It seems one particularly diseased mind has vomited forth a story claiming that Sarah Palin is a racist. The author describes himself as a Democrat and an activist so you can guess just how unbiased he is.

An independent, he has accomplished what the Associated Press, Reuters, MSNBC, CNN, etc. could not. He's gotten someone to spill the beans about Sarah Palin. Someone who is, conveniently, impossible to identify and even if you could track his source down she wouldn't talk to you because you don't have his friend, also conveniently unidentified, to vouch for you. According to his story, Palin was spouting racist comments at a lunch with 5 or 6 other people who are also conveniently unidentified.

Basically what you've got here is a completely unverifiable claim by a self-professed activist that Gov. Palin is an over-the-top racist who not only hates blacks by Alaskan aboriginals as well. If she hates Eskimos as much as she does, it's kind of strange that she married someone who is part Yup'ik. Which would make her children part Yup'ik as well.

It's possible that Sarah Palin is a racist. It's also possible that Barack Obama likes to dress up in his wife's lingerie and stand in front of a mirror singing, "I'm a pretty, pretty princess." I won't believe either claim until a see a more credible report than this tripe.

That's Gotta Hurt

Apparently people have had just about enough of the media trying to smear Gov. Palin with random rumors from the Internet.

Another Day, Another Lie About Sarah Palin

Apparently one of the benefits of picking someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin is that since she doesn't have much of a political record, there's not much that can be found to smear her with so Obama's supporters are reduced to making up all kinds of things in an attempt to find something that will stick to her.

The latest that I've heard is that she supposedly tried to have a bunch of books banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. The funny thing is, the list of books she alledgedly tried to ban includes a number of books that weren't published until several years after she tried to ban them. Apparently Sarah Palin can see the future which, to my way of thinking, would be a very useful talent for someone running the country to have.

I've run across a web site that is keeping track of all the claims being made about Gov. Palin. It makes for some rather interesting reading.

The Smell of Fear

You can tell the left is getting desperate. Now they're attacking Sarah Palin's hair.

Sarahcuda

For those who missed it, here is Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention last night:

ABC News has the transcript.

I have reservations about Palin's lack of experience but, let's face it, both the Republicans and Democrats are running inexperienced politicians this year and at least with the Republican's the inexperience is at the bottom of the ticket unlike the Democrats where the inexperience is at the top.

For the past week, Palin and her family have had to endure all manner of outrageous claims that were about as substantial as those that Obama has a gerbil fetish just because he likes to dress gerbils up in lederhosen. Even the mainstream media has given up all pretense of being unbiased in order to spread lies about Palin. And if you think for one minute that the media doesn't know they're spreading lies watch this clip of Fox's Megyn Kelly speaking to the editor of a hit piece from Us Weekly magazine:

Those who have been smearing Palin have been patting themselves on the back, confident that they were on the verge of forcing her to withdraw from the race. Well, as they found at last night, you mess with the hockey mom, you get the stick. She delivered a great speech to a conservative base that has been energized by her addition to the ticket. They clearly love Palin and the vicious, sexist attacks against her have only served to make them rally in her defense.

The best response to Palin's speech that the Democrats have been able to come up with so far is that someone wrote it for her. It's a stupid response when you consider that Obama, Biden, and McCain all have their own speech writers and apparently Palin was actively involved in the writing of her speech. That's probably why she was able to deliver it so well after her teleprompter malfunctioned forcing her to "wing" it.

For the first time I'm actually feeling kind of excited about this election. While I do disagree with Palin on some issues, overall I find that I really like her. Is that enough to get me to vote Republican this year? Probably not but I do find myself thinking that a McCain presidency might not be such a bad thing and maybe in a few years we'll see a more experienced Sarah Palin running on the top of the ticket with someone like Bobby Jindal as her VP. Now that could very well be something to get excited about.