Ironic Quote Of The Day: Sarah Palin Edition
“Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more than words.”
—- Sarah Palin
“Leaders are expected to give good speeches, but leadership is so much more than oratory. Real leadership requires deeds even more than words.”
Doug, do NOT make me compare Palin’s accomplishments during her abbreviated tenure as governor vs. Obama’s legislative record… you will NOT like the results.
J.
Doug, Doug, Doug,
Lest you forget, when she was an Alaskan politican and had the opportunity to use corruption charges against her political enemies to advance herself politically, she bravely did so! And as Mayor, she bravely ran the finances of Wasila into the ground by pursuing an unnecessary hockey stadium! And as Governor, she bravely hired unqualified cronies to fill state offices! And she bravely quit being Governor when the going got tough!
@Jay Tea:
She. Quit. Her. Job.
As far as I’m concerned, that negates whatever “accomplishments” she had in the half-term she served as Governor. Also, as others have noted, as Governor she excelled at working across the aisle. Now, she’s just a shrill partisan hack who rarely says anything of interest on the important issues of the day.
Alex, are you saying that the people Palin charged with corruption were NOT guilty of the charges she brought against them? ‘Cuz history would tend to disagree with you. Unlike the BS charges that her enemies used to try to bankrupt her, her charges were solidly grounded and resulted in people being forced out of office.
Which brings up an interesting point I like to make… Palin’s actually stood up against corruption in her own party’s ranks. Obama NEVER has. He’s a master of the “go along to get along” school of politics — and having come up through the Chicago machine, he’s had plenty of opportunities to show his allegiance to that principle.
J.
Nope. I’m saying there’s nothing brave about using corruption charges against your political enemies in order to benefit yourself. Once she was in office, Palin was a true Alaskan poltiician and believer in the spoils system for her cronies.
When it benefitted her politically.
Jay, please name ONE act of corruption that:
1) Led to a convinction in court or by an ethics board;
2) That Obama was definitely aware of prior to legal action;
3) That Obama had the opportunity to do anything about; and
4) Obama failed to do anything about.
Just one. With citations.
“Ironic Quote Of The Day: Sarah Palin Edition”
And your point is?????? I love it far left Liberals use “irony”.
“Now, she’s just a shrill partisan hack who rarely says anything of interest on the important issues of the day.
”
And YOU are a shrill partisan hack with a VERY acute case of Palin Derangement Syndrome.
>I love it far left Liberals use “irony”.
SJ, I’m just curious–if Doug is “far left,” could you give me some examples of people you would class in each of the following categories?
center left
center right
far right
Inconvenient facts Doug doesn’t like:
1) The bullshit ethics charges against Palin were threatening to bankrupt her family and incapacitating her entire administration.
2) The folks she had worked with across the aisle not only did nothing while their allies worked to bankrupt Palin, but egged them on.
3) There is a difference between legitimate ethics charges, like those Palin used to take down her fellow Republicans who were corrupt, and the bullshit ones that were almost unanimously dismissed (the sole exception being one she essentially pleaded “no contest” to because it was cheaper than fighting it). Kind of odd for a lawyer, to see no difference between, essentially, criminal charges that are dismissed or end in acquittals and criminal charges that end in convictions.
I don’t think Doug has ever answered the old question: what would he have counseled Palin to do — stay in office while running up legal bills that added up to not only double her family’s annual income, but 40% of their net worth, and fight the challenge to her being allowed to have a legal defense fund and NOT be personally liable for those bills?
Actually, yes. Considering how Doug argues that the debt ceiling is no big deal, at least he’s being consistent. Being hugely in debt is no big deal.
J.
Jay Tea
I’ve never said that debt is no big deal, it is a very serious deal. Which is why it depresses me to see Republicans and Democrats behaving like partisan hacks rather than doing what needs to be done (and yes one of the things that must be done is raising the debt ceiling, deal with it)
@Alex Knapp: I’m no prosecutor, with no subpoena powers, Alex. But here are a few things that should have smelled really, really bad to Obama:
1) Tony Rezko.
B) Slumlord Valerie Jarrett.
III) Governor Rod Blagojevich.
d) Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner.
And mayhap not on the “criminally corrupt” scale, but certainly high on the “despicable human beings” list, toss in William Ayers and Reverend Wright.
J.
Jay,
Do you have any evidence that Obama was aware of their wrongdoings prior to legal action and failed to act? At all?
If you want to go there, is it okay if I point out that Sarah Palin was married to a guy who belonged to an organization that advocates treason against the government of the United States?
@Alex Knapp: As I said, Alex, gimme subpoena power (or, alternately, a press corps actually interested in doing their jobs) and I’ll find out.
Actually, Geithner and Jarrett are still part of his cabal, so there goes that excuse. Blagojevich and Rezko? Obama — on those few occasions he was asked about them — pleaded ignorance and chose to stay out of the story entirely, not even “if true, they should step down.”
Maybe if we mentioned that Tim Geithner has ridden on corporate jets on more than a few occasions…
J.
So basically, you don’t have any evidence. You’re just making assertions. Gotcha.
Maybe President Obama was just oblivious to any corruption going on around him. He attended Wright’s church for 20 years without realizing what a whackjob the guy was, so it’s not out of the question.
I know it is “Accepted Truth” that Wright is some kind of monster, but I certainly haven’t seen any evidence he said anything worse than your typical Evangelical TV preacher. He said “G*d D*mn the US for it’s sins” while your average Evangelical says something like ‘Louisiana deserved for God to send a hurricane because they tolerated sin’ or ‘If the US continues on this sinful path, we will foster G*d’s retribution’. I’m just not seeing the difference there. Either all such statements are beyond the pale, or none of them are.
@Alex Knapp: Not making accusations, just asking questions.
But in the Geithner case, that all came out during his confirmation hearings. Obama could have pulled the nomination, but didn’t. So it’s clear that he thinks the guy who is in charge of the IRS shouldn’t be expected to obey the tax laws.
And Jarrett? Thre words: “Grove Parc Plaza.” She ran the housing complex in Obama’s old Senate district, which even the Boston Globe said was uninhabitable — so bad, it had to be demolished.
OK, let’s give Obama a pass on ignorance. He didn’t know that one of his closest advisors who was running the worst slum in his Senate district. He didn’t know that his pastor of 20 years was a race-baiting, America-hating demagogue. He didn’t know that the guy who helped him land a sweetheart deal on his house was one of the most crooked financiers in Chicago political circules. He didn’t realize that his neighbor, partner in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and writer of books he praised was the same guy who was an unrepentant domestic terrorist.
That’s a hell of a defense there, Alex. “There’s no proof Obama actually knew these bastards were such bastards. He could have been a completely clueless idiot!”
OK, you got him off from being convicted. Now explain how he’s STILL qualified to be president.
J.
Jay,
First off, I opposed Geithner’s nomination because he was in bed with Wall Street, but considering that Obama’s in bed with Wall Street there’s not much I can do about that. But Geithner’s mistake was minor, he paid his past due taxes. Done and done. Do you mean to tell me that YOU’VE never, ever in your whole life have made a mistake on your taxes?
I’ll give you Valerie Jarrett. One more example of the stupidity of contracting government services to private contractors. Chalk that up with privatizing prisons, trash collection, roads, schools, and all the other privatization disasters that conservatives and neoliberals like Obama have forced on us.
The man served his country as a marine and came back to be spit on by draft dodging white guys because of the color of his skin. He’s entitled to a little bitterness. Though I admit it would be better for him to take Christ’s example and overcome that. I have, however, read several of Wright’s sermons and more than a few of them are pretty damn inspiring. Have you read Wright’s body of work?
Run by the same Annenbergs who are long-time Republican donors and gave their money to the McCain/Palin campaign.
I also note that you’ve ignored Palin’s acts: using her Yahoo account illegally for state business. She’s married to a guy who was an activist in an organization that advocates treason. She bankrupted her hometown as Mayor. The list goes on.
Your case against Obama would be a lot stronger if you couldn’t make identical charges against Palin.
@Alex Knapp: But Alex, your argument seems to be “Palin’s just as bad as Obama.” Are you sure you wanna go down that road? Wouldn’t you be better off making the argument that, in some way, BETTER than Palin?
Obama has no problems with a confessed tax cheat enforcing the tax code. He apparently also has no problems with a far worse tax cheat (Charlie Rangel) writing the tax code. Go ahead and say that Geithner’s offenses were minor — they were STILL in the area where he was supposed to have such great expertise and be in charge of punishing people who did exactly what he did — and wasn’t punished for.
Hey, how can I get in on the Geithner/Rangel loopholes? How much money do I have to give to Democrats?
Is this the Change you were Hoping for?
J.
@Mr. Grouchypants:
@Jay Tea:
For 20 years? Then there must be a lot more evidence of it than the minutes that you both have been watching… Wonder why there isn’t…
Yeah, it was really unfortunate for President Obama, that Wright suddenly began believing in conspiracy theories about AIDS right in the middle of the campaign. I suspect the CIA was behind it somehow.
@PJ: Wright was a major influence on Obama — even to the point of using a Wright sermon as the foundation for a book title and bragging about how he’d bought tapes of Wright’s sermons to listen to while in DC. Right up until other folks started noticing what Obama hadn’t noticed in two decades.
Way to go, Barack.
J.
I love these Palin threads, soooo entertaining!
@Jay Tea: Actually, Jay, while we are all painfully aware that this is a talking point you like to bring up (almost as much as the Thatcher quote), it is anything but interesting. Perhaps now that this has been cleared up for you, you’ll stop acting on this misapprehension.
@Jay Tea:
They noticed what? Except for the clip that has been shown again and again? Once more. 20 years of sermons and that all there is you can point at? A couple of minutes?
How about the “CIA created AIDS” BS from Wright? Not quite as common, but still entertaining.
Oh, and WR, calling something a “talking point” doesn’t magically make it untrue. Hell, often “talking points” become talking points because they’re true.
J.
It must really burn some people’s britches that even though Tony Rezko, Valerie Jarrett, Rod Blagojevich, William Ayers, and Reverend Wright were all tied around the President’s neck, he still won the 2008 election, and has a better than even chance of winning reelection…but hey, at least Sarah Palin is the subject of a Newsweek cover story…I mean, that is something…
@Jay Tea: No, and repeating something over and over again doesn’t make it true, either. Or convincing.
@An Interested Party: And it’s even more remarkable that you are willing to excuse those sorts of things JUST because it irritates people you don’t like. You put the discomfort of your political rivals above the appalling associations of Obama, huh?
Says a hell of a lot about you, sport. And it’s not flattering.
J.
@Jay Tea: It’s not remarkable at all, as I made no claims of excusing anything, although I will admit that I’m doubly amused by your ranting and raving on this subject as well as your constant whining about how many of your comments keep getting voted down…keep up the good work, sport…
jay:
This has been said many times, and I have asked the following question many times: do you have any proof of what Palin spent of her own money defending herself against those ethics charges?
Even though I have asked this question many times, it has never been answered. But hope springs eternal. Maybe this time will be different.
It turns out that plenty of money was spent by other people (link, link), so I’m skeptical about the idea that she ended up spending a lot of money herself. It sounds like typical Palinesque fiction.
@jukeboxgrad: I never answered that one because I never saw it. But then again, if I had seen it, I wouldn’t have answered it, because it’s such a mind-numbingly stupid question, I’d have taken it as a joke.
But I’ll presume you’re serious. You seem dumb enough to ask that kind of question seriously.
Do we have any evidence that Palin actually paid any of her legal bills out of her own pocket? No. Largely because when they were settled, she was a private citizen and the beneficiary of a legal defense fund.
Palin apparently postponed paying those bills until the establishment of a legal defense fund to handle them, as is often the case in such matters. Then the very existence of such a fund became the final bullshit ethics charge against her. At that point, the threat to her family’s financial health became dire: the bills had, at that point, added up to twice their annual income and 40% of their net worth. ($500,000, $250,000, and $1,200,000 respectively.) If she couldn’t use a legal defense fund, then — and only then — would your question have any relevance whatsoever.
Instead of taking the chance that she’d be exonerated as she had in every prior matter (save the one she’d pleaded “no contest” to when it turned out to be cheaper to just pay the disputed amount rather than fight it), and seeing that there was no end in sight to the bullshit charges, she resigned and made certain that her enemies couldn’t deny her the protection of said fund. At that point, where the money for her legal defense came from became no one’s business.
And your question lost even the slightest chance of having even a hint of relevance.
Congratulations. You’ve taken my suspicion that you’re an absolute idiot on all things Palin and proven it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Feel better now?
J.
Oh, and if you’re playing that little game where you keep asking the same question over and over, hoping that people will get tired of answering, and then saying “See? No one will answer it,” don’t bother. Remember this answer, because I probably won’t repeat it.
J.
Where is your evidence to support this claim? I don’t believe you. The largest matter was Troopergate, and most of the litigation regarding Troopergate happened long before she resigned. And was paid for by people other than her, as I have shown.
Where is your evidence to support this claim? Where does Palin herself even make this claim, let alone show evidence to support it?
Where is your evidence that such a charge was ever brought?
Where are you getting your numbers?
What “answer?” All you’ve done is provide more evidence of what we already know: you can’t manage to grasp that assertion is not evidence. This is the question I asked: do you have any proof of what Palin spent of her own money defending herself against those ethics charges?
I highlighted an important word, since you seem to have missed it the first time. All you’ve done is repeat the same assertion, with some extra unproven details thrown in. When are you going to show a shred of proof to support the claims you’re making? When you don’t even try that tends to create the impression that you know there isn’t any such evidence.
Oh yeah, one more thing.
I had forgotten about it, but there was a complaint raised about her legal defense fund, and that complaint was investigated by the Alaska Personnel Board (a body indirectly under her control). Do you know what they found? They did not find that the complaint was “bullshit.” They found that the complaint was correct (pdf):
So the trust did violate the law, but they let her off the hook because they decided she didn’t break the law “knowingly.” But she was required to make changes in how the trust worked.
So here’s what’s “bullshit:” your claim that the complaint was “bullshit.” But I suppose in your world according to Palin, she should have been allowed to break the law, and it was wrong to complain that she was breaking the law.
There’s a reason why ethics complaints were raised: because she did a bunch of things that were unethical.
@jukeboxgrad: So, juke, you’re agreeing that she wasn’t corrupt, but ran afoul a poorly crafted law and was allowed to correct her errors without penalty — acknowledging that it wasn’t “corrupt.”
And this has been my primary source for some time. Note how many of them translate to “this was BS.”
As far as the dollar amounts you were so critical to hear about… here’s the legal bills, here’s the income, and here’s the worth.
Note that she and Todd made all that themselves, starting out pretty much from scratch.
Here’s the Wikipedia entry on her resignation:
All entirely accurate and readily verifiable.
Now, you wanna explain why you were so bent out of shape over “it never cost her a penny?” As I said, Lee, that has to be one of the most astonishingly stupid things ever asked.
J.
@jukeboxgrad: By the way, that was a fascinating link you provided. Here’s an example of just how corrupt Palin was:
So, even AFTER she got the state to agree to pony up for her legal bills, she STILL tried to find ways to get her constituents off the hook. And here she tries to find other ways around the law:
So she set up the defense fund under the guidance of three law firms, asking each to make absolutely certain that it was within the letter of the law, and they screwed it up. So the state said “you messed it up, but you did all you could to get it right, so no fine — just make it right.” Apparently Alaska is more reasonable than the IRS, which holds you responsible for any mistakes you make — even if you ask them for advice first, and they give you bad advice, you’re still on the hook.
I understand your obsessions — really, I do. But don’t expect me to tolerate or respect them, let alone embrace them.
J.
Where did I agree to that? Nowhere. You should stop making things up.
Where is your evidence that the law is “poorly crafted?” Who else besides you ever claimed that this law is “poorly crafted?” If the law is “poorly crafted,” then what did she and/or her successor ever do to try to change or improve the law?
You are doing your usual thing: inventing your own facts.
Yes, which probably has a lot to do with her influence on the Personnel Board, and with her history with Petumenos: “The investigator hired by the Personnel Board is Tim Petumenos. In 2002, his firm handled the $15 million bond issue for Wasilla’s hockey complex, a pet project of then-mayor Palin.” I guess you probably think that makes him quite impartial.
Aside from that, she was required to return $386,000 in donations. A lot of people would think of that as a kind of “penalty.”
Petumenos found that she broke the ethics law. So did a separate investigator. Most people probably think that breaking an ethics law is a kind of “corrupt.”
You need to help me find the part of the article that documents what she spent. I guess you forgot that this is what I asked you.
That article just presents an unsubstantiated claim made by Palin, that she owed “over a half a million dollars.” The article does nothing to substantiate that claim, and it does nothing to establish that she ever actually spent a cent.
When you click through the links (including dealing with links that are broken), you discover that the underlying article doesn’t say this is “the worth.” It establishes the “least” she was worth. Which means that you are not in a position to make the claim you made (about legal bills being a certain % of her worth).
Baloney. All that article does is quote Palin making this claim:
This is no different than you making the claim. Just like you, the article presents no proof that the claim is true.
Do you understand the proper use of quote marks? I guess not. Where did I use those words?
Back here I established the silliness of that claim. Of course you responded by disappearing.
There you go again, inventing your own facts. What you just described is not what Petumenos said, because it’s not what happened. Here’s what happened:
Is that simple enough for you? She was warned (by Van Flein) not to do it, and she did it anyway. She was warned that the ethics complaint was “inevitable.” And Petumenos supported that complaint, requiring her to return the money. Still waiting for you to explain why you called the complaint “bullshit.” That was yet another example of you inventing your own facts. The complaint was valid.
By the way, we know that she claimed “more than half a million dollars in legal bills.” We also know that her legal defense fund was able to collect $386,000 from donors before she resigned. It took only about three months to collect that much. So tell us again how this was supposedly going to “bankrupt” her? Even assuming zero further dollars from donors, she could have paid the difference of what she allegedly owed. How does a bill of $100,000 or $200,000 “bankrupt” someone who is worth at least $1.2 million? I need help understanding how that calculation works. Let’s recall this claim you made:
How is it honest to make that statement while neglecting to mention that she had already collected donations covering roughly 80% of the alleged “bills?”
And here’s another piece of the picture that doesn’t fit. She resigned on 7/3/09. Here’s what Petumenos said about a year later (6/10): “As of March, the fund had spent $87,680 on legal and other expenses.” If she owed “more than half a million dollars” at the time she resigned (7/09), and had also collected $386,000 from donors by that time, why had the fund only “spent $87,680 on legal and other expenses” in the nine months after she resigned? Why not just use the money to promptly pay her bills? That is, if the bills were real.
As is typical with Palin, when you look closely at the facts her stories start to fall apart.
One more thing: as I have been predicting for a long time, I think she’s going to run, and I think she’s going to be nominated. So this issue is going to keep coming up. Getting your facts straight would be a good idea.
@jukeboxgrad: Here’s the only one worth responding to. From the Chatam report, your own source, under Findings Of Fact:
You wanna argue with your own source because I quoted it, be my guest.
J.
You’re joking, right? No one denies that “three law firms were retained.” The problem is not how many lawyers she hired. The problem is that she ignored the advice she didn’t want to hear, just like you ignore facts you don’t want to hear. Consider these two statements:
A) Three law firms were retained, asking each to make absolutely certain that it was within the letter of the law, and they screwed it up. They each told her it was OK, even though it wasn’t.
B) Three law firms were retained. One of the lawyers told her it wasn’t OK, but she did it anyway because another lawyer said it was OK. (It’s unknown what the third lawyer said.)
Can you comprehend that A and B are materially different? I guess not, because A is what you said, and B is what happened. I already cited the article explaining B. Here’s the text directly from the report, with more detail:
Let’s compare that to the phony claim you made:
The plain meaning of your “they” (“they screwed it up”) is that all three “screwed it up.” That is, all three gave her bad advice, so it’s not her fault that she followed bad advice. This is your claim. Trouble is, this claim is fiction. Only one of the three lawyers “screwed it up,” and that’s the one she decided to follow. Her own lawyer told her not to do it (at least not without checking with the AG first).
She knew she could not be “absolutely certain that it was within the letter of the law” because her own lawyer “strongly advised” her that she needed to ask the AG first. She decided to ignore that advice. So thanks again for yet another terrific example of how you routinely invent your own facts. And speaking of inventing facts, I guess I need to remind that the report also says this:
Palin violated the Ethics Act. The fund she set up was illegal. The complaint about this was valid. This is what you said:
Why did you say the complaint was “bullshit?” You must have some important facts that Petumenos overlooked. You should let him know.