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September 11, 2008

Oink oink

original.jpgSarah Palin, March, 2008:

I am not among those who have said "earmarks are nothing more than pork projects being shoveled home by an overeager congressional delegation." ...My D.C. office meets with dozens of local governments and others requesting earmarks and this interaction has always been cooperative and cordial... My role at the federal level is simply to submit the most well-conceived earmark requests we can.... The federal budget, in its various manifestations, is incredibly important to us, and congressional earmarks are one aspect of this relationship.

Politico notes that many of Palin's incredibly important earmark requests

are of exactly the sort that McCain has made a career of mocking—like animal research.

“We’re not going to spend $3 million of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana,” McCain has said during this year’s campaign, referring to a study he’s mocked for years of whether grizzlies need to keep their status as an endangered species.

Palin, meanwhile, has requested $3.2 million to be spent in part researching the “genetics of harbor seals,” in one of the state’s many requests for federal funding of research into Alaska’s fauna.

$3.2 million for seal DNA. Talk about your soundbites. Hell, that's practically a ringtone.

Speaking of soundbites, I get that "she was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it" is catchy. But it gives Palin way too much credit. It sounds like she flipped on the issue, and eventually ended up opposing it on principle, as she should have done from the start. That's not the case.

While it's technically true that Palin abandoned plans to build a $400 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, it's completely misleading to portray Palin as a "crusader for the thrifty use of tax dollars" and claim, as the Alaska governor did in her convention speech last week, that she "told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere." Ultimately, Palin's decision to pull the plug on the project had nothing to do with principle. In fact, she supported the remote project--with some reservations--while running for governor in 2006, telling her potential constituents that she would "not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that’s so negative." It was only when people like John McCain succeeding in convincing Congress that the project was a waste of money--and Congress subsequently killed its funding--that Palin decided to quit. As Palin said last year when ordering state transportation officials to ditch the bridge, "it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island." In other words, McCain's new running mate nixed the project--which, again, she originally supported--because the politics were untenable and not because she was against earmarks (she subsequently spent the money on other transportation projects). "Both Presidential candidates have both confirmed that they will work towards earmark reforms," she said in July. "So, just recognizing that, seeing the writing on the wall, and dealing with it is where I am."

Bonus: Obama apology cards.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

Comments

What is it with this? Clearly Palin spoke falsely about this trip's authorization and, one hopes, might be tried for perjury. But why again does rape come up, with Palin on the pro-rapist side?

"The last straw," her lawyer argued, came when he planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.

So if Monegan was going to get the money for this crucial program from the feds, why would Palin have ever objected anyway? Was it because he would be calling financial favors/begging that she wanted to reserve for something important, like the road to the bridge to nowhere? Or is she really, honestly trying - and I'm seriously asking this - to make sure every girl in Alaska who's raped stays raped?

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