Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston drop out

What kind of family values are these? Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston should be entering their senior year in high school. Instead, they’ve both dropped out of school, and now being schlepped around the country to act as the poster children for Mommy Palin’s pro-life politics.

Despite pleas to “leave the kids alone”, Palin will spotlight them at the Republican National Convention. WHO is violating their privacy?

Better question, is WHY…..?

Hothead McCain strikes again!

Hothead McCain gets huffy and cancels Larry King interview after CNN reporter Campbell Brown’s questioning of McCain spokesperson, Tucker Bounds. When asked what decisions Palin had made as leader of Alaska’s National Guard, Tucker Bounds sputtered, changed the subject and, ultimately, couldn’t perform. Here’s the interview.

So, what does Hothead McCain do? Takes his toys, stomps off, and refuses to be interviewed. Is that how he reaches across the aisle?

If he can’t handle an interview with Larry King when he isn’t happy, how will he handle dealing with high pressure international situations?

McCain shows his colors time and time again, and it isn’t pretty.

Sarah Barracuda Palin tramples those in way of political ambition

Anybody who gets in Sarah “Barracuda” Palin’s way gets trampled, so we shouldn’t be surprised that she offered her oldest daughter’s private crisis to the media jackals to dispel rumors that could knock the wheels off her political career. Palin always puts herself first.

Palin’s poorly vetted past keeps popping up and getting creepier. She announced in March that she was 7 months pregnant, surprising her closest staffers. In the Anchorage Daily News March 6th story announcing her pregnancy, her husband was described as a “BP oil worker on leave”. So, her husband works for BP– isn’t that a conflict of interest?

She hired Chuck Kopp as Commissioner, knowing that he was fired for sexual harassment of a co-worker, apparently thinking it didn’t matter, or that people wouldn’t find out. They did find out and it did matter, forcing her to accept his resignation 11 days later when it hit the news. She gave him a $10,000 severance package– after 11 days of work.

She fired Walt Monegan after he wouldn’t succumb to pressure to fire her brother-in-law, Mike Wooten. If you have any question about whether or not she was behind that, listen to the entire audio recording of lackey Frank Bailey, available on the Anchorage Daily News website. She cut him loose for doing his job, too.

She claims to have fired Walt Monegan in part because he wasn’t doing enough to deal with alcohol issues in the state, yet offered him a job as head of the Alcohol Bureau Commission? 

 Bailey said in the smoking gun audio recording that she “likes Walt but couldn’t understand why he wasn’t moving on this after a year”. He also describes efforts to talk with Monegan and others unsuccessfully about the issue. We’re supposed to believe that 24 phone calls came from her office to the state troopers office, without her knowledge? Her staff were doing this on their own initiative, with details she fed them?

Monegan received no severance pay, even though she hand-picked him and brought him out of retirement for the position.

As mayor, she fired the Wasilla police chief because he didn’t support her political campaign. She threatened the librarian, too, for the same reason, but allowed her to keep her job.

She claims that she feared for her sister’s life because ex-brother-in-law was so dangerous, yet she left for a meeting instead of calling the cops, after watching through the window with a neighbor. 

The judge in her sister’s divorce case clearly discouraged the attempt to get Wooten fired, pointing out that getting him fired would negatively impact her sister’s alimony and child support– yet Palin apparently didn’t care.

Did she really clean house and weed out corruption, or has she abused her power for personal and political gain? 

Is this how she’s going to “reach across the aisle”? Palin’s low approval ratings in Alaska should be a red flag for the rest of us. They’ve seen her in action, and they don’t like what they see.

Troopergate

Why this isn’t making more news in the lower 48 media, I have no idea. Palin is in the middle of an active ethics investigation against her for abuse of power, trying to get her sister’s husband fired.

Read this article and listen to the audio of the conversation between Palin staffer Frank Bailey and the state trooper’s office. He clearly, clearly, clearly called on the behalf of the governor, with details that only she could have supplied to him, trying to get them to fire the guy. It’s disgusting and I hope that it’s cleared up soon. Here’s the article, but listen to ALL of the audio:

http://www.adn.com/monegan/story/493360.html

Poor judgement all the way around. McCain just now getting around to sending a team to vet Palin…. He didn’t talk to any of the GOP party folks in Alaska. When did Palin really tell him about her daughter’s situation? “Last week”? That means that he took a week or less to make a decision about this? 

Troopergate is a major scandal and it’s not looking good for her. I hope the pressure stays on her ethics and her decision-making. I’m still trying to figure out how she’s espousing family values by hiding her kid’s pregnancy, pulling her from school, and using her kid’s situation to further her political and ideological agenda. The same way she’s used her office to get her ex-relative fired.

She is not professional, not a good candidate, and when all the dust settles, she probably will be in serious legal trouble as well.

Palin Throws Daughter Under Media Bus

Okay, I’m happy that the girl is keeping her baby. However, I have to wonder about Gov.Palin throwing her daughter under the media bus to save her own political career from rumors. More judgement questions? Flying against airline restrictions when 8 months pregnant, getting on a plane when in pre-term labor with a 5th child and traveling more than 12 hours, treating a newborn special needs kid like another agenda item. 

More: putting your teenager in the position of being the poster child for teen parenting, when she’s in the biggest crisis of her life. Planning to leave for D.C. when the newly married teen mom has her own baby…. No pressure on Bristol…. and WE are supposed to respect the girl’s privacy? What about her Mom….?

If this isn’t a time when her family needs her, when exactly would that be?

Why *did* she keep her own pregnancy a secret from her closest staffers? The first three months, of course, but 7.5 months?

Why did McCain bring her on with all this brewing at home? It seemed cynical enough when he picked a woman with so little qualifications, but to pick someone he KNEW had a secretly pregnant teenaged daughter seems the height of cynicism… Timing the announcement with the first day of the RNC? Painting a bulls-eye on that girl’s back and daring the Dems to make something of it? 

Tell me again about family values, because I apparently don’t get it.