Do people even care about Sarah Palin’s dishonesty?
Some politicians thrive in spite of their reputations for dishonesty. Republicans like Richard Nixon and Democrats like Hillary Clinton carried serious baggage with the electorate for their repeated mendacity. But they maintained a core of committed supporters because they were highly knowledgeable and competent, and always stood willing to fight back against their enemies. Yes, Hillary Clinton might lie about Tuzla, but she will always fight for universal health care and that’s what matters in the end. Her supporters can bracket aside nagging questions about her integrity because, at the end of the day, she was the best fighter for the right cause.
Is Sarah Palin this way too? She is quickly amassing a record for dishonesty that make both Nixon and Clinton blush. Almost every substantive claim made in defense of the Palin candidacy has proven either false or vacuous (e.g. Alaska is close to Russia so she is ready to be Commander in Chief).
Still, as of now, her reputation is still high. There may be warning signs ahead. She already has the highest DISAPPROVAL rating for any VP candidate in recent memory. And, according to the latest Newsweek poll, the 22 percent of Americans who say Palin’s selection as VP nominee makes voters LESS likely to vote for McCain is actually the highest for any vice presidential candidate ever polled this way. Perhaps, her reputation is starting to take a nosedive.
But it hasn’t hit critical mass yet. Her approval ratings are still very high (few have “no opinion” of her). Sarah Palin still draws rave reviews from conservatives who castigated the Clintons for their dishonesty. As Andrew Sullivan regularly points out, conservative Republicans make the sounds of crickets when confronted with the overwhelming evidence of Palin’s almost comical level of dishonesty. It isn’t even that they’re defending her lies. They’re just ignoring them.
So, if Palin’s reputation does NOT take a nosedive, what does this say about her appeal? Forget for a moment what it says about John McCain’s own issues with integrity, what does Palin’s “dare you to call me a liar” attitude say about her relationship to her supporters? Has she really earned the sort of hardcore respect from conservatives that Richard Nixon earned through his wars with the “cultural elites” on the left, or Hillary Clinton did with her fights against the “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?” Does Sarah Palin really deserve to be given a pass on her integrity?
46 Responses to “Do people even care about Sarah Palin’s dishonesty?”
“Do people even care about Sarah Palin's dishonesty?”
People won't care about Palin's lies as long as she is a symbol of something bigger. In which case lies are just… inconvenient. The symbol she represents is so much more important.
Apparently, many people do not care, but I care. I did not support Hillary Clinton because of her lies. The McCain and Palin lies are about extremely important issues. It is impossible to know what either one would actually do if elected.
Haven't people learned what happens when we elect a liar, such as George W Bush.
I am hoping that voters are not going to fall for the outrageous lies and fear tactics.
granted, it's disturbing. i think that, if he plans on winning, obama needs to keep on doing what he's doing — ignoring the barbie doll and going after her veep — oops! i mean, the other presidential candidate. by going on and on about it the fact that she really has nothing to offer, we ourselves are feeding the beast.
to be honest, sarah palin is, politically speaking, a nobody. this is more attention than she deserves. we should be concentrating on mcCain and his obvious reality-impairment. i think his campaign is on the verge of imploding; and i, for one, am planning on kicking back with a cold one to take it all in. i wasn't a huge obama fan, but between the two men, i'll cheer for the one without the obvious stink of flop-sweat.
It certainly matters, and the press and pundits need to keep pointing it out. Let's see if they do their job.
Clinton's serial dishonesty was a deal breaker for me. For me, credibility is the main coin we have to gauge these folks by.
That is one reason I previously liked McCain so much as he has actually reached across the aisle and taken some heat. He has lost that for me though by flipping on so many positions. I in essence would be asked to disbelieve everything he has said campaigning. If someone wants me to assume they lied just to get tehe nomination, that is again a deal breaker.
Palin is an entirely different level. She appears to lie constantly, with ease. That scares the hell out of me. In the space of two short weeks, we know for sure that she lied about whether folks were contacting Monegan (which, prior to the VP pick, she initially denied until confronted by her staff member on tape), she lied about the bridge and her role, she lied on Gibson by claiming she never said global warming was not man made, she lied about going to Iraq.
This is not even getting into the joint overselling of her by McCain, such as his claim she sold the plan on e-bay for a profit (both untrue), his claiming on the view that she had no earmarks as Governor, et c.
At what point will folks actually raise a question about this woman? To dig this level of dirt in this short a time going directly to the question of credibility is pretty stunning. At what point will this mountain of dirt reflect on McCain's decision-making style and weaknesses?
But what is that symbol? She was plucked from nowhere to be the VP. Is the symbol that literally any hardworking mom can be Vice President if somebody finds it politically convenient to exploit her for it?
As much as I do not like Palin, there are things that even on superficial level she represents as a symbol.
She represents walking the walk, not just the talk, on a pro-life stance. I think that more than anything gives her lots of enthusiastic mileage from the Republican base.
On some level (not as much as advertised, but certainly at least somewhat), she has taken on the “establishment” for effective change. She did sell the plane. She did cut down earmark requests. She did cut down the budget of Alaska.
She just also hired the lobbyist, got the town earmarks, inquired into book banning, fired the librarian, and clearly fired Monegan when he would not go along with her personally motivated vendetta. She clearly has got an angle of injecting personal into public and also attacking her adversaries that I find extremely troubling.
Larison is a better conservative voice who's critical of Palin.
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/13/just…
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/13/the-…
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/12/the-…
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/12/pali…
http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/09/12/reve…
The other conservatives at Atlantic aren't part of the cricket choir.
As far as I can see her only qualification is her decision to keep her Down's Syndrome baby. As somebody who sympathizes heavily with the real pro-life movement (not just anti-abortion but anti-death penalty too) I find that genuinely inspiring.
But that's not remotely enough to grab on to in terms of a symbol for national leadership. The plane was purchased by her corrupt predecessor and was despised all over Alaska. And what does she do instead? She charges per diem expenses to live at home in Wasilla in the vicinity of most Alaska residents (Anchorage nearby). She didn't need the plane because she wasn't going to live in out-of-the-way Juneau anyway.
Don't forget that Alaska has faced a total oil boom of late, thanks to high crude oil prices.
John McCain doesn't care if his campaign lies, so it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Gilchin: She did sell the plane. She did cut down earmark requests. She did cut down the budget of Alaska.
She did sell the plane. And I suspect that did save Alaskans money. But I'd like to know more about the earmark issue. Considering the number of earmarks allocated have dropped in the last two years, and considering two of the three members of Alaska's congressional delegation are under serious legal clouds (Stevens and Young) and the third (Murkowski) is a rookie and the daughter of the previous governor who has his own corruption issues, and considering Palin's past history with earmarks, one wonders how willful Palin's part in reducing them were. I suspect it had more than a little to do with necessity.
As far as whether Palin reduced spending as governor, apparently the opposite is the case:
That “explosion of revenues” might also help to explain why earmark requests are down. But it should also be kept in mind that on a per capita basis, earmarks going to Alaska are still incredibly high.
onleyone : “we should be concentrating on mcCain and his obvious reality-impairment. i think his campaign is on the verge of imploding”
I agree the concentration needs to be primarily on McCain, but the numbers don't indicate any impending implosion. He still has much greater support among seniors and white women for example. That support among seniors kind of mystifies me – based on the expectation that more experienced voters would be less susceptible to BS, but many of these older folks also grew up with pre-civil rights attitudes that may inform their comfort level when it comes to voting for a black man. My own parents are in their 80s and thank god, have all their wits about them. They are as mystified by the level of McCains support as I am, afterall, it can't be justified by any significant policy differences between he and the crew who led America off the rails to begin with. That in itself should be enough to give Obama a consistent double digit lead. It's a head scratcher.
“But that's not remotely enough to grab on to in terms of a symbol for national leadership.”
For you, and for me, you are entirely correct.
For a bunch of other folks who are apparently not tuned in to details, it is more than enough.
I personally have been disturbed watching all this. I have been sending links of all these issues to an otherwise rational friend. Every link he claims shows nothing. He says, “But she did not actually ban books or ask for any specific books to be banned.” For me, where there is smoke, there is fire.
I am actually a practicing trial lawyer and my reply was that there was plenty of circumstantial evidence — three separate conversations followed by a firing with no other support is pretty damning. Rehiring her after facing pressure from the town is the same. Plus we have the backdrop of a bubbling town controversy over books relating to homosexuals and her Church's reaction to the same. That context tells me that if she had her 'druthers, she would ban away.
She is pragmatic and cunning enough to leave an ambiguous paper trail, but it is enough to me to raise serious questions that I could never vote for this woman.
On a final note, the NY Times indicates there is a paper trail that her and her aides conducted government business through private e-mail accounts expressly to keep from liability to produce under FOIA. How is that transparent??
I am going to be very disappointed if McCain gets away with his full blown swim in the mud in contravention of every principal he had previously expressed. To me, he has sold out his soul to the devil to get the job and I for one am permanently and irrevocably disappointed. Please note that until this campaign, I was a big McCain fan and I actually agreed with him about the surge then and now as well but this behavior and this VP pick have permanently soured my on his supposed character, morals and integrity.
pretty easy to balance Venezuela's budget right now too I bet, and for the same reasons.
Does anyone care about Obama's dishonesty? Good for the goose, good for the gander.
I, for one, am sick of the 'honest Obama' vs. 'lying McCain/Palin' meme. Anyone with an ounce of integrity know that both sides are spinning, twisting, manipulating, lying, misrepresenting, etc. There may be some difference in scale, but it is not significant, although from the Left's reaction you could never tell that.
To paraphrase an old lawyer joke, how do you know when a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.
Austin Roth–
Your argument might be better if you could support with some evidence.
Still, I'm perfectly willing to stipulate that all politicians pander, all politicians exaggerate, and all politicians get caught sooner or later.
The problem in all of this for me is that the McCain campaign keeps getting caught and keeps on repeating the lies (and I'll even agree that maybe they started out as honest mistakes, or even as honest examples of a little too much enthusiasm) no matter how how often they get caught.
McCain doesn't care about what's true.
So as far as your “good for the goose” argument: No Sale.
AR- Which of Obama's lies are as serious as Palin's or McCain's?
Their lies are being ignored because the GOP still believes that the end justifies the means in pursuit of their far-right ideology. McCain was not a popular candidate because he was not a purist in conservative dogma. He had worked with many in the Democratic Party to get things done, often– oh the horror- compromising with liberals.He initially was against the sacred Bush tax cuts . He even negotiated with them about changing parties. They knew they couldn't trust him.
But Palin reminds many formerly dispirited Republicans of Reagan. She hunts caribou, she opposes abortion in all cases, she doesn't believe global warming comes from manmade sources, she still believes that Iraq was responsible for 9/11. She's their kind of gal. In order to keep ' good Americans” in the WH, many Republicans will accept the despicable tactics of the McCain camp.
AustinRoth, obama talks like most pols where they stretch things. McCain is just outright lying.
And lying badly.
Palin is a joke. You know this. And if you republicans were so righteous about the Clintons then turn your eyes away from the pathological lying done by Palin as well as her joke of a resume, you are a hypocrite.
The fact is that Palin is most underqualified person ever put on a ticket.
I would dare you to read Hilzoy's column on the comparisons of McCain and Obama's records while in the senate and see just who is better qualified for the job.
Or are you and other repubs too afraid to see the evidence?
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2…
elrod, for many people Palin is a symbol of women making it into the upper reaches of power and being a feisty hockey mom. For others she's a strong Christian. Though quite frankly given her actions she (in my opinion) does not live up to being a Christian when it comes to her self-interests… to begin with she lies too much and I'll leave it at that.
one of the scariest things about it to me, as a college graduate, is the disturbing climate of anti-intellectualism. expertise is now considered elitism and arrogance. ignorance is a virtue, or so it seems.
so (theoretically here) you're excited because an 'average person' is within striking distance of the white house; do we really want someone 'average' a step away from commander-in-chief of the world's only remaining superpower? the very thought should scare conservatives and liberals alike.
“Does anyone care about Obama's dishonesty? Good for the goose, good for the gander.”
Would need examples … I have tended to give folks a little wiggle room around the edges as that is the nature of politicians trying to wedge into Joseph Campbell style cut-outs that work as metaphor. McCain as maverick despite tax cut and drilling flips, I will cut him some slack. Obama as Kennedy tied reincarnation, same deal.
Outright fabrication on kindergarten sex ads, I draw a serious line there. I see a huge difference in scale and intensity of the lie, but may it is in the eye of the beholder.
Apart from the lies, misrepresentations and distortions lie the record. And as things become clear they become more and more disturbing. As I read the following articles I thought of Harriet Myers, Alberto Gonzalez, the AG firings, Brownie…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/1…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…
If McCain does get elected I will pray every day for his continued good health.
Its amazing how those who mocked Hillary's description of her trip to Bosnia,and lambasted Al Gore for taking credit for the creation of the internet, can now turn a deaf ear while Ms Palin tells even bigger whoppers.
What scares me about Palin is her conservative right ideology, her blatant dishonesty in the first few weeks of the campaign- and emerging stories of her willingness to abuse political power for personal ends.
If Obama's wife had joined a black separatist organization, he would be hounded out of office and forced by the Democrats to surrender the nomination. But the GOP finds Todd Palin's membership in a secessionist organization tolerable. When Eliot Spitzer used state troopers to hound his opponents it was derided by all. But the Republicans have been strangely silent about the pending ethics investigations into Palin's abuse of power. While others in the case were subpoenaed, Palin was shown due deference. There's definitely a double standard at work here.
i think Austin is right in that this is politics, and even folks on the Left are, if not lying, then at least stretching the truth at times to score points.
mcCain, though, has has gone well past that point. he has committed to no-holds-barred, bald-faced L-I-E territory, hoping that enough will stick to take enough “independents” with him for a win. personally, i think he's miscalculated in allowing critics enough time, pre-election, to dig up the facts of the matter and hit back with them. and it doesn't help that this is the train once called the “straight talk express” with a straight face.
but back to Austin's point: the obama camp learned how to fudge the truth the hard way, and at the foot of a master, i.e. karl rove. there are few times obama hasn't been able to smooth over discrepancies between his past record in chicago and his present-day stands on this or that political issue or personal matter.
rick moran has a great collection over at RWNH, but here's a good representative post.
and kritt11:
it might do you some good to look around at RWNH. you'll probably disagree with rick on a lot of things (i do), but he's a great documentarian, and despite his partisan hat is one of the most intellectually honest bloggers out there, imho.
i myself still have plenty of misgivings about the whole jeremiah wright affair — are we to believe that obama listened to this man rant from the pulpit for 20 years, and only now, once the press tunes in, finds it disturbing? i consider myself a pretty open-minded guy, but even i find that hard to swallow.
I think a lot of black churches have pastors like this. There's a lot of
resentment in the black community that comes out at church. It does hurt his
image– but there's nothing on record that shows that Obama feels the same
as Wright. KR
nothing “on record”, 'cept for the fact that he went there for two decades of said sermons. just sayin'.
Onleyone–So you don't think that he can think independently? I'm sure not every sermon contained virulence against the US. I'm not going to judge him by where he went to church unless there's some indication that it influenced his public or private behavior in some way. There is none. BTW, he was open about his attendance. No candidate is without some heinous influence— but Obama is no radical- and his speeches are reasoned and moderate.
If you pride yourself on being openminded- judge the man and not the company he keeps.
On Rev. Wright, we have twenty years boiled down into two sound bites, “God Damn America” and “the chickens coming home to roost.” We also have the AIDs conspiracy, but that is sadly a pretty widespread nutcase theory.
Most important to me, I see nothing in Obama's entire political career that suggest he is some type of Al Sharpton practitioner of racially motivated politics.
On the other point, why do folks immediately extrapolate two sounds bits into “listening to 20 years of Rev. Wright?” Maybe the guy goes off the reservation every couple months, but otherwise is pretty on point. I do not like the tone of those two statements, but I have not seen anything that shows that Obama agrees in any fashion with that attitude. If anything, he stands for an ability to bridge all the way from the pissed off African-American crowd all the way to the monied Washington insiders. Is that not what we want in a leader to bridge across these separations??
AR, no one really cares what you're sick of because the entire post just emulates your hero, being just as honest. Go ahead. Repeat a completely false claim that there is no difference between the McCain campaign and the Obama campaign. In spite of what you say, the people with real integrity aren't going to buy into your argument because it just isn't true.
Onleyone- Gichin13- said it much better than I did. I'm sorry, but judging a candidate based on two soundbites from his black pastor doesn't seem that open-minded to me.
You can't ignore the reality that there is a large angry African-American population—but Obama is bi-racial and grew up around white people. His white grandfather served proudly in WWII. He doesn't have the civil rights Jim Crow baggage, but wants to challenge us all to come together as Americans.
“Some politicians thrive in spite of their reputations for dishonesty. Republicans like Richard Nixon and Democrats like Hillary Clinton carried serious baggage with the electorate for their repeated mendacity. But they maintained a core of committed supporters because they were highly knowledgeable and competent, and always stood willing to fight back against their enemies.”
**************
Well, there you go. All politicians lie. ALL OF THEM.
So this levels the playing field to competancy alone. And which lies are told and about what issues.. That's the determiner. If Hillary lied about her taxes or business deals, I'm not that rattled. Because in my long life I've never met even one person who has never lied or “fudged” (politically-correct lying) on tax or business deals. But if Hillary tells the truth and demonstrates it with unending tenacity about supporting health care, a vital and potent need of this country…then I chalk one up for her.
Whereas in Hillary's case we have her tenacity and dedication and competance to turn to, to mitigate political lying, with Obama we have only dedication to win, minus tenacity and competance.
We can stop being hypocrites now lambasting other people for lying when all of us lie. What we can do is start sifting through why lies are told and who actually LIVES a life of the truths they hold strong enough to tell in spite of all pressures to do otherwise.
kritt:
obama even asked wright not to speak at a graduation event some years back because his speeches could be a little “rough”, as he put it. wright is very big on black liberation theology, and obama knew/knows that.
obama also actively recruited a maoist organization to help him in his race for illinois senate, even going so far as to ask for their endorsement. he claims that bill ayers (of the Weathermen) was only a “neighbor”, but actually attended several meetings and even a retreat with him.
look, i'm not imaginative [enough] to make all this up; you can google it all yourself. but the info is out there. how can we talk about what obama “stands for” yet ignore those parts of his “past” we find distasteful?
but all that to say this: neither camp is perfect, and even obama's has generated its share of distortion, a lot of it relatively unexamined by the national media outlets.
i'm probably voting libertarian in november — hey, i live in maryland, which is die-hard democrat, so what's the harm? plus i get a chance to try and inject a little more juice into some political ideas that i think are worth consideration.
with all of that said, i think obama will do us less harm, at home and abroad, than mcCain/palin; and despite the shifty folks that he has pal'd around with (in the past, yes — but what isn't in the past?), i believe he'll be far too busy, at least in his first term undoing the damage done by the bush administration to push too far to the left for my comfort.
one more excerpt from RWNH, which is basically how i see things (and it rings true, seeing as how i once felt this way myself):
But you are still judging the man by others' actions and statements–not his own. There is not a hint anywhere that he favors black separatism. He turned down an endorsement by Louis Farrakhan, and chose a moderate centrist Democrat for his running mate.
Where as Palin's OWN HUSBAND joined a secessionist party, and was a member for years. Her pastor made antisemitic comments–should we accuse her of being antisemitic. McCain has ties to a pastor himself with extreme political views. Politics ain't a teaparty.
So the Obama campaign has definitely stretched McCain's record and manipulated things to look worse than they are. Factcheck.org has several articles along these lines. It sure does seem like they have a lot more articles recently about the Republican campaign doing far more. So anyway, glance through their site and decide.
kritt:
he was attracted to christianity through wright's church, which has always taken that tack.
and if you paint palin by her husband's views, aren't you doing what you say i'm doing?
anyway…. yes, overall, you are right: he's no separatist. he is a moderate who (rightly) empathizes with the outrage of many americans, and i cannot fault him for that, not after the past eight years. his campaign has used a few ads that stretch the truth a bit about mcCain's record (see pacatrue's latest comment). but as far as out and out lies, or the patent disregard for the truth that mcCain has shown, no, i don't see that either.
Do people care about Obama's dishonesty? He was to take public financing, he was to filibuster Dick Cheney's FISA bill that he voted for, he lied outright about his vote to deny babies born during abortions medical treatment, and quite a few more issues. I simply don't trust the man, he will do anything he needs to do to try to get votes and doesn't stand by what he claims as convictions. His record is perfectly clear, his moral judgemenet is subpar at best.
Onleyone– where am I painting Palin with her husband's views? Or with her pastor's,who made antisemitic statements? I don't judge people entirely by their associations—
Obama also has the endorsement of quite a number of military leaders who lined up on the stage during the convention. If he gets nailed for questionable associations, why not look at the rest of his supporters?
I have to state right here that I'm not overly religious myself– and actually feel that religious views should be kept private unless they affect performance on the job.
Leonidas- but you trust John McCain? Even after the AP called him out on his erroneous campaign ads, he stood by them. He called Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell agents of intolerance in 2000- then met with Falwell, and even gave a graduation address at Liberty University. He claimed to be against torture, but turned a blind eye after Bush added a signing statement to his legislation- basically negating it. He switched positions on immigration after his bill was voted down. He changed positions on Bush's tax cuts, being against them before he was for them. He claimed he was putting the country first, then chose a governor with no international travel and very little experience in office as his running mate. He claimed to be anti-pork but conveniently ignored the 200 million that Palin requested in earmarks for her state.
He also lied about meeting with Sen Daschell after his 2000 loss, the one in which he discussed switching parties.
He cheated on his first wife, and his second wife lied about her drug addiction– using staff working in her charities so that she could get prescription painkillers. Her charity later was forced to close.
Hillary's recollection of the Bosnia trip cannot be listed as anything but a lie, as the video tape exists to show that, and she continued in her version for some time after it surfaced.
As for the Gore meme, the surprising thing about it is how much truth it actually contains. The Internet didn't exist as we know it (as freely accessible, private enterprise system), until Gore introduced the legislation that removed control of DARPANet from the government. If you read his actual quote (prior to the spin and twisting of his words), that is what he said, and it is true.
Sorry, but a) McCain is hardly my hero and b) I didn't say McCain was just as honest; I said the Obama campaign is also dishonest (as ALL campaigns are). I made a point of the scale being different (which means I acknowledged that McCain has been more dishonest overall in his campaign), but to use another old joke:
Man: Excuse me Madam, but would you be willing to sleep with me for $10,000,000?
Woman: Indeed I might.
Man: Then I will give you $20 to sleep with me.
Woman: $20? What kind of a tramp do you think I am?
Man: Madam, I thought we determined that with my initial question, and had moved on to haggling over price.
* Often attributed to Churchill, but that is an urban legend.
For those who have trouble working out the point of that story, a cheap whore and and expensive whore are still both whores. Same is true for liars.
Before we judge whether or not Palin is lying, we should consider the source. The liberal sides are going to twist things around to make it “appear” as though she is lying… they have already done this by claiming she lied about “selling” the plane on eBay…. she didn't. She said she “put” the plane on eBay. She has been accused of “banning books.” ….books, like Harry Potter, that weren't even out at the time they accused her of banning them. There are so many “lies” being said about Sarah, and sadly, many people are believing them without really checking the facts.
Defitinitely, two feet. There are a lot of lies going around about Palin. But there are also a lot of lies or intentional misleading from Palin. You can check a lot of it on factcheck.org who have done posts both debunking a lot of the Palin email rumors and confirming/exposing some misdirections from Palin. Short version seems to be: book banning and some other email rumors are either junk or spotty on evidence; however, the visit to Iraq and the Bridge to Nowhere position are clearly misleading the public.
Thanks Pacatrue! Factcheck is a great website, and I realize there are things about Sarah that seem as though she's not telling the truth, but I find that when she has a chance to explain, it usually makes good sense. Neither party is perfect in my eyes, but McCain and Palin still stand for more of what I believe in and want for our country.
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