Palin not a true “reformer,” not experienced, not qualified enough for country’s second highest office

Sarah Palin, current governor of Alaska and vice-presidential candidate, is on the attack, and for good reason: she has almost nothing to show Americans that she is ready to be second in line to the presidency. Since she has virtually no record compared to Barak Obama and his running mate Sen. Joe Biden, she has taken to slinging nasty comments, off-hand remarks and outright lies about her opponents.

So far, all many of us know about Palin is that she is being a hailed a “bulldog,” and a “maverick” by residents of her tiny hometown, Wasilla, Alaska (population estimated between 5,000 and 7,500), and governor of one of the largest yet least populated states in the land. If those are the only credentials needed for being “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” then Palin could have a great chance of being elected. If being a former beauty queen and local weather girl/sportscaster were pre-requisites for becoming our next vice-president, certainly her chances of being elected alongside Arizona Sen. John McCain would be substantial. Perhaps voters will consider her four years on the Wasilla City Council and six years as mayor of Wasilla enough “experience” in domestic affairs to supersede the experience of the Obama-Biden ticket.

If one looks closely, one will learn that Palin has virtually no experience in foreign affairs, unless you count her one and only trip to neighboring Canada and last year’s brief trip to Kuwait and Germany last year. She’s also visited Mexico, but haven’t many of us? Palin also took college courses in Hawaii and Idaho. In an recent interview with ABC News, Palin admitted that she has never met a foreign head of state.

Yet, Palin claims to have more experience in governance than Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, a Harvard graduate who spent three years as a community organizer, was the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, created a voter registration drive that registered 150,000 new voters, spent 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spent eight years as an Illinois State Senator representing a district with more than 750,000 people (more people than the entire state of Alaska), became chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spent four years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment, Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees.

In her acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention, she, as well as other speakers there, mocked Obama’s experience as a community organizer, saying that is not a real job. Perhaps she forgot that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a community organizer, as were Abraham Lincoln and Ghandi. And then there was Jesus Christ, a fellow whose workings, teachings and community organizing brought millions upon millions of people to Christianity. Palin herself is a Christian, or so she says, and subscribes to Jesus’ teachings. But if you follow her line of thinking regarding community organizers, Palin would not consider Jesus qualified to be President of the United States. Would she have considered Dr. King a good candidate for president? One wonders.

Jesus Christ was, and still is, considered by millions to have been a reformer. Palin describes herself as a “reformer,” much as McCain considers himself to be a "reformer." Webster’s Dictionary defines “reformer” as one who practices “reform,” a transitional verb meaning: 1) to put or change into an improved form or condition, 2) to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses, 3) to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action, 4) to induce or cause to abandon evil ways.

An examination of Palin's record contradicts her self-portrait. According to an article written by reporters with the New York Times and the Star Tribune, Palin is anything but a reformer. “When there was a vacancy at the top of the state Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year job. A former Real Estate agent, Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as one qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency. Havemeister was one of at least five high school classmates Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.” It remains unclear if any other appointees professed a love of cows. If that procedure for hiring family and friends as staff members sounds familiar to you, it should. President Bush and Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich have done much the same thing.

The article goes on to say, “As governor, [Palin] assembled her Cabinet and made other appointments, those with insider credentials were now on the outs. But a new pattern became clear: She surrounded herself with figures drawn from her personal life — former high school classmates, people she had known since grade school and fellow churchgoers.” Is this Palin’s idea of “reform?”

The New York Times/Star Tribune article also said, “Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by the New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.” Putting a premium on “loyalty and secrecy” also may seem familiar to you, as that is what the Bush Administration has practiced for nearly eight years now. It also sounds a bit like the way disgraced former President Richard Nixon ran his White House. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”

Reminiscent of Blagoviech’s foolhardy and possibly illegal and unconstitutional political antics, Alaska legislators currently are investigating accusations that Palin and her husband, Todd, pressured officials to fire a state trooper who had gone through a messy divorce with Palin's sister. Palin, of course, has denied the accusation. Blagojevich himself is under multiple federal investigations involving corruption, pay-to-play state jobs and contracts, and fundraising

Blagojevich steadfastly has refused to live in the governor’s mansion in Springfield, choosing instead to conduct most of his official business and sideshow antics from Chicago. Blagojevich takes a state plane from Chicago to Springfield, on the rare occasions he actually goes to Springfield; each trip costs taxpayers $6,000. Similarly, Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, charging the State of Alaska a per diem for each night spent there since becoming governor, according to various newspaper reports. The Washington Post earlier this month reported that Palin earns $125,000 a year, but she claimed and received $16,951 from the state because “her official ‘duty station’ is in Juneau,” some 600 miles away. The New York Times/Star Tribune article said, “She is often described by Democrats and Republicans alike as a leader missing in action. Some legislators became so frustrated with her absences that they took to wearing yellow "Where's Sarah?" pins.” Perhaps our legislators here in Illinois should wear similar pins asking, “Where’s Rod?”

By the way, Palin also has charged the state of Alaska for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin also calls herself a "reformer" because, as governor, she refused to accept federal financial assistance for “earmarks,” also commonly known as “pork” or “pet” projects. One such project, for which Palin initially pushed hard, was the now-infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” According to journalist Andrew Sullivan, whose work you may have seen in TIME magazine, Palin routinely and repeatedly has used the phrase: "I told the Congress 'Thanks, but no thanks,' for that Bridge to Nowhere” in her campaign speeches. In McCain-Palin ads, the claim is that she actually "stopped the Bridge to Nowhere," Sullivan reported.

Those statements are unabashedly untrue. The fact of the matter is in 2006, Palin ran for governor on a "Build-the-Bridge" platform, attacking “spinmeisters” for insulting local residents by calling them "nowhere” and urging speed "while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist,” according to Sullivan and, of all sources, Wikipedia. About two years after the introduction of the bridge proposals—a month after the bridge received sharp criticism from, of all people, McCain—and nine months into Palin's term as governor, Palin canceled the Gravina Bridge, blaming Congress for not providing enough funding. Alaska will not return any of the $442 million to the federal government. Instead, Palin is spending a portion of the funding—some $25 million—on a Gravina Island road to the place where the Bridge to Nowhere would have gone, expressly so that none of the money will have to be returned, according to Wikipedia. Is that what Palin means by “reform?”

Palin also is supporting a $600 million bridge and highway project to link Anchorage to Wasilla, according to The Associated Press. The project is moving “full speed ahead,” reports The AP, despite concerns that the bridge could actually worsen traffic. There is some concern that the Anchorage to Wasilla bridge may threaten a population of beluga whales.

The AP also reported that McCain has derided both the “Bridge to Nowhere” and Palin’s new bridge project as “wasteful.” Read any newspaper, magazine or online news account, and you’ll come to the conclusion that Palin's record on the “Bridge to Nowhere” has emerged as a central point of controversy in the campaign over her recent public claims that she had originally opposed it, when indeed quite the opposite was true. Some people could consider this a lie, a misunderstanding or even a half truth. Some people believe that Palin made the statement simply in an attempt to align herself with McCain's anti-earmarks philosophy.

Getting back to the beluga whale issue, the National Marine Fisheries Service is evaluating whether the isolated beluga whales that breed and feed in the Wasilla bridge waterway's strong tides should be listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. Palin has publicly urged the government not to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as endangered. (Palin also believes that polar bears should not be placed on the endangered species list.)

Palin got herself into another sticky situation by declaring during her acceptance speech at the RNC that she sold the previous governor's state airplane because it was too costly to keep. She said, "I sold on e-bay." But that also was not true. Palin did put the plane up for sale on e-bay, but it didn't sell there; it was sold to a private entity. Was she lying? Stretching the truth? Making a good sound bite? That's up to voters to decide, but it's statements such as that that make some people wonder exactly how truthful Palin has been so far in this campaign, and if elected, how truthful will she be as vice-president.

As a “reformer,” Palin has forced Alaska’s schools to teach “abstinence only,” with no other option for sex education, including information about condoms, the Pill or other forms of birth control. This coming from a woman who was pregnant when she married and now has an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter. Apparently, Palin is not terribly concerned about practicing what she preaches. Palin has openly and vehemently stated she is absolutely against all forms of abortion, unless the procedure is needed to save a woman’s life. She has stated time and again that she will work to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision granting women the right to terminate an unintended, unwanted or medically dangerous pregnancy. That would be a reform, certainly, but would it be for the betterment of America? Would that be better for women? Do Palin and McCain (who also wants to overturn Roe) really think that doing so will end abortion altogether? If so…well, perhaps they ought to rethink that idea.

As Palin and McCain continue campaigning during the next 40-some-odd days leading to Election Day, voters will need to listen carefully to all the candidates, including Obama and Biden, and vet out the truth however we can. Meanwhile, Palin and McCain likely will continue to mock and dismiss the political records of Obama and Biden, but a quick peek at Obama’s resume on his Web site may convince some voters that perhaps Palin is all bark and no bite when it comes to determining who has more legitimate experience.

Look for yourselves and you will learn that as a member of the Illinois State Senate, Obama worked with both Democrats and Republicans to help working families get ahead by creating programs like the state Earned Income Tax Credit, which in three years provided more than $100 million in tax cuts to families across the state, according to his Web site. He also pushed through an expansion of early childhood education, and after a number of inmates on death row were found innocent, Obama worked with law enforcement officials to require the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

In the U.S. Senate, Obama, with the help of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), passed a measure to rebuild trust in government by allowing every American to go online and see how and where every dime of their tax dollars is spent. Obama also has been championing ethics reform that would root out Jack Abramoff-style corruption in Congress. Abramoff, you might remember, was the powerhouse Washington lobbyist who admitted to running a wide-ranging corruption scheme that ensnared lawmakers, Capitol Hill aides and government officials. He currently is in prison.

Obama’s online resume states that, as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, he fought to help Illinois veterans get the disability pay they were promised, while working to prepare the VA for the return of the thousands of veterans who will need care after Iraq and Afghanistan. Recognizing the terrorist threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, he traveled to Russia with U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) to begin a new generation of non-proliferation efforts designed to find and secure deadly weapons around the world.

Obviously, one must take any political candidate’s online resume with a grain of salt and do his or her own homework on the candidate. After all, every candidate lists only the best of his or her political achievements. Once duly informed with the facts, one can cast an educated vote for the people she or he believes to be the better choice for all of the United States.

Palin may indeed be a “maverick” and a “reformer,” but voters must consider her record under such labels. Do Americans really need a vice-president who already is under investigation for allegedly firing a former state trooper/brother-in-law to help out her sister? Do Americans really need a vice-president who has no foreign policy experience? Do Americans really need a vice-president whose domestic policy has affected fewer than 700,000 people?

The United States does need reform, does need change. But she does not need a self-confessed “reformer” who lies, does little more than belittle her opponents in her campaign speeches and changes her story to fit her campaign needs and those of John McCain. The United States does not need another ethically challenged leader who needs to carry around colored note cards with her when she is being interviewed about national and international issues. Sarah Palin has barely enough practice as governor for the residents of her own state to judge her performance. The United States does not need a “maverick” who is ready to turn our Constitution upside down. The United States does not need a vice-president whose experience is little at best and questionable at worst.

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