http://www.smh.com.au/world/pundits-left-to-wonder-if-palins-moose-is-cooked-20090710-dg2g.html

Pundits left to wonder if Palin's moose is cooked

Sarah Palin ... confusing signals from a rambling resignation speech. Photo: AP

IS SHE standing for the presidency in 2012? Or was this a dummy spit from a politician fed up with constant media scrutiny and attacks on her family?

Or is there something more sinister that will explain this surprising turn of events from one of America's most fascinating political figures?

A week after Sarah Palin delivered her rambling and confusing resignation speech from the backyard of her home in Wasilla, the departing Alaska governor continues to command the attention of US columnists and bloggers.

They have parsed her speech, scoured her Facebook entries and analysed her tweets. Yet answers remain elusive.

The big scandal, if one exists, has yet to come to light. Nor has the grand plan. Many conclude they should take Mrs Palin at face value: that she was exhausted by the constant ethics complaints - complaints her office alleges are orchestrated out of the Obama White House - and wants to step back and gain control of her family life away from the media glare that has barely dimmed since August, when she was named as running mate for the presidential bid of the Republican Senator John McCain.

Will she stand in 2012 ? Maybe. Maybe not.

"I cannot predict what's going to happen. I don't know what doors will be open or close by then," she told Time magazine from her in-laws' home in Dillinger, a fishing village accessible only by boat or plane, where she and her husband Todd were relaxing and "slaying salmon" this week.

"I was telling Todd today, I was saying, 'Man, I wish we could predict the next fish run so that we know when to be out on the water'," she said. "We can't predict the next fish run, much less what's going to happen in 2012."

For now the only certainty in Mrs Palin's life is that she is about to become very rich. She has signed up the lawyer and agent Bob Barnett, who has made millions for other politicians, including Bill Clinton, to manage her new life. She already has a book deal, said to involve a seven-figure advance.

Other offers are rolling in and will be considered when Mrs Palin finishes in office at the end of the month. But the sizzle she generates among conservatives means she can expect to command at least $US100,000 ($128,000) a speech. With just two days' work she will surpass her governor's salary.

The rumours also continue to swirl that she will end up with her own television show, although Fox News's Richard White said this week that the network had not had any discussions with her. But her agent perhaps?

Mrs Palin herself flagged the idea of working to get others elected who represent similar views. She has also hinted she would be available to promote conservative values close to her heart: small government, domestic oil exploration, fighting the costs of climate change legislation and anti-abortion issues.

But can her time in the spotlight provide a road to the White House even for such an unorthodox politician?

The architect of George Bush's two victories, Karl Rove, was doubtful. She had escaped the ethics investigations, but he added: "It's sort of sent a signal that if you do this kind of thing to a sitting governor like her, you can drive her out of office."

He warned that if she wanted to be president she would still attract the microscopic media attention she said she loathed. "The effective strategies in politics are ones that are so clear and obvious that people can grasp it. It is not clear what her strategy here is by exiting the governorship 2½ years through her term and putting herself on a national stage that she might not yet be prepared to operate in." Even some of her biggest fans were struggling to see the logic of her move.

Fred Barnes, editor of the conservative Weekly Standard, became enchanted with Mrs Palin in 2007 while part of a now famous conservative cruise that docked in Juneau in the summer of 2007. He encouraged Senator McCain to choose her as his running mate.

But this week it seemed political hard-headedness had prevailed. "Forget about Sarah Palin as the Republican presidential candidate in 2012 and probably ever," he wrote. "She's knocked out one of three legs of the presidential stool, and a second one is wobbly." While Barnes acknowledged her "real charisma", she had now destroyed any chance of arguing her case on experience.

The third wobbly leg he was referring to was her grasp of foreign and domestic policy, something she has shown little interest in improving.

Barack Obama, of course, won the people's trust with little experience - just four years in the Senate and eight years in the Illinois legislature - but the difference is that Mr Obama spent those years in Washington working furiously to burnish his credentials on foreign relations, health care and the economy. Even then, his lack of experience remained his Achilles heel, requiring the campaign to periodically call on elder statesmen to reassure voters.

The polls also point to the strengths and weaknesses of Mrs Palin should she choose to pursue a place on the national political stage. A Gallup poll conducted last Monday identified 19 per cent of US voters who said they were "very likely" to vote for her should she stand, and another 24 per cent who were "somewhat likely" to do so, giving her a reservoir of core support, but raising questions about whether she could lure independent voters.

She remains a polarising figure. Nearly as many voters - 41 per cent - say they would be not at all likely to vote for her. By comparison, a 2005 Gallup poll found 52 per cent of voters "somewhat likely" to vote for Hillary Clinton.

I think she finally realised she was way out of her depth, even as Governor of Alaska. Good looks and a few well practised cliches will only take you so far. But unless there is some intellectual depth to back it up, then you are eventually going to run out of steam, and be run over by another loco. She always struggled as McCain's running mate when she had to actually comment on matters that a V.P. should have some knowledge on. Good looks and a folksy manner just weren't going to cut it with the discerning voter. She may have got away with it for a while in Alaska, but her decline in the opinion polls showed that it wasn't going to be enough there either. In her resignation speech, she looked to me like she was a woman at the end of her tether. She looked like a vulnerable mother who had given birth to a child with Down's Syndrome, and whose daughter was a young single mother. She looked like a woman deserving of sympathy, not scorn.

And I think the exposure of her family problems just ate away at her self esteem. That, and the trust she placed in her fundamentalist faith. It just wasn't turning out the way that the pastors said it would. They were exposed for the charlatans that they truly are, although she may not yet realise this.

I think she just wants to go back to the simple world she understands. I wish her well.if she does. I may not have agreed with her politics, but she is, after all, just another mother struggling to get by in this confusing world we live in.

And only the hardest heart would blame her for that.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/105490/

Campaigning today, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) said that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would fix the economy by imposing a spending freeze. She also declared that a McCain administration would balance the budget by the end of their first term. Watch it:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/101533/

No wonder I was confused about Sarah Palin's body language. She didn't just sound like she was heavily scripted. She sounded like she was reading cue cards or even a tele-prompter.

Because the cable and network television stations did not show a split screen of the debate, most viewers could not see that, during Joe Biden’s answers, Palin spent almost all her time looking down and studiously reading her notes. But viewers did see that when Palin delivered her answers, she would repeatedly glance down to check her talking points.

ThinkProgress has compiled a video documenting some of the instances where it was clear to the audience that Palin was propped up by written responses.

What's outrageous is that I actually questioned my judgment and bias when I mentioned last night that it looked like she was reading off cards. I couldn't fathom her reading off cue cards she'd have hidden in her jacket.

Wow.

http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenParker/2008/09/26/the_palin_problem?page=full&comments=true

WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.

To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.

Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.

Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.

As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.

Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)

And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).

Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.

Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.

It was fun while it lasted.

Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.

No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.

Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there. Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity:

"Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."

When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/98761/the_media_call_mccain_and_palin_on_their_trail_of_lies/?page=entire

The Media Call McCain and Palin on Their Trail of Lies

Newsday. Posted September 15, 2008.

The McCain campaign has spent the last couple weeks making claims and accusations of dubious accuracy, mocking independent fact checkers, and telling everyone who will listen that the "media filter" doesn't matter.

They better hope they're right, because they're getting a lot of pushback:

The Boston Globe has a story reporting that Sarah Palin's claim to have visited Iraq last year was false -- she only got to a Kuwait/Iraq border station on a trip to meet Alaska guard troops. Previously, she acknowledged that her visit to Ireland had involved changing planes.

Bloomberg reported that the campaign's estimates of crowd sizes last week during McCain/Palin joint appearances may have been false.

McCain's assertion on "The View" on Friday that Sarah Palin didn't take any earmarks as governor of Alaska when she did earned him four Pinnochios -- a liar ranking -- from the Washington Post's factchecker.

The NYTimes frontpaged "an avalanche of criticism" of McCain for "regularly stretching the truth" on Saturday.

And, in a memo, the Obama campaign helpfully summarizes a litany of other denunciations:

The reviews are in on McCain's strategy of distorting, distracting and outright lying to the American people and what that says about his character, but the St. Petersburg Times put it best when they said his "campaign of lies disgraces McCain" and "McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity."

St. Petersburg Times (Editorial) "Campaign of lies disgraces McCain" McCain's straight talk has become a toxic mix of lies and double-speak. It is leaving a permanent stain on his reputation for integrity, and it is a short-term strategy that eventually will backfire with the very types of independent-thinking voters that were so attracted to him. LINK

Atlanta Journal Constitution (Jay Bookman) The volume and audacity of lies pouring from the McCain campaign is startling and even historicThat's really something, lying straight out about a FactCheck group, knowing that you're going to get caught but not giving a damn about it. With stuff like this, the McCain camp has cut any remaining tethers to reality and integrity and is now floating wherever the winds of illusion and whimsy may take them. It's quite remarkable, and quite insulting to the intelligence of the American people. LINK

Pittsburg Post Gazette (Tony Norman) Where have you gone, John McCain? You once said you'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Is it worth winning an election if it means forfeiting your soul on the altar of political expediency?Where is the honor in reciting lies for something as transient as political advantage? What are we as voters supposed to make of political ads that accuse Barack Obama of advocating sex education for kindergartners? Despite the intellectually dishonest maneuvering of your campaign, many Americans admire you, John McCain. Before you embraced the darkness, I was among those who disagreed with your politics, but considered you honorable. Now it's hard to look at you without seeing the scoundrels who made you what you are today. LINK

Kansas City Star (Barb Shelly) McCain stoops to deception, distortion: Maybe you've seen it. The campaign ad cites the authoritative journal Education Week to claim that Democrat Barack Obama has been missing in action on education reformShamelessly misleading the public?These are old tricks we've been seeing in local elections for years. Distort. Twist. Deceive. Damage. And the winning candidate drags a load of public contempt into office. I had hoped for better from McCainJohn McCain may win the presidency this way, but he will lose the respect he has acquired over the years. LINK

Boston Globe (Scot Lehigh) Pretzel logic from the McCain campaign: Here's the question voters should be asking themselves this week: Just how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am? The answer: Dumb enough to hoodwink with charges so contrived and cynical they make your teeth acheAs the nonpartisan campaign watchdog FactCheck.org has made clear, this is a thoroughly dishonest ad [Kindergarten]. No matter. The McCain campaign has shown it's ready and willing to say preposterous things to win. LINK

Washington Post (David Ignatius) Stopping at nothing to win: Thinking about the Palin choice, you begin to ponder other moves McCain has made on the road to winning the Republican nomination. McCain was right a few years ago to warn that Bush's tax cuts would have potentially ruinous fiscal consequences; now he favors extending the cuts that have produced a crisis of debt and deficit. Why did he switch his position, other than political opportunism?In May 2006, after McCain had courted the Rev. Jerry Falwell in an effort to win conservative support, I asked him if he was bending his principles for the sake of winning. "I don't want it that badly," McCain answered. "I will continue to do what is rightIf that means I can't get the Republican nomination, fine. I've had a happy life. The worst thing I can do is sell my soul to the devil." He was right. LINK

Washington Post (Eugene Robinson) The Scream Machine: There was a time when Republicans campaigned on their ideas, programs and values. This year -- lacking ideas, programs or values -- John McCain and Sarah Palin are running for the White House on an elaborate fictional narrative of victimhoodCreating the false impression that Democrats and journalists are unfairly attacking Palin serves another purpose as well: It helps create the impression that legitimate and necessary questions about her record -- such as her one-time support for the Bridge to Nowhere or her history of seeking the congressional earmarks she now claims to reject -- are somehow out of bounds. LINK

Chicago Tribune (Steve Chapman) To McCain the truth is expandable: McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe. He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul. LINK

Chicago Tribune (Frank James) "McCain plays dirty on Obama & sex-ed" So the McCain ad, in the way it contorts the truth, is pretty shocking from a candidate who has promised to bring change and reform to Washington, a man who's urging Americans to live for a cause larger than themselves. This is an old-fashioned, unreconstructed politics whose goal, first and foremost, is to get the candidate elected, the truth be damned. McCain has said he'd rather lose a campaign than lose a war. But it appears from this ad he'd rather lose any purchase he has on straight-talk than lose this presidential election. LINK

Chicago Tribune (Eric Zorn) `Sex ed' ad educates us on the character of John McCain: The surprise came at the end: I'm John McCain and I approved this message. With that infamous admission, McCain surrendered his integrity and signaled a willingness to say or do anything to get elected We used to expect better from John McCain. No longer. LINK

TIME (Joe Klein): A new rule here: Rather than do the McCain campaign's bidding by wasting space on Senator Honor's daily lies and bilge--his constant attempts to divert attention from substantive issues--I'm going to assume that others will spend more than enough time on the sewage that Steve Schmidt is shoveling and, from now on, try to stick to the issues. LINK

TIME (Joe Klein) Apology Not Accepted: he is responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it, but here's the McClatchy fact check.. I just can't wait for the moment when John McCain--contrite and suddenly honorable again in victory or defeat--talks about how things got a little out of control in the passion of the moment. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig. LINK

TIME (Joe Klein) Another McCain Flip Flop: Army Times, which is not--last time I checked--a radical left wing publication, takes John McCain to task for changing his position on the Future Combat Systems program. This is yet another example of how running for President has driven McCain off the deep end. In the past, he was one of the more consistent voices against foolish Pentagon weapon systems. Here's a program that McCain previously wanted to end. Then Obama says he wants to slow-walk itand McCain--reflexively, it appears, and unable to recall that he previously opposed it--decides to support it. LINK

New York Times (Paul Krugman) Blizzard of Lies: I'm talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to comeAnd now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country? What it says, I'd argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse. LINK

New York Times (Editorial): The most disheartening aspect of a scurrilous Republican ad falsely accusing Barack Obama of promoting sex education for kindergarten children is its closing line: "I'm John McCain, and I approved this message." This from that straight-talker of yore, who fervidly denounced the 2004 Bush campaign's Swift Boat character attacks on John Kerry's military record. What a difference four years makes, especially after Mr. McCain secured the nomination by hiring some of the same low-blow artists from the Bush campaign. LINK

New York Times (Larry Rohter): The advertisement ["Disrespectful"] is the latest in a number that resort to a dubious disregard for the facts. The nonpartisan political analysis group Factcheck.org has already criticized "Disrespectful" as "particularly egregious," saying that it "goes down new paths of deception," and is "peddling false quotes." LINK

New York Times (Michael Cooper and Jim Rutenberg) McCain Barbs Stirring Outcry as Distortions: Mr. McCain came into the race promoting himself as a truth teller and has long publicly deplored the kinds of negative tactics that helped sink his candidacy in the Republican primaries in 2000. But his strategy now reflects a calculation advisers made this summer -- over the strenuous objections of some longtime hands who helped him build his "Straight Talk" image -- to shift the campaign more toward disqualifying Mr. Obama in the eyes of voters LINK

ABC News-Political Punch (Jake Tapper): One can only imagine what the John McCain of 2004 - who called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads "dishonest and dishonorable" - would say about this ad I suppose one could twist this stuff any way you want if your only point is to make an inflammatory charge. And win an election The New York Times' "Checkpoint" ("Ad on Sex Education Distorts Obama Policy "), Factcheck.org ("Obama, contrary to the ad's insinuation, does not support explicit sex education for kindergarteners") and the Washington Post's Fact Checker ("McCain's 'Education' Spot Is Dishonest, Deceptive") say the ad is a gross distortion. I agree -- in both senses of the word "gross." LINK

AP (Charles Babington): The "Straight Talk Express" has detoured into doublespeak. Republican presidential nominee John McCain, a self-proclaimed tell-it-like-it-is maverick, keeps saying his running mate, Sarah Palin, killed the federally funded Bridge to Nowhere when, in fact, she pulled her support only after the project became a political embarrassment. He said Friday that Palin never asked for money for lawmakers' pet projects as Alaska governor, even though she has sought nearly $200 million in earmarks this year. He says Obama would raise nearly everyone's taxes, when independent groups say 80 percent of families would get tax cuts instead. LINK

Huffington Post (Sam Stein): When does being a governor or mayor for a short period of time not disqualify your credentials on national security? When you are John McCain and your task is to defend your vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. When does being a governor or mayor for a short period of time ABSOLUTELY disqualify your credentials on national security? When you are John McCain and your task is to defeat primary opponents Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani . . . Fast-forward nearly a year, and the argument McCain made back then is being used against his vice presidential pick today. Only Sarah Palin held the post of mayor of Wasilla for less time than Rudy Giuliani headed New York City. And her gubernatorial stint in Alaska is shorter than that of Mitt Romney's in Massachusetts. McCain, not surprisingly, has changed his tune. LINK

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/18/2367792.htm?section=justin

Palin defends McCain's economic 'verbiage'

Posted 4 hours 7 minutes ago
Updated 3 hours 42 minutes ago

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin says John McCain had been unfairly criticised for his "verbiage" on the state of the US economy.

Asked by Fox television about criticism over McCain's comment that the fundamentals of the US economy were "strong" despite a deepening financial crisis, Ms Palin said; "It was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use..."

In an interview to be aired later today, she said the White House hopeful "means our workforce. He means the ingenuity of the American people."

While praising the skills of US workers, the Alaska Governor said "the economy is a mess."

The Macquarie Dictionary defines "verbiage" as "abundance of useless words, as in writing or speech; wordiness."

But the US-based Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it as "a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content" or "manner of expressing oneself in words: diction".

The apparent gaffe coincides with the release of a poll which puts White House hopefuls Barack Obama and Senator McCain in a virtual tie in five battleground states.

The CNN/Time Magazine/Opinion Research Corp. poll shows that Senators Obama and McCain are in a dead heat in Florida, with 48 per cent of registered voters in the must-win state siding with each candidate.

In Ohio the survey shows a tight race, with Senator Obama edging out his Republican opponent with 49 per cent support from registered voters, compared with 47 per cent for McCain, a difference well within the poll's margin of error.

Both states are crucial for victory in the November 4 presidential election.

Florida decided the election in 2000 by a slim margin for President George W Bush. In 2004 Mr Bush's narrow victory in Ohio clinched his reelection.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillarys-women-reject-mccains-vp-choice-933050.html

'Hillary's women' reject McCain's VP choice

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Wednesday, 17 September 2008

America's largest women's rights organisation delivered a snub to Sarah Palin's history-making candidacy yesterday by endorsing Barack Obama and Joe Biden's bid for power.

The National Organisation for Women (NOW) is 500,000 strong and hugely influential. The feminist organisation almost never supports a presidential candidate, but the Alaska governor's Christian fundamentalist faith and her opposition to abortion rights has forced its hand.

Other women's rights organisations are also campaigning against Governor Palin, pushed along by a spontaneous anti-Palin movement among women.

In Alaska at the weekend, a Welcome Home rally for Mrs Palin was dwarfed by a demonstration organised by Alaska Women Reject Palin, which was held on the lawn of a downtown Anchorage library.

After triggering a huge surge of enthusiasm for John McCain's campaign and sending him into the lead over Barack Obama, Mrs Palin has come under intense scrutiny from the national media. The investigation known as "Troopergate" threatens to expose her as a bullying governor who fired Alaska's de facto police chief for family rather than professional reasons.

The controversy moved up a notch yesterday when Mrs Palin's campaign team announced her refusal to co-operate with the Troopergate investigation because it was "tainted" by politics.

NOW's decision to back Senator Obama when a woman is within striking distance of becoming elected is a bold step for the group and a setback for John McCain's hopes of luring the millions of women who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

"The addition of Sarah Palin gave us a new sense of urgency," Kim Gandy, the head of NOW, told National Public Radio. "She is being portrayed as a supporter of women's rights... as a feminist when in fact her positions on so many of the issues are really anathema to ours.

"A lot of women think it's a great thing for a woman to be running for vice-president," she continued, "but they are completely dismayed when they find out her positions. The idea that she opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest – those kinds of positions are completely out of step with American women and once they find out about those positions, they get a little less excited."

Last week, Alaska legislators ordered Mrs Palin's husband, Todd, as well as her chief of staff and deputy chief of staff to answer questions at the Troopergate inquiry. Several years ago, Governor Palin's sister went through a custody battle with her ex-husband Trooper Mike Wooten. Efforts to sack Trooper Wooten failed and Governor Palin sacked the safety director Walt Monegan instead. Mrs Palin's refusal to co-operate with the panel could raise more doubts her suitability as a national candidate in the minds of voters.

The governor's creationist beliefs have also emerged as a hurdle. In Wasilla, where she cut her teeth as a Republican mayor, the Rev Howard Bess, a Baptist minister and author of the book Pastor, I am Gay, says his work was on then Mayor Palin's "hit list" for removal from the town's library. "People in city government have confirmed to me what Sarah was trying to do," he said.

Another Wasilla resident, Phil Munger, a music composer and teacher, says she pushed an evangelical agenda in the town. "She wanted to get people who believed in creationism on the [school] board. I bumped into her after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God [a church]. I said, 'Sarah, how can you believe in creationism – your father's a science teacher.' And she said, 'We don't have to agree on everything.' I pushed her on the earth's creation, whether it was really less than 7,000 years old and whether dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time. And she said yes, she'd seen images somewhere of dinosaur fossils with human footprints in them."

Mr Munger also asked Mrs Palin if she believed in the End of Days, the doomsday scenario when the Messiah will return. "She looked in my eyes and said, 'Yes, I think I will see Jesus come back to earth in my lifetime'."

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24355360-5003402,00.html

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

Napoleon