Palin's palaver - her biggest mistake

Sarah "Pitbull" Palin was not happy with the way the McCain campaign "handled" her. In spite of that, however, she continues to claim she just "loves" ol' John.

What the McCain campaign did wrong, says Sarah, was to keep her from talking to the media.

Yup! Though most of us thought, from the point of view of the viability of the McCain campaign, that was the one thing they did right.


Sarah, doesn't quite see it that way. She told John Gizzi of the right-wing Human Events' magazine that "The biggest mistake [in the campaign] was that I could have called more shots on this: the opportunities that were not seized to speak to more Americans via media. I was not allowed to do very many interviews, and the interviews that I did were not necessarily those I would have chosen."

Yes, this is the same Sarah Palin that denigrated and castigated the "liberal," "elite" media every chance she could while on the campaign trail!

[A further tidbit: She was over-controlled during the campaign, she says. She was a governor, for god's sake! She was not used to being "handled." She is "used to proving [her] abilities by calling the shots." And she noted that she relied on God's direction in all that she does - "that's good enough for me," she said, theologically.]

Right! Blame God! Sheesh!


This is all very funny. Throughout the campaign, Sarah condemned the MSM. And everytime she was interviewed by the MSM, she made a complete fool of herself. She became a laughing-stock to everyone but the intellectually- and ethically-challenged. "I can see Alaska from my house"? "I read all the newspapers"?

From the Democratic point of view, it really is too bad that she was kept hidden from the press. All that would have been necessary for an ever bigger Obama landslide was to let Palin prattle on!

"I can see the White House from my house!"

You betcha!

The Department of the Interior - Party Animals

This from Dashka Slater, writing in Sierra magazine:

"Sex, Drugs, and Royalties - Congress entrusts expanded coastal drilling to the Interior Department's party animals.

"Was it the cocaine, the drunken parties, the ski getaways, or the sex? Whatever tipped the balance, last September Department of the Interior inspector general Earl E. Mevaney blasted the Minerals Management Service (MMS) for it 'culture of ethical failure.' Devaney found that employees of the agency's Royalty in Kind program, which collects billions of dollars in oil revenues, were in the habit of partying and occasionally sleeping with oil company representatives with whom they were doing business. Program staff also allowed energy companies to rewrite bids after being awarded leases, depriving the government of millions of dollars in revenue.

"Two weeks after Devaney's report came out, Congress offered its own gift to the oil industry by allowing the 27-year-old offshore-drilling moratorium to expire. The agency responsible for awarding new drilling leases? The MMS."

As Slater points out, however, "oil won't flow anytime soon." For a variety of reasons. Leases can't be sold until they are made part of a new five-year plan which is expected to at least two years. Drilling wouldn't start for another 5 - 10 years.

And, who knows, maybe the Dems can get the moratorium reinstated.

In other words, lots of things have to happen before anyone sees a drop of oil. And all of that takes time.

Slater sees another positive: "That might give MMS staff extra time to peruse their new pocket-size, laminated ethics guides, which won an award from the Office of Government Ethics--two days before the sex, drugs, and royalties scandal hit the papers."


I wonder if the MSM people involved in these shenanigans have been fired. Or maybe Bush gave them a special presidential medal for innovation in developing corporate relationships.