Unleashed: The Attack On Sarah Palin
Okay. John McCain chose Sarah Palin without vetting her. That was his rash, impulsive decision. But, it’s time to untangle the Sarah Palin story — and it’s becoming clear that the only person who can really do it is Jerry Springer.
Let’s review: Sarah is one of those fundamentalist types who like her new partner, John McCain, supports abstinence education. Yet, Sarah’s 17 year old daughter is five months pregnant. That story came out to put an end to rumors that Sarah herself is actually the grandmother of her fifth child:
The 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, Palin said on Monday in an announcement intended to knock down rumors by liberal bloggers that Palin faked her own pregnancy to cover up for her child.
Either way, like her daughter, Sarah may have gone down that pre-marital sex path herself.
Then, we have Sarah’s sister and her ex-husband. That divorce seems like one for the ages. It’s resulted in an investigation of the Governor for possible abuse of power. The details of the divorce have been showing up in articles — it’s very ugly. And, there are a lot of offspring in that clan:
The idiot who posted this ridiculous diatribe is but one in a million at this point. With all these ridiculous attacks on Sarah Palin, many of them focusing on her personal life (an area Democrats often chide Republicans for focusing on), it’s important that we do our best to keep this debate honest and forthright. Let’s take a look at the rumors and personal attacks floating around out there and see if any of them hold any weight. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments section below. With that said, let’s try to make sense of the nonsense…
Attack 1: Sarah Palin’s son Trig is actually her grandson.
The Liberal blogosphere has been going nuts with this conspiracy theory. Sarah Palin didn’t announce her pregnancy until she was five months along (which is completely normal for expectant mothers) and some photographs seem to show a not-so-pregnant-looking Palin just months before the birth of Trig. Also, there have been several photos of her teenage daughter sporting what appears to be a baby-bump.
This is one of the more foolish and despicable attacks among the anti-Palin crowd and the buzz was gaining so much traction that it forced the McCain campaign to issue a statement refuting the lies. The facts paint a much different (albeit less tantalizing) story. Sarah Palin, like many Alaskans, is an outdoor enthusiast and a very athletic woman. It’s not uncommon for women like this to appear underweight during pregnancy. This is not to say that Palin didn’t gain the token ‘baby weight’ that most expectant mothers pile on — in fact, other photos, snapped when Palin was eight and nine months along, show a clearly pregnant figure.
Sarah Palin’s newborn son Trig is, just that, Sarah Palin’s child. It should also be noted that Trig was born with Down Syndrome — an affliction more common to children of older mothers. The idea that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover up for her teenage daughter is ridiculous and, more importantly, not true. The McCain campaign did acknowledge that Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is currently five months pregnant and plans to marry the father of the child. This fact alone would make the entire consiracy impossible. Yet, instead of apologizing for the error, Liberal bloggers are using this new revelation to attack Palin and paint her as an aloof mother.
Attack 2: Sarah Palin was booed at a speech in Pennsylvania.
Again, this tall tale simply doesn’t stand up to the raw facts. The ‘booing‘ occurred during a line in Palin’s speech where she mentions, and has kind words for, Hillary Clinton. The crowd wasn’t booing Sarah Palin, they were booing Hillary Clinton. Using the same faulty analysis, I could frame a story about Barack Obama’s big DNC-ending speech in the same light. The crowd booed at every mention of John McCain or George Bush but they weren’t booing Obama — they were booing Republicans. The same is true in the case of Sarah Palin’s Pennsylvania speech.
Attack 3: Sarah Palin’s first child, Track Palin, was conceived out of wedlock.
I guess it doesn’t benefit the anti-Palin crowd much to mention that Track Palin, now 19-years-old, signed up for the military last September 11. He’s headed to Iraq before too long and he is, by all accounts, nothing less than a fantastic kid. Track was born on or around April 20, 1989 and Sarah and Todd Palin were married on August 29, 1988, they eloped. At the base of this argument is an elementary question — who cares? I would imagine a large portion of youngest-in-the-family children were born out of wedlock and I don’t see how this argument is relevant to the election. Sarah Palin has never publicly said her child was born ‘in wedlock’ so it’s not a case of anyone lying and there’s also that inside chance that Track Palin was born premature. Again, I’m forced back to that obvious question, pair of questions, even, ‘Who cares?’ and ‘How is this relevant?’ come to mind. Additionally, one of the sources for dates in this out of wedlock’ debate is Liberal commentator Alan Colmes (who provides the child’s unverified birthdate).
Attack 4: Sarah Palin used undue influence to fire an Alaskan State Trooper.
This will be one of the more prominent attacks on Sarah Palin’s credibility in the run up to the election. In the next several sentences I will give you an unbiased crib-notes version of the story.
Sarah Palin’s sister was married to Alaskan State Trooper Mike Wooten until the pair ended their relationship in a nasty divorce. Mike Wooten used a taser on his stepson, shot a moose out of season, drank beer in his police cruiser and threatened Sarah Palin’s father (then a member of Alaska’s First Family). For this, along with about ten other infractions on his police record, Palin thought Wooten should be fired. Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan refused, after a year-long investigation proving many of the allegations to be true, to fire the Trooper.
Eventually, Monegan was fired. Monegan worked at the behest of the Governor and Palin could fire him on a whim if she pleased but she claims it was Monegan’s refusal to fill department vacancies, combat alcohol abuse and differences on budgeting issues that made her think twice about Monegan’s employment. The ’smoking gun’ in this case is a phone call from Palin’s Director of Boards and Commissions, Frank Bailey. If you listened to the radio show yesterday, you heard me play the call. It’s not even remotely close to a smoking gun proving Palin’s involvement. In a sense, ‘Troopergate’, as it has been dubbed, is more of an open and shut case than it appears. Monegan was clearly an incompetent leader lining up against the Governor and refusing to fire someone who threatened her family, for political reasons. He had to be fired.
Attack 5: Sarah Palin is a ‘reckless’ mother because of how she handled a pregnancy.
This one’s a doozy. Sarah Palin’s latest child (you know, the one that’s really her granddaughter) is Trig Palin. Trig was born with Down Syndrome, as I stated above, in April of this year. Several male Liberal bloggers, who I’m pretty sure have yet to give birth to, well, anything, have questioned Palin’s activities on the day Trig was born.
Sarah Palin felt some early signs of labor in late April. Her amniotic fluid was ‘leaking‘ and her contractions, though weak, had begun. She felt well enough to continue her day as planned and, after giving a speech to an Energy Conference in Texas, hopped on a plane and headed home. She flew from Dallas to Anchorage on Alaska Airlines, stopping in Seattle to check in with a doctor during a short layover. She then headed for the hospital with her Husband and gave birth to Trig.
I guess these Liberal men, who would have been fuming were Hillary to have been the Democratic nominee under attack by Republicans in a similar circumstance, think that Governor Palin should have checked into an unfamiliar hospital, in an unfamiliar city and without her husband to give birth to Trig. To me what occurred seemed like the obvious course of events. Any mother (and let’s remember this wasn’t her first birth) in the same situation would have made those choices. I guess in this case women deserve the right to choose — so long as it’s not what hospital they want to give birth at. Sarah Palin wasn’t being reckless, she was being a mother.
Attack 6: She has ‘no record’ and shouldn’t be within ‘a heartbeat’ of the Presidency.
This isn’t the most convenient attack for supporters of Barack Obama, being that he has even less experience than Palin. This glaring fact hasn’t kept these left-wing bomb throwers from tossing out rumors like the examples above, so, naturally, it doesn’t stop them here. This argument, unlike any other argument on this list (maybe 4 would pass if it was actually true), is actually relevant to the voting public. With McCain’s age and the overall dangerousness of the job of President, anyone in the Vice Presidential slot is always, as the critics say, ‘one heartbeat’ away from the Presidency. The problem with this argument is Barack Obama, a man with even less executive experience than Sarah Palin, is running for President — zero ‘heartbeats’ away from the lead gig.
Sarah Palin (unlike Hillary Clinton, who essentially rode her Husband’s political coattails to power) is a self-made woman and political powerhouse. She’s fought against corruption in Alaska with much success and she’s been a ‘maverick’ in the Republican party for almost 15 years. Barack Obama is serving his first term as Senator and, outside of statewide politics in Chicago, he has little other experience on which to judge his potential as President. I think this is the more dangerous of the arguments made by the left against Sarah Palin inasmuch as she’s used the same line Obama has used to defend his inexperience throughout this campaign — it’s a good thing not to be ‘tainted’ by Washington.
Closing Arguments: At this point, even Barack Obama has distanced himself from these despicable attacks. At a press conference in Michigan, Obama said “I have said before and I will repeat again: People’s families are off limits, and people’s children are especially off-limits. This shouldn’t be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin’s performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18 and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics.”
The statement above would mean something if it actually had a palpable effect — it won’t. This morning another useless piece of attack machine info was leaked. Brace yourself folks, Sarah Palin’s husband Todd got a DUI — when he was 22. Again, how is this relevant? I don’t even think it’s all that embarrassing. What a potential Vice President’s husband did in the 80’s has nothing to do with the performance of his wife and her running mate. All of these attacks together show one thing — Democrats are pulling no punches this election. However, using tactics like this against a woman is going to end up playing right into the Republican’s plan to use Palin to court the female vote.
If you were to believe these snark-ridden rants from Liberal bomb throwers, you’d come to believe that Sarah Palin is a moron, a slut, a poor mother and a complete liar. No one is perfect. We all have our flaws and we certainly all have family members with significant flaws as well. But Sarah Palin is, if anything, the portrait of a successful female in America. She’s happily married, immensely successful and she has an amazing family. As she campaigns on a positive platform it will become more clear just how disgraceful these acts sabotage are.
I told you before that I though Sarah Palin was a genius pick for McCain — I stand by that today. She will help him make inroads in both the religious and female voting blocks and she’s excited the Republican base. Palin is, according to a recent poll by Rasmussen, the second most popular candidate on either ticket, behind Barack Obama. She has helped McCain raise millions in donations and the duo has pulled in the biggest crowds that the McCain campaign has seen to date. These ridiculous attacks will continue to surface and, as time goes on, they will be embraced by more mainstream outlets but all signs point to Palin soldiering on…
Updates and Flashbacks...
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I’m working on linking my sources for this post now…
Reply to Shawn Wasson“Attack 3: Sarah Palin’s first child, Track Palin, was born out of wedlock.”
Attack 3 should read Sarah Palin’s first child, Track Palin, may have been conceived out of wedlock.
If true, it reflects Governor Palin’s on her position on birth control specifically and on her self-promoted “social conservative” values generally.
Reply to curiousNoted and fixed. Thanks.
Reply to Shawn WassonThis woman will be a disaster for the U.S. check this out:
Ever since she was first elected to her hometown
Wasilla city council in 1992, Palin’s political career
has been marked by controversy and petty political
infighting.
Currently under a state ethics investigation for the
firing of Alaska state police chief Walt Monegan-a
process in which Palin has clearly lied and attempted
an extensive administrative cover-up-Palin has a record
of controversial dismissals dating back to her days as
mayor of Wasilla and for which she faced a political
recall. One of those controversies surrounded the
firing of Wasilla police chief Irl Stambaugh.
Reached at a remote cabin in Alaska, Stambaugh, 59, a
lifelong police officer with a distinguished 30-year
career, described Palin’s administrative style as being
based on ‘fear and retribution. That’s how she
operates.’
In 1993, Stambaugh, then a Captain of the Patrol
Division of the Anchorage Police Department, was
selected over several other candidates to serve as
Wasilla’s first Chief of Police. By all accounts, he
developed a sterling reputation in the small town north
of Anchorage in the Mat-Su Valley, with a population
then of little more than 5,000. Palin was then serving
her first of two terms on the City Council.
‘Wasilla is a pretty quiet place,’ Stambaugh noted in
an exclusive interview with The Black Star News. ‘Not a
lot of crime. Pretty laid back.’ But he did notice a
spike in drunk driving during the late morning
hours-between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m., when Wasilla’s bars
were required to close for merely an hour.
As had been the case in Anchorage during his tenure on
the police force there, Stambaugh supported closing
down Wasilla’s bars at 2 a.m.
Ignoring the public safety issues underlying
Stambaugh’s recommendation, Palin, then a city council
member, placed her finger to the political winds and
sided with the bar owners and late-night bar patrons
who opposed the change in operating hours.
When Palin was elected as Wasilla’s mayor in 1996,
Stambaugh immediately found himself at odds with the
ambitious, often self-aggrandizing Palin. Indeed,
Palin, who was photographed carrying a sign declaring
‘Law Enforcement for McCain’ when she was introduced to
the nation this past week in Ohio, actually has a
lengthy record of opposing law enforcement officials in
Alaska.
When the Alaska legislature proposed expanding Alaska’s
already liberal laws to include carrying concealed
weapons in schools, banks and bars, Stambaugh and
several other Alaska police chiefs opposed the
legislation. ‘We were simply applying common sense to
the use of guns,’ Stambaugh noted. ‘Even in the Old
West, you left your guns at the door. Guns and booze
don’t mix.’
But Palin saw the opportunity to placate extremists in
the National Rifle Association supporting the expansion
into schools, banks and bars, and publicly supported
the legislation. When then governor, Tony Knowles,
sided with law enforcement officials and vetoed the
NRA-sponsored legislation, Palin came to Stambaugh and
let him know that she didn’t think it was his right to
oppose her on political issues.
Once Palin was elected Mayor of Wasilla, she dropped
the hammer on Stambaugh.
While to Stambaugh’s face she told him that he was
doing ‘a wonderful job’ and assured the police chief
that she ‘was not going to fire him,’ two weeks after
the last assurance Stambaugh came into his office and
found a letter telling him not to come back the next
day.
So, too, did Wasilla Librarian Mary Ellen Emmons, who
recoiled against Palin’s attempts at censoring books on
the library’s shelves.
She also asked for the resignation of Wasilla’s Public
Works Director, John Felton, who was replaced by Palin
with her political crony Cindy Roberts, who had no
engineering background but had extensive Republican
Party connections.
By all accounts, these were professional and dedicated
public servants who had simply refused to kowtow to
Palin’s extremist right-wing dictates.
A group calling itself Concerned Citizens of Wasilla
threatened a recall against Palin.
Stambaugh, who by all accounts had nothing to do with
the recall effort, said that it was eventually
deterred, in part, because Palin agreed to reinstate
Emmons but, more importantly, because of Palin’s
reputation of political vengeance and retribution.
‘People had to worry about their standing in the
community,’ he noted. ‘They had to worry about their
jobs, their businesses, their careers, their families.’
Stambaugh eventually sued, but lost after a lengthy
three-year court battle which found that Palin had the
right to fire city department heads at will.
Stambaugh then took a job in Bosnia, working for the
U.N. peacekeeping team there, before returning to serve
as Executive Director of Alaska’s Police Standards
Council.
Now retired, and an avid fisherman, Stambaugh is happy
to be out of the political fray. But he is concerned
about Palin’s selection to serve as McCain’s running
mate, though not surprised.
‘Sarah is extremely media savvy and has always been
good at promoting herself,’ said Stambaugh. ‘McCain was
obviously looking for a female candidate, someone who
was different, new-a fresh face. There’s been a lot of
excitement generated around the novelty of it.’
Stambaugh, a big bear of a man at 6′2′ and 260 pounds,
is not buying any of it. ‘Those of us who have worked
with her know better,’ he declared.
Apparently, McCain, did not do a lot of vetting Palin’s
political past prior to her last-minute selection. No
one from McCain’s office called Stambaugh, who served a
tour of duty in Vietnam following the Tet Offensive in
1968.
‘Even Palin’s own mother-in-law, Faye Palin, said that
she doesn’t agree with Sarah on anything and that the
only reason McCain selected her is because she’s a
woman,’ Stambaugh noted. ‘I think that pretty much says
it all. I certainly wouldn’t want her to have the
nuclear codes to our country’s defense system.’
As for her administrative style working in the White
House, Stambaugh observed: ‘I’m not sure if she’d be
able to get away with it in Washington. There might be
more exposure and scrutiny. But she’s certainly not one
to change her ways.’
____________________________
Reply to BitsyGalAt least that was an unbiased article… [/sarcasm]
Reply to Peeved GuyWhere did you find it, on HuffPo?
Oh, and by the way, I really appreciate you posting the same long, biased article in response to at least three of the stories on this site.
Quantity over quality is always a winning move.
Reply to Peeved GuyJesus, and I thought this post was long…
Reply to Shawn WassonShawn I was just about to accuse you of hyperbole again.
Please provide links to your sources!
This is the first I have heard many of these claims.
I listen to liberal talk radio all day. I read a lot of conjecture on news sites and the occasional blog. All the points you made do not sound mainstream to me, more like gossipy blogs.
Don’t pin this on Democrats or “liberals” as a whole.
Reply to WayneAccording to Sarah Palin herself: “will someone tell me what a Vice Presdent does?”
Sarah Palin thinks the Founding Father wrote the Pledge of Allegance and that they put the words “under God” in it. she said “if it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, its good enough for me?”
This is further indication that John McCain has BAD JUDGEMENT. John McCain has had cancer 3 times. the VP has a 1 in 3 chance of becoming the president. He thinks she’d be a good President? hello?
sources were saying that he met her for 5 minutes once. Now they say he never even met her ever,
She’s never even been to the lower 48 states except for a Governors convention
Reply to BitsyGalSarah Palin was supporting Ron Paul when she supposedly had her 5 minute meeting with McCain that made him think she was qualified. What a joke. I bet she gave McCain a hummer for the job. She supported the secession of Alaska before she was elected there. They like Sarah because she is not qualified just like Michael Brown, Porter Goss, Monica Goodling. It just goes to show the terrible judgement of McCain.
Reply to BitsyGalWhere are you getting this stuff??
I thought maybe it was HuffPo, but I now believe that you are reading PrisonPlanet or InfoWars to get your “information”.
Reply to Peeved GuyShe’s in full blow caricature mode now.
Speaking before the Pentecostal church, Palin painted the current war in Iraq as a messianic affair in which the United States could act out the will of the Lord.
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
Religion, however, was not strictly a thread in Palin’s foreign policy. It was part of her energy proposals as well. Just prior to discussing Iraq, Alaska’s governor asked the audience to pray for another matter — a $30 billion national gas pipeline project that she wanted built in the state. “I think God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that,” she said.
Twilight Zone out there. Just like the current fuck-up-in-chief we have. Yup, more of the same bullshit we’re already dealing with.
Let me guess, man and dinosaur co-existed, peacefully; the earth is flat and it’s only 6,000 years old. Oh, and the RePUBICon’s got their massive tighty-whitey’s in a bunch over Rev. Wright - well, this one’s making Wright look positively angelic.
She starts dancing with snakes, McSame’s really fucked.
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.”
Reply to flip11101There is now serious and sustained national momentum for Barack Obama. In the Gallup daily tracking poll, he is now at 52% vs 42% for HRC. This is the highest he has ever been in this poll and the 3rd consecutive day that he has polled at 50% or higher.
Reply to RacerXFirst of all, you can get a different picture if you follow Rasmussen. I tend to stay away from Gallup polls as they are weighted bizarrely. Secondly, national polls don’t mean squat — this is a Representative Republican and it’s all about the delegates, baby.
Reply to Shawn WassonIt must have been hard for this Hockey Mom to watch Track play seeing he spent his senior year in Michigan. Maybe it has something to do with the school bus incident back in 11/05 where he and 3 friends vandalized the entire fleet.
Did you know if you are the Governor’s son you can join the National Guards instead of serving jail time for drug offenses.
Then there’s the MONO that kept her oldest daughter out of school for 4+ months. Why did she leave the local high school and transfer to one in Anchorage?
Reply to louise[...] Image courtesy of http://wjnoblog.com/2008/09/unleashed-the-attack-on-sarah-palin/. [...]