Sarah Palin Resigns

Sarah Palin gave notice to Alaska over the weekend, saying that she would resign her governorship effective July 25.  She also will not seek re-election in 2010.  So just what is she thinking?  No one knows for sure, although many people are trying to figure it out.  I don’t get it myself.

Palin, 45, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate who has an ardent following among conservatives, had been expected to announce Friday that she would not seek re-election after her term ends in 2010. But, surrounded by her family, she blindsided even Alaska political veterans when she announced in a meandering statement that she will step down July 25 and turn over the reins to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

[snip]

Palin, who has been the target of a series of ethical complaints in Alaska, delivered a rambling and defensive announcement surrounded by her family, and didn’t pinpoint a reason for the decision. She said she would be “taking my fight for Alaska in a new direction.”

“My choice is to take a stand and effect change and not just hit our heads against the wall,” she said. “We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time.”

Palin noted that she had intended to announce she wouldn’t run for a second term, but “I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks … then I thought, that’s what’s wrong.”

“They hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I’m not going to put Alaska through that … the same old politics as usual.

“All I can ask is you trust me with that decision,” Palin said. “I cannot stand here as your governor and allow the millions of dollars and all that time to go to waste, just so I can hold the title of governor.”

Even many of her supporters called quitting her job in midterm an act of political insanity – hardly an argument for a presidential candidate trying to demonstrate the capacity to tackle the nation’s toughest problems. And the timing of the announcement of such a major decision was puzzling – on the start of a three-day holiday when important news tends to get lost.

Though Palin said she had been considering her decision for weeks, state officials told Alaska media they were completely surprised by the announcement.

The move is the latest in a series of headline-making events for Palin and ignited a debate about whether it would extinguish – or fire up – her presidential aspirations.

“That’s the $64,000 question: Is she fed up with politics, or does it put her in a stronger position to run for president?” Whalen said. Voters “may forget if you leave your job, but they don’t forget every time you leave the state and an ethics complaint is filed. Alaska, as much as she loves her job, becomes an enormous burden if she wants to run for other office.”

Palin referred in her announcement to the ethics complaints, which she has dismissed as politically motivated.

It’s an unorthodox move to be sure, if she wants to run for president in 2012.  You would think that retaining the office of governor would give her a “bully pulpit” of sorts.  But she’s giving that up.  But why?  I can’t see that this move helps her politically, even though she remains quite popular with the Republican base.  It looks to me like another indication that she is not ready to be president and that she never will be.  (Incidentally, this also makes McCain look even more irresponsible in picking her to be his running mate.)

There has been some speculation that because her personal legal bills are about $500,000, she needs to get a talk show or write a book or go on the speaking circuit, or some combination of all of those.  Does it give her an opportunity to rebrand herself as someone who is ready to be president?  Maybe.  But I doubt it.

I’m mystified by this move.  Why would she do this?  I really don’t get it.  What do you think?  Is she crazy, or crazy like a fox?

Sarah Palin Still Not Ready for Primetime

Kathleen Parker nails it today in her column and in her online Washington Post chat.  Sarah Palin is undisciplined, does not have a professional staff, and does not have the intellectual curiosity to develop coherent, nuanced positions and then talk about them.

Palin, during her interview with Hannity:

A lot of this is wrapped in good rhetoric, but we’re not seeing those actions, and this many months into the new administration, quite disappointed, quite frustrated with not seeing those actions to rein in spending, slow down the growth of government. Instead, China’s the complete opposite. It’s expanding at such a large degree that if Americans are paying attention, unfortunately, our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize, certainly that is so far from what the founders of our countries had in mind for us.

Nothing has changed there since Katie Couric exposed her during the campaign.  Can someone tell me what that means?

During Parker’s chat (linked above):

But becoming media-savvy is only part of the equation. More important, she has to become educated and learned. But first, she has to want to. I’m not sure she has the intellectual curiosity necessary to bring her up to speed. Actually, this is a widely held doubt within the party.

So why are Republicans fawning over her?  She’s literally an attractive (I’m told) but empty suit that can mouth the neo-conservative talking points.  There are smart people in that group.  Why can they not see this?  She might be smart, but she is incurious.  We’ve seen that already, in George W Bush.

And just as bad, she is highly unorganized despite raising scads of money without even trying and despite many offers of help from professional Republican operatives.  She doesn’t return calls.  She couldn’t do a simple online town hall with her supporters.  She’s coming to the fundraiser, then she’s not, then she is again.  This is a woman with presidential aspirations?

From Parker’s column:

Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and GOP “It” girl, can warm up the Republican base like a hot toddy in a duck blind. But further inside the party organization, the air is a little nippy.

What happened? In a word, bungling.

Everyone seems to have a Sarah Palin story of ignored calls, mishandled invitations or unanswered e-mail. Disorganized is how one might charitably describe the Palin operation.

“Basically, it’s just rude,” says one political operative who is a Palin fan. “They’ve been running the great snub machine. That’s the reason the boys in the Republican Party are unhappy with her.”

That unhappiness has been building gradually in the past seven months, and it was on full display this week as the party faithful gathered for a fundraising dinner at which Palin originally was invited to speak. She was later uninvited, and Newt Gingrich took her place.

Watching the dinner-speaker spectacle develop, then unravel, then redevelop (Will she or won’t she speak/attend?) felt like watching a middle-school romance in which a friend tells another friend that so-and-so has a crush on you-know-who, but don’t tell anybody. A little silly, in other words. And embarrassing.

[snip]

There’s more — and stories vary — but a common theme emerges: Seven months after the election, Palin still can’t shoot straight. Unless something changes dramatically and soon, “Missed Opportunity” should be the title of her memoir.

By the time Palin returned to Alaska last fall, her popularity and fundraising ability were second only to Barack Obama’s. Instantly, she was drowning in speaking requests. Boxes and boxes of invitations stacked up — and went unprocessed.

Without any effort on her part, 75,000 to 80,000 fans around the country organized pro-Palin groups. Said a frustrated Palin promoter: “All she had to do for those 75,000 people was hold an electronic town hall, and she couldn’t get around to it.”

Of course, it’s not that Palin has nothing else to do. But her problem is the same as it was a year ago. She isn’t ready. For whatever reason — skittishness, distrust or, quite possibly, executive weakness — Palin has been unable to make the transition from Alaska politics to the Big Game Hunt of the national arena.

Plenty of experienced people have tried to help. Veteran operatives created SarahPAC to raise money for staff to at least open mail and return phone calls. It was a Kevin Costner field of dreams: Create the Web site, and they came, all right. The PAC raised $400,000 in its first month without so much as asking.

What happened next?

Nothing.

“We couldn’t get them to decide on office space,” says my source. “You couldn’t get them to be professional.”

Palin’s fiercely independent streak is part of her charm but also may be her undoing. It’s one thing to campaign on an anti-inside-the-Beltway platform. But to play in the big leagues, you need people who know what they’re doing.

You don’t flirt and say “yes,” and then say “no,” and then say “maybe,” and then show up expecting a bouquet. The tease is a risky business. Palin did get to walk across the stage with Gingrich — to appreciative applause and a few whistles — but she wasn’t allowed to talk. Something about upstaging Gingrich.

Palin also managed to get in a few words during an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity, which aired Monday night during the fundraising dinner. But anyone listening to both Gingrich and Palin would find preemption concerns ludicrous. Palin may be more fun to watch, but Gingrich dominates on the battlefield of ideas.

Whether Palin can rally her resources by 2012 remains in serious doubt, even among her fans. Said yet another Palin admirer: “The problem is, she has had months to get it together and they haven’t. They could have had an excellent national team and state team working seamlessly.”

But they didn’t.

It really goes to the theme of the Republican Party these days.  There are no leaders.  They have Rush, Newt, and Sarah.  Rush is a guy who bloviates for a living and has all kinds of baggage.  Newt has all kinds of baggage, too (and no, we have not forgotten).  Sarah Palin had a gold-plated opportunity if she really wanted to be a player on the national stage.  That’s an opportunity missed, for her, because she really does fire up the base.  The “Lord of the Flies” period continues.

The Real John McCain

What happened to John McCain this fall?  Where was the real guy?  Was it Sarah Palin?  Listening to Steven Schmidt too much?  Was it kowtowing to the right wing of the Republican Party to get the nomination, then not figuring out a way to tack back to the center?  In any case, the real McCain was absent this fall.  Had he been there, this might have been a closer election.  I still think he would have lost, considering how much Bush poisoned the Republican pool, but it might have been closer.

An illustration of the point — an article in today’s Washington Post:

A joke made its way around the Capitol yesterday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again.

Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan lawmaker they have served with for decades than the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he’s even carrying water for his former rival.

“Mac is back!” one of his devoted friends in the Senate declared as McCain walked into the chamber Wednesday to deliver his first speech of the 111th Congress: a blunt admonishment of Republicans delaying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s confirmation as secretary of state.

“I remind all my colleagues: We had an election,” McCain noted. “I think the message the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together, and get to work.”

[snip]

The surest sign of McCain’s return to his “maverick” ways came when he caught wind of an effort by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to delay Clinton’s confirmation vote by a day, pushing it from Tuesday to Wednesday because he was seeking greater disclosure about foreign donors to former president Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation. McCain found the objection gratuitous — despite policy disagreements with Clinton, he and most Republicans consider her well qualified — and said so publicly.

“I think that’s indicative of the role that John McCain is going to play,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who hatched the push-back against Cornyn’s gambit over dinner with McCain on Tuesday night, and who followed him to the floor to support Clinton’s confirmation. “He’s going to play a very active role. He’s going to try to forge bipartisan coalitions. And he won’t shy away from controversy.”

And he continues to march to his own tune. Yesterday, McCain applauded Obama’s executive order to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, but he said that Obama had failed to address key issues, including the fate of the detainees being held there. He voted this month against releasing $350 billion in additional money to bail out the financial sector, even after Obama trekked to the Capitol to lobby for the aid. McCain had supported the original bailout bill when it came before Congress last fall, during the heat of the presidential campaign.

Just where was this guy during the campaign?

(An aside: Ted Kennedy is just as bipartisan as McCain, maybe even more so.  Kennedy had a huge hand in passing No Child Left Behind, for instance.  Why is it that he’s not called a maverick?  Just asking.)

Palin’s First Amendment Rights Threatened

The audacity — and what seems like stupidity — of Sarah Palin never ceases to amaze me.  She’s now claiming that her First Amendment rights are being threatened by media criticism.

From ABC News (Hat Tip: HuffPost):

ABC News’ Steven Portnoy reports: In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by “attacks” from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks.  Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

However she feels about the way her story has been told in the press, Palin told WMAL she is not discouraged.

“It’s sort of perplexing to me, because I’m a practical person and plainspoken also, but just cutting to the chase and calling things like I see them, just like most Americans.  But this has not left a bitter taste in my mouth, the bitter shots taken by the mainstream media and by some of the elitism there in Washington,” Palin said.

“What this has left me with is a very energized and positive feeling about America, because there are enough Americans who are desiring the positive change that John McCain’s gonna usher in.” 

Plante then suggested that in her next sit-down interview, Palin should tap the reporter on the knee and ask, “So who you votin’ for?”

Palin laughed and said, “Yeah, maybe that just would say it all.”

“I’m gonna try that,” she said.

The media, while calling out her negative campaigning, has done exactly nothing to stop her from saying what she wants to say.  And they wouldn’t, even if they wanted to.  It’s not their role.  Plus, the more she says, the more they get to write, or talk about on television.  It’s a fallacious argument, and I suspect she knows it.

She’s treading down a very treacherous path with these remarks, in any case.  The media’s First Amendment rights are significant.  The media are the only real institution (using the term collectively) that holds people to account.  Some may argue — with some merit — that the media have not done their jobs very well during the Bush years.  But their right to say what they want is absolute, the same way my right to free speech is, and the same way Sarah Palin’s right to free speech is.

She ought to know that, especially since she’s running for the second-highest office in the land.  But then, she doesn’t know what the vice president’s official duties are, either.  I suggest a remedial Civics class, or perhaps a high school Government class for her before 2012.  (Or heck, she could at least read the Wikipedia links I put into this post.)

Lieberman: McCain Will Live to 85

Lieberman and McCain (Photo: Huffington Post)

I’d like to see Lieberman try to make good on this promise. 

Asked again on Sunday whether Sarah Palin is ready to be president, Sen. Joe Lieberman went one step further than he has in past remarks — virtually pledging to voters that John McCain “will live to 85 at least.”

In an audio clip of the Tampa, Florida, event obtained by the Huffington Post, Lieberman acknowledged that he has spoken “to doctors and insurance actuaries” about McCain’s health, “because I get asked this question so much.”

“People say to me, oh jeez, he’s 72 and he’s got skin cancer,” Lieberman said, adding: “I can tell you he’s been in remission for eight years. Secondly, I talked — because I get asked this question so much — I talked to doctors and insurance actuaries. And they tell me based on McCain’s age, his health, including skin cancer, he’ll live till at least 85. And probably longer.”

Lieberman once again offered a prayer that Palin would not soon have to serve as commander in chief: “I believe that he’ll be able to serve through his first term for which he’s elected, please God.”

There’s only one way to ensure that Sarah Palin does not become president: Vote for Barack Obama.  I’ve said it over and over ad nauseam: Sarah Palin is not ready.  John McCain disqualified himself from the presidency by tapping her.

It remains an open question as to whether McCain’s melanoma really is in remission.  Doctors have asked questions over and over.  There are also questions as to whether McCain has suffering from some cognitive issues.  See my posts on McCain’s health here, here (a doctor commented on this post as well), here, here, and here.

I really bear no ill will toward John McCain (or Sarah Palin).  I simply want what’s best for our country.  That is not John McCain and Sarah Palin.  The risk is simply too great to take the chance — against quite a lot of evidence — that McCain is ok.

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More on the Palin Clothes Flap

It’s funny trying to watch some right wing bloggers try to defend the Republican National Committee for spending $150,000 on Sarah Palin’s clothes.  It’s indefensible.  Some Republican donors agree; some are quite angry and, frankly, want their money back from the RNC.

From RedState:

Now the Obamunist media is upset over the shopping spree the RNC sent the Palin family on soon after John McCain named Alaska’s governor as his running mate. The talking heads among them won’t dare mention that their own fancy threads are freebies, btw.

My search engine was unable to find a price tag for Sen. Obama’s Hartmarx suits and Michelle’s Maria Pinto dresses for their DNC convention appearances. Suits similar to the ones made for BHO go for $1,500 off the rack, but these were custom-made threads, not off the rack fare. Custom-tailored suits can easily ring up at $5,000 each or more. The Burberry suits that make up the bulk of Obama’s wardrobe start at about $900 per.

The difference is simple.  It’s not about the price of the clothes.  It’s about who paid for them.  Barack Obama paid for his clothes himself.  So did Joe Biden.  John McCain, I presume, paid for his with Cindy’s money.  But the Republican National Committee took donated dollars and used them to buy clothes for Sarah Palin. 

Another thing: Those clothes constitute a taxable gift to Sarah Palin. 

From AmericaBlog:

As you know, the Republicans bought Sarah Palin $150,000 in clothes last month – that’s more than the average American household spends on clothes in 80 years. That’s also a gift. And it’s a taxable gift. It doesn’t matter if it’s for work. And it doesn’t matter if the Republicans now say they’re going to donate the clothes to charity after it’s over.

Sarah Palin can’t accept $150,000 dollars in goods, use them, then later give them away to charity and not pay taxes on the gift she received. By the time she gives them away to charity, they’re used clothes – and worth about 1/3 of their original value. So, sure, she can take a tax deduction on the $50,000 in clothes she’s giving away (a savings of perhaps $15k or so), but she still has to pay $50k or so in taxes on the $150,000 gift she received in the first place. That means Palin will owe $35,000 net in taxes due to her big shopping spree at Neiman Marcus and Saks. And the Republicans can’t help her pay for it, or she’ll be paying taxes on their help as well.

Of course, Palin is no stranger to failing to report her taxable income – she did the same thing while serving as governor of Alaska.

Obviously, AmericaBlog’s tax bill numbers are speculation.  But they’re conservative estimates.  She has some tax problems now.

Also, I should have put this in my post yesterday on this: The RNC’s purchase of clothes violates the spirit (but not the letter) of the McCain-Feingold Act.  Isn’t that ironic?

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Receiving more than $150,000 in clothing and accessories from the Republican National Committee last month doesn’t just run counter to Gov. Sarah Palin’s image as a “Wal-Mart Mom from Wasilla,” it also might have violated the spirit if not the letter of a campaign finance law co-authored by her running mate, Sen. John McCain.

The 2002 McCain-Feingold law prohibits funds that “are donated for the purpose of supporting the activities of a federal or state officeholder” from being used for personal expenses, including clothing, but it doesn’t preclude party committees from doing so.

McCain’s response on the topic, also from the Chronicle:

Presidential candidate John McCain isn’t happy about having to explain why the Republican Party has had to buy running mate Sarah Palin $150,000 in clothes, hair styling and accessories.

McCain was asked several questions on Thursday about the shopping spree — and he answered each one more or less the same way: Palin needed clothes and they’ll be donated to charity.

McCain offered no further comment, except to say that the Republican National Committee doesn’t buy his clothes.

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Palin’s Shopping Spree

I’m all for stimulating the economy, but I think this goes too far.  The Republicans used money – about $150,000, according to the Politico – to outfit Sarah Palin for the campaign.  (They also spent more than $13,000 for a makeup artist for Palin in September.)

The Caucus has the breakdown:

Federal Election Commission records show that Mr. [Jeff] Larson was reimbursed by the Republican National Committee in September for more than $130,000 in purchases at Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Barney’s New York, and Atelier New York, a men’s clothing store.

Apart from Mr. Larson, the McIntosh Company in Dallas, which appears to be a fund-raising firm run by Alison McIntosh, who has been identified in news reports as a fund raiser for the McCain campaign, was apparently reimbursed for $4,537 in purchases at Macy’s in Minneapolis, according to the commission records.

In addition, a woman by the name of Lisa Kline was reimbursed several hundred dollars for purchases made at high-end children’s stores in Minneapolis and New York.

The full shopping list for Ms. Sarah Palin and her family, according to records of the Federal Election Commission, looks like this:

• $75,062.63 spent at Neiman Marcus on Sept. 10.
• $41,850.72 to Saks Fifth Avenue in New York on Sept. 10.
• $7,575.02 to Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis on Sept. 10.
• $5,102.71 to Bloomingdale’s in New York on Sept. 10.
• $789.72 to Barney’s New York on Sept. 10.
• Charges of $4,396.94 and $512.92 at Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 10.
• $4,537.85 to Macy’s in Minneapolis on Sept. 22.
• $349.50 to Lord & Taylor in New York on Sept. 25.
• $4,902.08 to Atelier New York, a men’s clothing boutique, on Sept. 10.
• Two separate charges of $98 to Pacifier, a high-end baby store in Minneapolis, on Sept. 10 and Sept. 25.
• $98.50 to Steinlauf & Stoller, a sewing supply store, in New York on Sept. 25.
• $133 to the Gap in Minneapolis on Sept. 25.

The Politico piece also mentions $4,716.49 for hair and makeup.  That’s one heck of a makeover.  I’m jealous.

Seriously, though, what kind of message does this send to “Joe Six-pack” out there in the battleground states?  I mean, $150,000 is a lot of money — more than my family brings home in a year.  It’s almost four times what Joe the Plumber is said to have made. 

I know that sometimes there’s a double standard for women.  Look at all the flack Hillary took for her pantsuits.  I know that the RNC wanted to make Palin look a bit more urbane and less like someone from a small state whose fashion sense isn’t scrutinized at every turn.  I know that they wanted to make her more hot, for lack of a better word.  People will care what she wears; ostensibly she can’t wear the same thing again.  In contrast, no one will care whether Joe Biden wears the same suit in Pennsylvania one day and in Iowa the next.  Still, though, this is a heck of a message to send.

Also, there are some legal questions about whether this was proper.  A spokeshole says that the clothes will be given to charity after the campaign.  I hope that person gets to be the one to take the Louis Vuitton handbag away from Piper.

McCain’s Physical Decline

I came across this video on AmericaBlog this morning.  They’ve spliced together two clips of John McCain.  The first is from 18 months ago, during a debate at the Reagan Library during the Republican primary.  The second clip is from yesterday, when he got confused on stage at an event in Pennsylvania.

The second clip isn’t particularly flattering, and in a vacuum it means nothing.  But when you compare the two clips, it becomes apparent just how much he’s aged.  And, as AmericaBlog points out, he’s not even president yet. 

Being president ages even the most fit.  It’s a high stress job.  The reason this matters is precisely that.  We’re not talking about being a mayor, or senator, or congressman.  We’re talking about president of the United States.  McCain’s marked physical decline, as well as surviving four bouts of melanoma raise real questions as to McCain’s fitness for office.  Add that the candidate for president chose the most unqualified running mate he could find and a real problem is brewing.  That’s why this matters.  We could be looking at President Palin before the end of McCain’s presidency.  And that would be a catastrophe of extreme proportions.

It is why I believe John McCain disqualified himself from the presidency when he chose Palin to be his running mate.  He put the country at risk for political gain.

Palin on SNL

I’ve seen the videos of Sarah Palin on screen on Saturday Night Live last weekend.  I can appreciate that she’s a good sport and that she’s willing to laugh at herself.  Those are admirable traits.  So what?

I do think, however, that she would have been better served by taking some questions from her traveling press corps, or maybe even (gasp!) doing a press conference.  We know that she’s good-looking, can laugh (even at herself), and may even be fun to be around.  But she’s running for vice president of the United States.  We need to know how she thinks through issues.  We need to understand how she works under pressure.  We need to know if she can think on her feet.  She’s run a campaign in which she has been totally insulated from the press, where she hasn’t taken many questions.  We need a press conference.

We don’t need to know if she can laugh at herself.  Ultimately, that’s unimportant.

To Avoid Being Depressed, Palin Doesn’t Get Campaign News

You know, in any other year I wouldn’t believe it.  This year I do, though; Palin has shown herself to be even more incurious than George W. Bush, something I would never have thought possible.  But her staff screens her news so that she doesn’t get depressed about the campaign.  Really?  Is this really a candidate on a major ticket?  Really?

From The Trail:

GREENSBORO, N.C. — No wonder GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin harbors such hostility toward the mainstream media: her staff imposes limits on her access to it.

During a fundraiser here that raised $800,000 last night, Palin admitted that her aides often dissuade her from tuning into televised coverage of the presidential campaign.

“So North Carolina, I appreciate you all so much, who are here who already get it. You know, maybe I’m preaching to the choir a little bit here, but being here encourages me because I know that I’m not alone and I’ll send this message back to John McCain also. At those times on the campaign trail when sometimes it’s easy to get a little bit discouraged, when, you know, when you happen to turn on the news when your campaign staffers will let you turn on the news,” she said, prompting laughter from the group. “Usually they’re like ‘Oh my gosh, don’t watch. You’re going to, you know, you’re going to get depressed.’”

She added that while she doesn’t always appreciate the way reporters portray the GOP ticket, she’s been bolstered by the prayers of many of the campaign’s backers.

“But yeah, sometimes you do get depressed watching what it is that they’re reporting and the spin and some of the distortion of what our message is and what we stand for. Sometimes that, that gets draining,” she continued. “But it’s at events like these and our rallies that we are so energized and inspired and we know that we are not alone. We feel your strength and we feel the power of prayer, so many of you tell us that you are praying for us and praying for our country and that’s why we so appreciate you being here.”

Giving credit to a higher power for the day’s poll ratings, the Alaska governor told the roughly 500-person audience that things might be changing. “We even saw today, thank the Lord,” she said, looking upwards and raising her fist, “We saw some movement.”

Palin has continued to shun the national print and television journalists who follow her on a daily basis, instead courting local reporters and Republican-affiliated journalists. Today she did short interviews with reporters from Bangor, Me., as well as Greensboro and Raleigh, N.C., along with a 15-minute session with Weekly Standard reporter Fred Barnes.

It was apparent from watching her interview with Katie Couric that Palin doesn’t read the news.  She couldn’t name a single newspaper or magazine that she reads.  Now we find out that she still doesn’t read the news because it might depress her.  Poor baby!

This, my friends, is who John McCain chose to put one heartbeat away from the presidency.  And then he has the gall to stand up and say she’s ready.  Calling him a liar on this one is too weak.  Yet this is the issue with the most potential consequences.  Do we need any more reasons to vote for Obama in 18 days?