Note, this thread is skating on thin ice as it is.  Naz has made it very clear that political threads are no different than other threads, and that I have been a bit too leniant, particularly where it concerns baiting other people. This thread, particularly the devicive nature of the OP, is very much on the radar.  I'm not giving you (or anyone) an official warning, just a caution (to everyone) to keep it toned down so I don't have to get involved as a moderator.

Now, as for the banning books thing, it has been debunked (and you can add that to the OP).  The librarian was not the only person asked to submit a resignation..everyone in the administration was so that she could pick her staff as she came into office. This is actually a very very intelligent think to do, considering that she was potentially dealing with a number of folks who were appointed by the incumbant in her party she defeated, and particularly when you consider she ran on a message of "cleaning house".  It was a blanket request to everyone who served at "the pleasure of the governor". Even factcheck has done an article on this saying she never attempted to have books banned in the first place.  Dead issue.

As for the troopergate issue, I've looked at it quite a bit and it too is a non-issue.  Even Monegan was quoted in the anchorage papers as saying neither her, her family, or her administration requested he be fired.  At the absolute most she pressured for the guy to be fired (and even that isn't proven or really even eluded to) and never forced the issue.  Totally within her legal rights as a citizen much less a Governor. 

The stupidity of the issue is that if the facts had come in a different order you would be bitching that she was protecting her ex-brother-in-law scum-bag cop who received only a 5 day suspension after the review board determined that he had done a number of improper things (See below).  The real story here is that she didn't go further, I wish she had fired Monegan for this, I wish had insisted Wooten be fired. Thats the real scandal here. I'm more dissapointed that she didn't outright demand he fire wooten or submit a resignation than anything else.

So the reason I say its a dead issue is because the review board did find him guilty of these things and people are not going to say "WOW she tried to have a crooked cop fired! How dare she!". Well some folks will but they've made up their minds, but the folks that matter, the swing voters, are going to be thoroughly underwhelmed by the case just like they were in Alaska where her approval rating soars above every other Governor in the US both before and after being picked for VP, and both before and after this "scandal"erupted.

Just to send this point home here is a quote from the AST when they suspended Wooten:

"The record clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable, and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession,” Col. Julia Grimes, then head of Alaska State Troopers, wrote in March 1, 2006, letter suspending Wooten for 10 days. After the union protested it, the suspension was reduced to five days

-Emphasis added by me (obv)

Oh and here is the list of things he was suspended for:

OPM 101.070(A) - Unbecoming Conduct - 3 incidents
OPM 101.070(B) - Personal Conduct - 3 incidents
OPM 101.060(F) - Failure to Perform Duties Properly, Use of Government Property - 1 incident
OPM 101.070(C) - Conformance to Laws - 2 incidents
OPM 101.070(F) - Use of Alcohol - 1 incident
OPM 103.030(A) - Operation to be preudent and lawful - 1 incident

What the F@$% do you have to do to get fired? Good Lord.

This is a non-issue.

Sources:

Records - Palin's Interview - Investigators notes on the Interview - Notes On Todd's Interview - Complaint E-Mail from Palin about Wooten - Info On Wooten quoting from suspension letter - Letter Suspending Wooten

Frivolous by the very definition.

Since I'm already at it lets go ahead and address the rest of the list:

mother-in-law considering voting for Barack Obama - Who cares?

Palin's Husband Has DWI -22 years ago...before they were married...again who cares?

Iraq War is a "task that is from god" - Horribly taken out of context, the quote from even the left-leaning MSNBC article you linked explicitly states that she is asking people to pray that this is true..she isn't stating it as a fact.  She also clarified this recently in pointing out that she was not saying that we should pray god is on our side but rather pray that we are on god's side.  A lot different in context..but not your point I take it?  You object to her religion period..which is fine but a  lot of people admire and respect it..in fact I would go so far as to say yourself and others are fairly bigotted on this issue.

"vetting or lack thereof" - Ironically I've heard it argued that her problems have been an asset to the campaign...the attacks on her are afterall what made her so popular =P

But I guess we can address the issue directly as well.  The fact is that the way vetting for veeps is done is a batch process you take prospective choices and dig into their pasts and see who survives.  Specifically the McCain had a team headed by former Reagan White House Counsel Arthur Culvahouse and she was whittled down from a group of 21 with information being dug up on every last one of them and narrowed down.  The top 6 of the group were actually informed that they were in consideration and were given a questionaire to fill out.  Furthermore the only people who could possibly know how well she was vetted have actually gone on the record as saying "Everything that has come out over the last couple of days is information that we already knew — that came during this vetting process". And the simple fact of the matter is that Culvahouse was spotted in Juneau well before the pick back in early July about 2 months before the pick.

Source

Palin: "If Pledge Of Allegiance Was Good Enough For Founding Fathers, It's Good Enough For Me":

Great and I suppose we should crucify her right next to Obama for thinking there are 57 states?  At least her mistake wouldn't have been cought by my 6 year old nephew (true story).

So are you about done with this? Can I lock this trash? Or should I just wait until you give me a good reason?

PS - If you do want to keep this open still then please at least update the OP to reflect what has been shown to be debunked crap  (ie pretty much all of it).

SNL sketch was great! Looking forward to more. Guess I'll watch SNL again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnRUKIMegn8

also,
Do you think if Obama chose Hilary as V.P., would McCain choose Palin as his running-mate? Probably not.

Yeah the SNL bit was hilarious. I wonder if Obama's still going to host an episode. McCain and Gore have been on there. Obama was supposed to host last night, but canceled it due to Hurricane Ike.


@sqrl, I'm working on a big update to the OP. I'll put anything in the OP anybody requests from now on.


My issue with the Troopergate case is not that Wooten shouldn't have lost his job, but that it wasn't Palin's job to fire him, and she had no reason to be trying to get him fired for 3 years, and she seemingly had no reason to force Monegan to relocate.

I know the mother-in-law and DWI things aren't issues, but I was just putting all the threads in one place.

Regarding the vetting, I do think she was vetted poorly, because the McCain campaign keeps changing their story. One day it's "we knew Bristol was pregnant but we didn't know Palin had just hired a private lawyer with up to $95,000 of state money to defend herself in the ethics investigation 2 weeks ago" and the next day they said "we knew about the pregnancy and the lawyer, and we've known everything that has come up so far and don't think they're issues." It sounds like most of the McCain camp had their stories synchronized except for a couple people, who are either changing their story or anonymously saying the vetting wasn't much more than a Google search.

I wouldn't mind a thread crucifying Obama about the 57 states thing, or threads specific to each candidate, but everybody already knows who Obama, McCain, and Biden are. Palin's the only mysterious stranger plucked from the 47th largest state (or the largest state, depending on whether you're McCain or not) and immediately thrust into a media frenzy on both sides. So that's why I made the Palin thread. She clogged the whole front page one day, and I wanted to stop it.

Let's goto imaginationland for a moment.
(This is not my original idea)

Imagine if Michelle Obama went on stage at the convention with 5 kids, one pregnant at 17.

Discuss.

Do you think that the reaction would be the same (pro-family, pro-american values)?

There's a very old joke in very bad taste that goes like this,

- Here's the new math they're teaching kids at schools now days:  "SS" + "SB" = "ANOW"

That's pretty much how it would have went down if that imaginationland moment went down.

This is awesome - you need to see how a person just one pacemaker away from the presidency.

From the Couric interview - read her responses.

On the ``CBS Evening News'' on Thursday, Katie Couric asked Palin, Sen. John McCain's running mate, what she meant when she cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as foreign affairs experience. Palin could have anticipated the question - the topic of their interview, pegged to her visit to the United Nations, was foreign affairs. Yet Palin's answer was surprisingly wobbly: her words tumbled out fast and choppily, like an outboard motor loosened from the stern.

"That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land - boundary that we have with - Canada,'' she replied.

She mentioned the jokes made at her expense and seemed for a moment at a loss for the word "caricature.''

"It - it's funny that a comment like that was - kind of made to - cari - I don't know, you know? Reporters -''

Couric stepped in. "Mocked?''

Palin looked relieved and even grateful for the help.

"Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.''

Couric pressed her again to explain the geographic point.

"Well, it certainly does,'' Palin said, "because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.''

Couric asked the governor if she had ever been involved in negotiations, for example, with her Russian neighbors.

"We have trade missions back and forth,'' Palin said. "We - we do - it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where - where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border.''

Palin, looking at Couric intently, kept on going. "It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to - to our state.''

Here are the quotes with no fluff and all Palin:

"That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land - boundary that we have with - Canada.''

"It - it's funny that a comment like that was - kind of made to - cari - I don't know, you know? Reporters -''

"Yeah, mocked, I guess that's the word, yeah.''

"Well, it certainly does, because our, our next-door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of.''

"We have trade missions back and forth. We - we do - it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America, where - where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border.''

"It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to - to our state.''

For anyone who thinks she's still fit to lead they need an friggin mental exam.

Man, very long time since this was on the front page.

That Couric interview is pretty pathetic though, I must say. She could have at least brought in some canned answers. That would have at least been something that would make her look fake rather than look like an idiot.

@ Akuma - man, hearing the responses is one thing - but reading them makes you laugh even harder.

She is really a complete outsider. She has a journalism degree, like me, and that's it. So she was mayor and governor. She's clueless. She's one smoking cougar, but as far as leading this nation? No way, son.

Wow. Reading the interview is surprisingly 10 times funnier than watching it.

QTF - You don't get the full impact of watching a great white shark eating a seal unless you slow it down to 1/10th speed. I found this out watching the HD DVD 'Planet Earth.' Just like this interview. Read the words and your mouth will hit the floor. The media let that clown GBush off the hook by showing him as being halfway intelligent. The world media didn't spare him. My sis in S. Korea said he was in Russia in the Red Square and just pointing at stuff and calling it cool.

McCain and Palin will get no such pass. Sorry - do not pass go, do not collect $200.