FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated
Press Writer 32 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the
2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.
Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts
herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without
ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to
high ambition.

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She
criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package
that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush
— a package she seemed to support at the time.

A look at some of her statements in "Going Rogue," obtained by The
Associated Press in advance of its release Tuesday:

___

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business
as Alaska governor, asking "only" for reasonably priced rooms and not
"often" going for the "high-end, robe-and-slippers" hotels.

THE FACTS: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for
less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed
five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury
hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City's
Central Park for a five-hour women's leadership conference in October
2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event
organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The
governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children's travel,
including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases
later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official
business.

___

PALIN: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations,
mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big
donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.

THE FACTS: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and
general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people
and political action committees giving at least $500, according to an AP
analysis of her campaign finance reports. The maximum that individual
donors could give was $1,000; $2,000 for a PAC.

Of the rest, about $76,000 came from Republican Party committees.

She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife and $30 from
a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers'
offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a
powerful Alaska oilfield services company. After AP reported those
donations during the presidential campaign, she gave a comparative sum
to charity.

___

PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to
Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in
business, "you'll have to be brave enough to fail."

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring the lines between Obama's stimulus plan — a
$787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and
government contracts — and the federal bailout that Republican
presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W.
Bush signed.

Palin's views on bailouts appeared to evolve as McCain's vice
presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said "taxpayers cannot
be looked to as the bailout, as the solution, to the problems on Wall
Street." A week later, she said "ultimately what the bailout does is
help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed
to help shore up our economy."

During the vice presidential debate in October, Palin praised McCain for
being "instrumental in bringing folks together" to pass the $700 billion
bailout. After that, she said "it is a time of crisis and government did
have to step in."

___

PALIN: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one
that appears to be ending now, and "showed us how to get out of one. If
you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax
once and for all."

THE FACTS: The estate tax, which some call the death tax, was not
repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when
Reagan was president.

Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The
recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd
month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial
meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October
2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.

___

PALIN: She says her team overseeing the development of a natural gas
pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process that allowed any
company to compete for the right to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring
natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48.

THE FACTS: Palin characterized the pipeline deal the same way before an
AP investigation found her team crafted terms that favored only a few
independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited a company with
ties to her administration, TransCanada Corp. Despite promises and legal
guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders during the process,
Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate,
including TransCanada.

___

PALIN: Criticizes an aide to her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski, for
a conflict of interest because the aide represented the state in
negotiations over a gas pipeline and then left to work as a handsomely
paid lobbyist for ExxonMobil. Palin asserts her administration ended all
such arrangements, shoving a wedge in the revolving door between special
interests and the state capital.

THE FACTS: Palin ignores her own "revolving door" issue in office; the
leader of her own pipeline team was a former lobbyist for a subsidiary
of TransCanada, the company that ended up winning the rights to build
the pipeline.

___

PALIN: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a
garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring
residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking
it to the dump for free — this to illustrate conflicts of interest she
stood against as a public servant.

THE FACTS: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a special zoning
exception so she could sell her family's $327,000 house, then did not
keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property.

She asked the city council to loosen rules for snow machine races when
she and her husband owned a snow machine store, and cast a tie-breaking
vote to exempt taxes on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one. But
she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a
grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.

___

PALIN: Says Obama has admitted that the climate change policy he seeks
will cause people's electricity bills to "skyrocket."

THE FACTS: She correctly quotes a comment attributed to Obama in January
2008, when he told San Francisco Chronicle editors that under his
cap-and-trade climate proposal, "electricity rates would necessarily
skyrocket" as utilities are forced to retrofit coal burning power plants
to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Obama has argued since then that climate legislation can blunt the cost
to consumers. Democratic legislation now before Congress calls for a
variety of measures aimed at mitigating consumer costs. Several studies
predict average household costs probably would be $100 to $145 a year.

___

PALIN: Welcomes last year's Supreme Court decision deciding punitive
damages for victims of the nation's largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon
Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As
governor, she says, she'd had the state argue in favor of the victims,
and she says the court's ruling went "in favor of the people." Finally,
she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the
ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive
damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists
and plaintiffs' lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and
Palin herself said she was "extremely disappointed." She said the
justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the
Anchorage Daily News reported. "It's tragic that so many Alaska
fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting
for this decision," she said, noting many had died "while waiting for
justice."

___

PALIN: Describing her resistance to federal stimulus money, Palin
describes Alaska as a practical, libertarian haven of independent
Americans who don't want "help" from government busybodies.

THE FACTS: Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal
subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays
in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that
in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington.

___

PALIN: Says she tried to talk about national security and energy
independence in her interview with Vogue magazine but the interviewer
wanted her to pivot from hydropower to high fashion.

THE FACTS are somewhat in dispute. Vogue contributing editor Rebecca
Johnson said Palin did not go on about hydropower. "She just kept
talking about drilling for oil."

___

PALIN: "Was it ambition? I didn't think so. Ambition drives; purpose
beckons." Throughout the book, Palin cites altruistic reasons for
running for office, and for leaving early as Alaska governor.

THE FACTS: Few politicians own up to wanting high office for the power
and prestige of it, and in this respect, Palin fits the conventional
mold. But "Going Rogue" has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign
manifesto, the requisite autobiography of the future candidate.
--
If you are flajim, herring, loogy, GC boater, johnson, topbassdog, rob,
or one of a half dozen others, you're wasting your time by trying to
*communicate* with me through rec.boats, because, well, you are among
the permanent members of my dumbfoch dumpster. As always, have a nice,
simple-minded day.

On Nov 13, 5:47*pm, H the K wrote:


Again, no original thought, Herr Krause?

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:02:09 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:47:45 -0500, H the K
wrote:

FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated
Press Writer 32 mins ago

You keep acting like Sarah actually wrote this book, or even read it.

Lynn Vincent wrote the book.

Oh, I'm sure the many insights of Sarah's life came directly from her
incredibly facile brain. She could have written it herself if she
were a better typist.

On 11/14/09 12:02 AM, wrote:
On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:47:45 -0500, H the
wrote:

FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated
Press Writer 32 mins ago

You keep acting like Sarah actually wrote this book, or even read it.

Lynn Vincent wrote the book.


What! Sarah Palin had no hand in penning her autobiography? I'm shocked,
I tell you, shocked!

Actually everyone knew it was going to be ghosted. But supposedly Palin
"worked with" the writer or at least read the manuscript to check for
errors. Or maybe the b.s. in the book is deliberate.

Whatever the reasons, it's just another example of Palin's unfitness for
political office.

But, hey, she has some fans here, from righties dumber than she is.




--
If you are flajim, herring, loogy, GC boater, johnson, topbassdog, rob,
or one of a half dozen others, you're wasting your time by trying to
*communicate* with me through rec.boats, because, well, you are among
the permanent members of my dumbfoch dumpster. As always, have a nice,
simple-minded day.

On 11/14/09 2:52 AM, jps wrote:
On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:02:09 -0500, wrote:

On Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:47:45 -0500, H the
wrote:

FACT CHECK: Palin's book goes rogue on some facts
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer Calvin Woodward, Associated
Press Writer 32 mins ago

You keep acting like Sarah actually wrote this book, or even read it.

Lynn Vincent wrote the book.

Oh, I'm sure the many insights of Sarah's life came directly from her
incredibly facile brain. She could have written it herself if she
were a better typist.


She probably dropped out of high school typing class.

--
If you are flajim, herring, loogy, GC boater, johnson, topbassdog, rob,
or one of a half dozen others, you're wasting your time by trying to
*communicate* with me through rec.boats, because, well, you are among
the permanent members of my dumbfoch dumpster. As always, have a nice,
simple-minded day.