Is Palin's entire political identity of being a "reformer" a guiltless and complete sham

Is Palin's entire political identity of being a "reformer" a guiltless and complete sham?
Palin astonishingly touts herself as a reformer despite her obvious, extravagant earmark requests. Do you find it disturbing that Palin can so willingly tout herself as a champion of reform when, in reality, she is one of the worst offenders of wasteful government spending? Do you find it disturbing that Palin can lie so easily about it without compunction? http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/10/palin.earmarks/ "But when Palin served as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla, outside Anchorage, she obtained about $27 million in federal "earmarks" during her last four years in office, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense." "Since becoming governor, she has cut the amount of money her vast, oil-rich state asks for from the federal government. But for the 2008 budget year, Alaska had more earmark requests per capita than any other state -- $500 for every resident." "Palin sought about $450 million in earmarks during her first two years in state office, according to federal records. They include nearly $8 million to improve a remote airport in the Aleutian Islands, a former Navy airfield that handles eight scheduled flights a month; $4 million to research sea crab stocks; and $2 million to research rockfish."
Politics - 15 Answers
Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
She's being exposed for the lies she has been claiming.
2 :
I've got underwear older than her political experience.
3 :
Hmmm, $450 million in two years for the largest state by far in the Country, and Obama $333 million in 143 days. I bet you can't name one of Obama's earmarks, huh? But he's more for change than Palin is? I guess earmarks isn't the issue, is it because by your standard they're both lying. (Oh and Palin taxed Big Oil while in 2005 Obama gave them HUGE tax breaks that McCain voted against. So Obama is a liar AND in Big Oil's pocket. Nice) Oh, then there is Obama's self admitted racism. HIS OWN WRITTEN WORDS... From Dreams of My Father: ” I FOUND A SOLACE IN NURSING A PERVASIVE SENSE OF GRIEVANCE AND ANIMOSITY AGAINST MY MOTHER’S RACE”. From ‘Dreams of my Father: “The emotion between the races could never be pure….. The other race would always remain just that: menacing, alien, and apart.” From ‘Dreams of My Father: “I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites” From Dreams Of My Father: “never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself..”. From Dreams Of My Father: “That hate hadn’t gone away,” he wrote, blaming “white people — some cruel, some ignorant, sometimes a single face, sometimes just a faceless image of a system claiming power over our lives.” From Dreams Of My Father: “There were enough of us on campus to constitute a tribe, and when it came to hanging out many of us chose to function like a tribe, staying close together, traveling in packs,” he wrote. “It remained necessary to prove which side you were on,to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names” From Dreams Of My Father: “I had grown accustomed, everywhere, to suspicions between the races.”
4 :
More sexism from the left. Unbelievable!
5 :
Stop being sexist....just kidding. It is definitely a complete sham.
6 :
The woman is a crazy loon and a fraud. Joke's on us, though
7 :
no. you libs do understand this is going to blow up in your face, don't you?
8 :
Palin’s early, tepid support for the bridge, followed by her open hostility to it as governor did not please the state’s GOP political establishment. As Amy Goldstein and Michael D. Shear observed in the August 30 Washington Post, Palin “has angered two of Alaska’s leading Republicans - Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young - by refusing to support their decades-long practice of securing federal money for the state, including Young’s effort to obtain $233 million for a structure dubbed the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ by critics because it would have connected a small town with an island populated with 50 people. In her short time in state office, she has repeatedly thwarted Stevens’s and Young’s interests and, at times, challenged their candidates - including their children.” While it may be unfair to say that Sarah Palin always treated the Bridge as Milton Friedman might have, she quickly grasped the project’s folly and ultimately put it out of the nation’s misery. In a country where politicians endlessly make demands until weary taxpayers capitulate, Palin scrapped the bridge soon after she was empowered to do so. Obama and Biden’s moaning about all of this would be far easier to stomach if they, too, opposed the Bridge to Nowhere. Not so. Obama and Biden had an excellent opportunity to do the right thing. Just seven weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Senator Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) proposed to transfer $125 million from the notorious Bridge’s budget and instead devote it to rebuilding the Interstate 10 Twin Spans Bridge between New Orleans and St. Tammany’s Parish. The storm chopped up the bridge. “We have the largest natural catastrophe we have ever seen in our history,” Coburn said on the Senate floor on October 20, 2005. “It is time we reassess the priorities we utilize in this body as we think about our obligations at home.” Coburn’s amendment failed 15-82. Obama and Biden were among the “nays.” They and 80 other senators preferred to protect the earmarking tradition than to assist Katrina’s tempest-tossed citizens. Obama and Biden put pork first and people second. While the residents of New Orleans and southern Louisiana endured perhaps their greatest challenge since the Civil War, Obama and Biden both turned their backs on these embattled Americans.
9 :
Murkowski look it up
10 :
Yep, she's a liar. John McCain is a Liar.
11 :
Nope... Obama is the true SHAM! By the way... your quotes are not cited from were they came!?! Purposely? "Since becoming governor, she has cut the amount of money her vast, oil-rich state asks for from the federal government." -From the article you have as a reference.
12 :
She is typical repuke tool and a liar! BTW amazingkarma, Obama is not a racist! this guy takes a few select words here and there out of context, pastes them together and tries to paint a different picture than what was actually written - you are as big a liar as Palin is - perhaps worse!
13 :
I find her a typical Republican politician . Lie with a straight face and if all else fails , lie,lie and blink your eyes very fast , it takes the attention of your answers .
14 :
Actually, people who make these arguments obviously don't understand how the system works. The Federal government taxes, then sets aside money for uses at the local level. So $0 in earmarks means nothing gets done. A governor, mayor, or anyone else wouldn't be doing their job if they don't go after Federal funds. The problem is, earmarks set aside for "Pet Projects" the people really don't want. Getting Federal money to build a new water/sewer system or to four-lane a heavily traveled highway is a good thing. Getting Federal money to build a monument to postal workers is waste. I don't know Alaska's infrastructure needs. I do know that it is a very rural state that has needs that many others don't. I also know how the political games is played. Like it or not, sometimes you have to give a little to get a little. Gov. Palin strikes me as the type that is smart enough to know which battles to fight and which ones not to. Here's what's not asked - is that airport there for emergency purposes? What public purpose does it serve? When I worked in local government, we build a remote fire station that doesn't get that many calls, but it did save one life in its first year! Another thing I read that was a criticism of Gov. Palin when she was mayor was the Civic center that was build. We did the same when I was in Gov. No it did not "pay" for itself, as none in the country ever do. However, when you consider the revitialized downtown, the restuarants, the hotels, etc. that moved it, it was a good thing.
15 :
McCain and the GOP had to change their mantra. Before Palin it was all about McCain's experience over Obama. Now that McCain can no longer make that claim with having Palin on the ticket it's now all about 'reformer'. Neither McCain nor Palin are reformers in any sense of the word. McCain has been part of the very Congress he bad mouths for 26 years. And look at who McCain's handlers are (his campaign staffers). They are all either lobbyists, former Bush Jr campaign people, former Bush Sr. campaign people, or Karl Rove disciples. In other words voting for McCain is absolutely voting for 4 more years of the same crap we've already seen.