Revenge Of The Earmark (II)
When it comes to Palin’s record, I am more inclined to believe now that McCain isn’t distorting what he knows to be the truth–he simply has no idea what she did when she was governor and so invents a record for her that is consistent with his own obsession with eliminating earmarks. That is how you get this:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday running mate Sarah Palin has never asked for money for lawmakers’ pet projects as Alaska governor when in fact she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year.
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When pressed about Palin’s record of requesting and accepting such money for Alaska, McCain ignored the record and said: “Not as governor she didn’t.”
Perhaps McCain was simply referring to one of those “underlying truths” about her record–those are the truths that need not square with the facts.
This is what happens when a campaign makes opposition to earmarks the measure of political purity, defines the VP nominee as a reformer based almost entirely on her supposed hatred of earmarks and tries to make an anti-earmark crusade a major theme of the election. Since almost no politician at the state or federal level has entirely ”clean” hands when it comes to this sort of spending, there was no way McCain’s VP nominee would have the kind of anti-earmark record that he clearly wants Palin to have, so it had to be invented. Having scrutinized Palin’s record for all of five seconds, McCain probably had no idea just how mismatched his chosen obsession and his running mate really are. Maybe he still doesn’t, but we can be sure that he won’t care when he finds out.
Also earmarks account for a whooping 3% of the federal deficit. We could run the Iraq war for about a month if we cut all federal earmakrs from the budget. But of course it’s a winning strategy because the people he’s talking to aren’t those of us who are curious about government and want to know what an earmark is. He’s talking to talk radio listeners who think earmarks are the epitome of liberal government because someone with an R next to his name says so yet couldn’t describe what an earmark is or how they work any better than Palin could desribe the Bush Doctrine (big D or little D).
It isn’t like it would take over six hours to become throroughly familiar with her record. She is such a rochart test, even apparently to the man who appointed her.
You mean rawshark test right?
Is it verboten to speak of or allude to comics like Watchmen on a conservative site?
“When it comes to Palin’s record, I am more inclined to believe now that McCain isn’t distorting what he knows to be the truth–he simply has no idea what she did when she was governor and so invents a record for her that is consistent with his own obsession with eliminating earmarks.”
Funny, my sense is the precise opposite. What I see is a campaign employing the classic propaganda tactic of repeating a lie over and over until it becomes truth to some.
Could be. McCain seems to be operating more cluelessly than anything else right now, but I would not rule out that he is lying repeatedly and outrageously. The latter would require him to know something detailed about her record, which he then chooses to misrepresent as aggressively as possible. My impression of McCain is that he never delves into the details unless he absolutely must, and I’m not sure that he did in this case. It’s a tough call–is it terrible vetting or rampant dishonesty? Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on him.
If it wasn’t such an significant worry that Palin seems to have about a 25 percent chance of being president about 3 years from now, McCain himself would be such a fascinating story.
I really wonder. It seemed as though McCain was so easy to know and trust, at least a little, and that the one thing it he would never, ever do would be to run this campaign. Was it all a lie before this election? Did people in the know understand that it was a facade? Is it an age thing? Or is there really something changing with him?
It’s all very curious, except for the part where quite a bit appears to be at stake.