Actually, She Was Terrible

The more that you delve into Sarah Palin's Thursday night performance in the debate, the worse it appears, because lots of her statements were outright lies. She stated that John McCain favors bankruptcy judges restructuring the principles homeowners allow on their mortgages - not so. She stated that public schools need additional funding and teachers need to be paid more - that's not the McCain position. She said that she favored divestment from Sudan while Governor of Alaska - sadly, no (apologies to Sadly, No).

"The [Palin] administration killed our bill," said Alaska state representative Les Gara, D-Anchorage. Gara and state Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, co-sponsored a resolution early this year to force the Alaska Permanent Fund  a $40 billion investment fund, a portion of whose dividends are distributed annually to state residents  to divest millions of dollars in holdings tied to the Sudanese government.

In Thursday's debate, Palin said she had advocated the state divest from Sudan. "When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars," Palin said.

But a search of news clips and transcripts from the time do not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure.

"The legislation is well-intended, and the desire to make a difference is noble, but mixing moral and political agendas at the expense of our citizens' financial security is not a good combination," testified Brian Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner, before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan divestment bill in February. Minutes from the meeting are posted online by the legislature.

Not to mention the answer about how as Vice President she will seek additional authority from the legislative and judicial branches, which is honestly frightening. We already know that Palin is perfectly willing and able to abuse her authority - the machinations to shut down the Troopergate investigation are a perfect example. This is a dangerous person to put into power. The fact that the emergency appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court warns that "the plaintiffs and Alaskans will suffer irreparable harm" if the Branchflower report is released as scheduled on October 10, which is the exact language used in Bush v. Gore, gives you a clue.

All the more reason to work harder and make sure she comes nowhere near Washington.