From Newsweek http://www.newsweek.com/id/157986 Summary We've been flooded for the past few days with queries about dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain's running mate, Gov. Palin. We find that many are completely false, or misleading. Palin did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent. She didn't cut it at all. In fact, she tripled per-pupil funding over just three years. She did not demand that books be banned from the Wasilla library. Some of the books on a widely circulated list were not even in print at the time. The librarian has said Palin asked a "What if?" question, but the librarian continued in her job through most of Palin's first term. She was never a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, a group that wants Alaskans to vote on whether they wish to secede from the United States. She's been registered as a Republican since May 1982. Palin never endorsed or supported Pat Buchanan for president. She once wore a Buchanan button as a "courtesty" when he visited Wasilla, but shortly afterward she was appointed to co-chair of the campaign of Steve Forbes in the state. Palin has not pushed for teaching creationism in Alaska's schools. She has said that students should be allowed to "debate both sides" of the evolution question, but she also said creationism "doesn't have to be part of the curriculum." A few of these claims were included in a chain e-mail by a woman named Anne Kilkenny. We'll be looking into other charges in that e-mail for a future story. For more explanation of the bullet points above, please read the Analysis. Analysis Since Republican presidential nominee John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate, information about Palin's past has been zipping around the Internet. Several claims are not true, and other rumors are misleading. No Cut for "Special Needs" Kids It's not true, as widely reported in mass e-mails, Web postings and at least one mainstream news source, that Palin slashed the special education budget in Alaska by 62 percent. CNN's Soledad O'Brien made the claim on Sept. 4 in an interview with Nicolle Wallace, a senior adviser to the McCain campaign: O'Brien, Sept. 4: One are that has gotten certainly people sending to me a lot of e-mails is the question about as governor what she did with the special needs budget, which I'm sure you're aware, she cut significantly, 62 percent I think is the number from when she came into office. As a woman who is now a mother to a special needs child, and I think she actually has a nephew which is autistic as well. How much of a problem is this going to be as she tries to navigate both sides of that issue? Such a move might have made Palin look heartless or hypocritical in view of her convention-speech pledge to be an advocate for special needs children and their families. But in fact, she increased special needs funding so dramatically that a representative of local school boards described the jump as "historic." According to an April 2008 article in Education Week, Palin signed legislation in March 2008 that would increase public school funding considerably, including special needs funding. It would increase spending on what Alaska calls "intensive needs" students (students with high-cost special requirements) from $26,900 per student in 2008 to $73,840 per student in 2011. That almost triples the per-student spending in three fiscal years. Palin's original proposal, according to the Anchorage Daily News, would have increased funds slightly more, giving intensive needs students a $77,740 allotment by 2011.
One of Them and One of Us By Pat Buchanan "One wonders: What did Sarah Palin ever do to inspire the rage and bile that exploded on her selection by John McCain? What is there either in this woman's record or resume to elicit such feline ferocity? What did we know of her when she was introduced? That she was a mother of five who had brought into this world a baby boy with Down syndrome, thus living her Christian beliefs. That she was a small-town conservative who had risen from mayor of Wasilla (Pop. 9,700) to be governor of a state twice the size of Texas. That she was a reformer who had dethroned an Old Boys' Network by dumping a sitting Republican governor. That she had taken on Big Oil, taxed the companies and returned the money in $1,200 checks to every citizen of Alaska. And that she had cut a deal with Canada to build a pipeline to bring natural gas to her fellow Americans. And, oh, yes. She was "Sarah Barracuda" -- a fierce high school athlete, a runner-up in the Miss Alaska pageant, a Feminist for Life and lifetime member of the NRA. Introduced by McCain, she praised Hillary Clinton and pledged to finish her work by smashing through the glass ceiling in which Hillary had made 18 million cracks. What, in any or all of this, is there to justify the feral attacks within minutes of her introduction? What had she done to cause this outburst? Answer: absolutely nothing. No. Sarah Palin is not resented for what she has done, but for who she is: a Christian conservative who believes unborn children are gifts of God, even those with birth defects, and have a God-given right to life. Normally, the press is reluctant to rummage into the private lives of public servants, unless their conduct affects their duties or they preach virtues they hypocritically do not practice. Yet, no sooner was Palin introduced, than the media went berserk over the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. As one in three births in America is out-of-wedlock and Hollywood celebrates this lifestyle, why did The New York Times and The Washington Post splash this "news" on page one above the fold? How does Bristol Palin's pregnancy disqualify Sarah Palin to be vice president? Why is it even relevant? They did it because they thought it would damage Sarah Palin in the eyes of a Christian community they do not comprehend. So out of bounds was the media that Obama, in an act of decency, declared Palin's family off limits and reminded the media that he was himself born to a teenage single mom. If one would wish to see the famous liberal double standard on naked display, consider. Palin's daughter was fair game for a media that refused to look into reports that John Edwards, a Democratic candidate for president, was conducting an illicit affair with a woman said to be carrying his child and cheating on his faithful wife Elizabeth, who has incurable cancer. That was not a legitimate story, but Bristol Palin's pregnancy is? Why did the selection of Sarah Palin cause a suspension of all standards and a near riot among a media that has been so in the tank for Barack even "Saturday Night Live" has satirized the infatuation? Because she is one of us -- and he is one of them. Barack and Michelle are affirmative action, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard Law. She is public schools and Idaho State. Barack was a Saul Alinsky social worker who rustled up food stamps. Sarah Palin kills her own food. Michelle has a $300,000-a-year sinecure doing PR for a Chicago hospital. Todd Palin is a union steelworker who augments his income working vacations on the North Slope. Sarah has always been proud to be an American. Michelle was never proud of America -- until Barack started winning. Barack has zero experience as an executive. Sarah ran her own fishing fleet, was mayor for six years and runs the largest state in the union. She belongs to a mainstream Christian church. Barack was, for 15 years, a parishioner at Trinity United and had his daughters baptized by Pastor Jeremiah Wright, whose sermons are saturated in black-power, anti-white racism and anti-Americanism. Sarah is a rebel. Obama has been a go-along, get-along cog in the Daley Machine. She is Middle America. Barack, behind closed doors in San Francisco, mocked Middle Americans as folks left behind by the global economy who cling bitterly to their Bibles, bigotries and guns. Barack has zero foreign policy experience. Palin runs a state that is home to anti-missile, missile and air defense bases facing the Far East, commands the Alaska National Guard and has a soldier-son heading for Iraq. Barack, says the National Journal, has the most left-wing voting record in the Senate, besting Socialist Bernie Sanders. Palin's stances read as though they were lifted from Reagan's 1980 "no pale pastels" platform. And this is what this media firestorm is all about. "
Well... sort of. She used her line item veto to cancel out $1.2 million from funding that was passed to help teenage mothers. You can actually see the document and see what exactly she did (with her initials on it) here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html Regarding tripling per pupil funding, I have a feeling you're comparing the entire budget to the budget of only Covenant House. If that's what you're doing it's very, very dishonest. Well who knows. According to Time, news reports at the time stated that Palin tried to fire the librarian after the conversation. You can understand the confusion, though, given that the video of the AIP meeting where they state that she's a former member hit Youtube. She has kept her campaign promise to not push it as part of the curriculum, however, she does support teaching "both sides" (ie. creationism) in science class. So the accusation is accurate.
Leave it to a rightie to quote NewsWeak only when you think it's to your advantage. Should do your own homework. From factcheck.org: "Correction: In our original story, we incorrectly said that a few of the claims we examine here were included in the e-mail by Kilkenny. Only one of the claims â about the librarian's firing â was similar to an item in that e-mail. We regret the error." bigdavediode got it right: Who am I going to believe, somebody who was actually there (Anne Kilkenny) or some "researcher" in a hurry who comes waltzing through more than a decade later? Factcheck.org is somewhat good but not infallible, as their correction above proves.
Typical of the media. Some extremely minor items from Palin's distant past are discussed endlessly. Obama's long ties to unrepentant terrorist bombers Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dorn? Not relevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Americanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pejorative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_controversy
Nobody pays much attention to the media or the internet attack minions on either side of the aisle... I know people that switched sides very recently because they saw their own belief system and ideals expressed in Sarah Palin. Some anecdotal garbage wherein she supposedly did some heinous things is not going to make a difference to anybody... in fact, it is a rare election indeed that is swayed by the VP choice at all, McCain is indeed not from the conventional wisdom school of thought, he did sway voters hugely with a VP pick, there is hope for the US yet and it does not involve socialism. I think that California Governor Schwarzenneger is the new role model for the Republicans. He finds something to agree with across the aisle and gets his work done. He went with the global warming thingy, it's relatively harmless and good for business, so it's a hoax, likely to be disproven soon enough, so what... and he gets things done without spending his entire political capital every time because of that. The far left bias of the press is obvious to everybody nowadays. They covered up the John Edwards affair for a year and still don't report on it, Oprah is endorsing Obama while "not endorsing anybody", yeah right... We have substance versus image, no substance on the left, all image manipulation on the left, it is not new at all, it's business as usual for the left...
What's more, in choosing such a pivotal person as Sarah Palin for a VP, an extremely strong woman, McCain showed once more his propensity to work with others, be a team player. Not to mention that more than half of Americans are women! While Obama, in choosing Biden (mostly silent supporter, a man), reiterated his tendency to be in total control and give little to others. This is working much better for the Republican side so far, because Americans want to be respected and included in decision making, which is what Palin's selection reminds us of. Had Obama given the nod to Hillary, he would have had the election wrapped up, won, already. Oh well.
I think it's terribly relevant, if Obama hadn't been eight years old when that went on. I doubt he analyzed it at age eight. By comparison, one of McCain's fundraisers was just convicted of facilitating a terrorist group. "McCain Backer's Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia" http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/mccain-fundraiser-oversaw_n_110354.html