This week the American public has seen, on the campaign trail, John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Cindy McCain, Michele Obama, Jill Biden, their children, relatives, neighbors, dogs and all manner of six degrees to the candidate connection that one could imagine. Conspicuously missing from public appearance and scrutiny is the dangerously radical extremist, Sarah Palin. Cloistered away from the prying eyes of the nation is the girl who would be king. Apparently deeply involved in the “Rove-ian” derailing of a once legitimate investigation into her abuse of power, that in her own words, she welcomed. It is clear that her words are at best deceptive and often outright lies. Wrapped in the security blanket of Washington's highest priced trial lawyers and financed by religious fanatics such as James Dobson's Focus on the Family, it is widely thought that Palin will be protected from the public's ability to know who she really is, until after the election in November.
Hypocrisy is alive and well in the Republican party and clearly the superficial purging of a small number of special interests and lobbyists from the ranks of the right side of the isle, has not dampened any intention to deceive their way into the White House. It is peculiar, one might note, that despite the conservative cry for tort reform, when challenged, those same members of the political right wing are the first to collect excessively massive legions of trial lawyers, tasked with the goal of hurriedly burying the truth in a shallow grave. Such is the case of the recently lawyered-up Sarah Palin. Attorneys, hired by the McCain campaign and paid for by religious zealots, have descended on the Alaskan landscape in great numbers, with the dishonorable task of preventing the electorate from knowing the truth of Palin's possible abuses, at least until November 5, 2008.
Why are Republicans so scared of the truth? The answer resides in the not yet faded memory of 2006. The mid-term elections of 2006 turned on but a few issues, the war in Iraq, the economy and corruption. The truth, that strikes fear into the hearts of Republican leadership, is that, the war in Iraq was based upon lies, the voodoo economic approach has benefited the rich, ignored the poor and destroyed the middle class and corruption continues to run rampant amongst Republican politicians, who have tied their own political and personal economic fortunes to the endurance of a system of abuses that is, if not unraveling, at least fraying around the edges. The ability to carry on unabated by some need of the American public at large to have a decent life, hope for the futures of their children and a dignified retirement, can only be accomplished if the proverbial wool is held securely over the partially blinded eye of the people.
Such is the case with the roll-out and subsequent disappearance of Palin. Let's take look at the few “facts” that have been so carefully dispensed by the handlers. First is the charming self-proclamation of Sarah as “hockey mom”. Whether it's hockey, soccer, baseball or any of the myriad activities young people are involved in, it often falls to the moms to get up early, stay up late, shuffle schedules, deliver children to their destinations, ostensibly in the family mini-van, and at great peril to the sleep habits and personal wants of the afore-mentioned moms. Not quite the case with the hockey mom-hood of Ms. Palin. Her only apparent sacrifice was the delivery of timely payments to the hockey camp where she sent her son, in response to his run-in with the law on alcohol and drug charges. Unlike the many moms who arise early and provide self-sacrificial shuttle service, sending a child off to camp, out of sight and out of mind, does not qualify. Secondly, “I told Congress, thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere,” she proudly proclaims. Most Americans realize this to be an outright lie. Palin did not authorize the construction of the infamous bridge , but, only after, it had become a national disgrace and she kept the more than two hundred thirty million dollars in earmarked money for other uses in Alaska. Isn't it cheating the public of money, more than the specific use of the funds that is the determinate factor. The American people, regardless of bridge building, were scammed out of hundreds of millions of dollars by Gov. Palin, who maintains, publicly, an opposition to earmarks. It would be difficult to design a more stark demonstration of hypocrisy. Lastly, Palin claims to “stand up to big oil”. It has been accurately reported that Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, manipulated and misrepresented (polite language for, lied) the conclusions of state and federal scientists, regarding the peril to and possible extinction of, the polar bear population in Alaska. This deception is nothing more than a capitulation to the interests of big oil who's intention to gain approval for oil exploration and drilling in the remaining polar bear habitat could be thwarted by declaration of the polar bear as "threatened" or "endangered".
We know very little about the elusive Sarah Palin. Much like Bigfoot, we have only speculative claims of the existence of such a creature as has been described by the McCain campaign and not unlike the Asian Yeti, which she may be able to see from her home in Alaska, fuzzy and unsubstantiated "facts", half truths and outright lies are all we may ever hear.
