Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Another example of Palin "telling it to the people straight" (golly gee, you betcha, *wink*). Here's what she said during the debate last night:
"When I and others in the legislature found out that we had some millions of dollars [of Permanent Fund investments] in Sudan, we called for divestment through legislation of those dollars."
And here's the truth:
But a search of news clips and transcripts from the time do not turn up an instance in which Palin mentioned the Sudanese crisis or concerns about Alaska's investments tied to the ruling regime. Moreover, Palin's administration openly opposed the bill, and stated its opposition in a public hearing on the measure."The legislation is well-intended, and the desire to make a difference is noble, but mixing moral and political agendas at the expense of our citizens' financial security is not a good combination," testified Brian Andrews, Palin's deputy revenue commissioner, before a hearing on the Gara-Lynn Sudan divestment bill in February. Minutes from the meeting are posted online by the legislature.
Add it to the list.
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Comments
I'm sure that the good Prof. Heddle will be along to inform us that this is of no matter compared to Senator Bidens' plagiarism, which, by the way, has been discredited by Prof. Rosenhouse on his blog.
Posted by: SLC | October 11, 2008 10:36 AM
Furthermore, she could have divested with a simple executive order. She didn't need the bill her spokesman opposed.
Btw, "Gara" is Les Gara. Keep an eye on him. Wouldn't be surprised to see him as Palin's successor, if she continues to turn Alaska 'purple.'
Posted by: Prup aka Jim Benton | October 11, 2008 11:33 AM
Nah he's got Sarah's interview with Katie Couric on 'loop' on media player and is masturbating furiously, or at least that's what I've heard ...not that I've been spying on him ..or anything....[Embarrassed, Dingo slinks away] ;) DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 11, 2008 11:38 AM
OT & on a more serious note. What do you think about 'Troopergate'?
[god I hate that, why couldn't someone in media come up with something interesting and original, rather that just sticking 'gate" and the end of some loosely associated word. Apologies. End of Rant] -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | October 11, 2008 11:46 AM
SLC,
You don't say? Doggone it, that must be a darn good piece of archeology. Too bad Jason wasn't around in 1988 to rescue Square-Deal-Joe's presidential bid.
Did Jason explain the eerie similarity between Biden's and Kinnock's biographies? Did he have anything to say about this New York Times article? Anything about Syracuse University?
And did Jason address Biden's resume padding?
Posted by: heddle | October 11, 2008 12:08 PM
SLC: Nailed it! You win a cookie!
Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | October 11, 2008 12:36 PM
Re Heddle
Just for the record, attached is a link to the thread on Prof. Rosenhouses' blog and Prof. Heddles' final response. There was considerable back and forth between them so, in the unlikely event that anyone wants to waste their time I would recommend reading the whole thread.
Prof Rosenhouse:
heddle -
Unless you think that the many newspapers that reported at the time that Biden had properly credited Kinnock on many occasions are engaged in a cover up, I'd say it's pretty well established that Biden routinely gave the correct attribution. And he did not "let" the issue drive him out of the campaign. He was hounded out by a scandal hungry media desperate for a story in what had been up to that point an exceedingly boring primary race.
And Prof. heddles' final capitulation:
OK, I declare, after this to lay off Biden's plagiarism. I have been thinking about it, and I have to agree that it is way too old to be relevant. Statute of limitations. It was 1987. (Although McCain is taking a "1982" hit, but I digress.) So no more "Biden the plagiarist" from me.
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2008/09/mccain_is_an_embarrassment.php#comments
Posted by: SLC | October 11, 2008 1:09 PM
Heddle's probably going to lay off Biden in order to spend more time explaining to us that Obama's an Arab who wants to give Kindergarteners condoms.
Posted by: charles johnson | October 11, 2008 1:39 PM
SLC,
As they say on Law and Order, "You opened the door, counselor."
Oh--poor Joey! He was oh, so righteous and the mean 'ole press ganged up on him. Like, OMG, he asked "Why am I the first Biden in 1000 generations?" 972 times, each time careful to add "Neil Kinnock told me I could take his 'why am I the first Kinnock in 1000 generations' and reword it as if it applied to me." And the right wing New York Times just lay awaitin' until that 973rd time when, like an honest man occasionally does, he forgot. The bastards!
And those meanies at Syracuse... Barack H. Obama!, doesn't anyone ever cut the man a break?
Posted by: heddle | October 11, 2008 2:10 PM
@heddle:
Enough of Biden - how about your explanation of Palin's latest lie?
Posted by: Robin Levett | October 11, 2008 2:49 PM
Heddlle, you are really dating yourself with all this valley-girl speak. Nowadays, to sarcastically mock vacuousness we insert a lot of "golly gees" and "you betchas" and drop the g at the end of verbs, as Ed demonstrated above. Frequent use of the words "gonna", "gotta", or "also" also make it funnier, also.
Like this:
Or this
Although, as you can see by the first brilliant piece of political satire quoted above, it is still considered funny to use the word "like". I'll give you that.
Posted by: Leni | October 11, 2008 3:25 PM
When I worked in Verizon's State Regulatory department I used to see a shitload of paper from various experts and attorneys trying to prove their various arguments. We used expert witnesses that were paid quite well for their services. They would take various sorts of information (a lot of it complicated metrics and) and parse it to arrive at a conclusion. Often the same information would be used to arrive at two different outcomes, depending on the argument being put forward. Also, we would see the same expert witness we had used in, say, Arkansas, offering testimony in a case in Texas (while working for one of our competitors) and find a totally different conclusion had been reached.
I am reminded of this whenever I read one of heddle's justifications for the Arctic Fox.
Posted by: demodommie | October 11, 2008 4:47 PM
So, Heddle, was Palin caught in a blatant lie for political benefit or not?
Posted by: Gingerbaker | October 11, 2008 5:04 PM
Gingerbaker,
I'm sorry, but Prof. Heddle is busy preparing for the talent portion of this discussion right now, and is therefore too busy to ignore your question and talk about something completely different, at this time.
If you'll get back to us in a week or so, he'll probably have time to continue ignoring your points and questions. Thank you!
Posted by: Kaerion | October 11, 2008 5:16 PM
"mean old press"
Well, they must be some kind of mean, since your dream candidate isn't capable of facing them.
Posted by: charles johnson | October 11, 2008 7:35 PM
I don't know, according to other articles, Biden started out crediting the other guy, but then, as he told and retold the story, it morphed into a personal story, kinda like the John McCain Christmas story. Not that I care much about the story, I'm perfectly willing to beleive that politicians learn from their scandals. If this was something that undiscovered till now, it would be a pretty weird story.
http://www.slate.com/id/2198543/
Posted by: Drekab | October 11, 2008 7:35 PM
In the here and now, I did my best during the Biden/Palin debate to count the number of: lies, false assertions, and mischaracterizations for each debater. I also factchecked the results a few days later in case I missed some, which I did for both (e.g., Biden on a McCain tax vote, Palin on the Sudan disinvestment - her capacity to lie stuns me, this is easily fact-checkable).
I derived six of these statements for Biden. The most annoying ones was Biden misrepresenting Sen. McCain's voting record, annoying since Legislators have a huge disadvantage when running for executive jobs given that they are often forced to vote against items they support due to other parts of the bill they've decided are so egregious they must vote "no". In this debate it was Biden twice attacking McCain on his voting record on investing in alternative energy, which McCain supports, along with another vote on taxes.
I derived forty-four of these types of statements for Palin. I've been doing this sort of counting off and on for both presidential debates and state of the union addresses since 1980 and have no memory of any candidate ever approaching this number.
Her count was correlative to the rhetoric we've heard from her in other venues. Biden's performance in this debate in terms of basing his arguments on facts was as good as I can remember counting in a debate (i.e., I'm not counting the number of times I agree or disagree, I instead count this factor and two others to try and gauge the candidates' intellectual honesty and forthrightness).
I remain bemused that a Palin supporter would want to repeatedly bring up the topic of rhetorical integrity, especially given how long ago Biden's acts took place relative to the incredibly large number of lies told by Gov. Palin these past several weeks. Also surprising when considering how trivial Biden's were and that Biden's misstatements are the biggest skeletons to have come out of his closet - small potatoes compared to most other politicians' skeletons when these issues are not a significant factor for voters (e.g., Bush's military record, Clinton's cheating on his wife, McCain's charter membership in the Keating 5 and cheating on both his wives and dumping his first wife when she needed him most).
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 11, 2008 9:23 PM
Jim Benton: "Btw, "Gara" is Les Gara. Keep an eye on him. Wouldn't be surprised to see him as Palin's successor, if she continues to turn Alaska 'purple.'"
Unlikely. Gara is arguably the most liberal member of the Alaska legislature, representing one of the most liberal House districts (in downtown Anchorage). If you've seen him, you might think you're looking at V.I. Lenin. Not saying Gara's a commie -- just that he doesn't mind people thinking that he looks like one.
BTW, "Lynn" is Bob Lynn, former head of Alaska Right to Life. He and Gara found common cause on the Sudan bill, but it was opposed by those who said that investment decisions should be left to experts, not politicians.
Posted by: Grumpy | October 11, 2008 9:28 PM
Michael Heath: Thanks for taking on the dirty work; I really could not stand having to watch a debate, even for the "Nascar Factor" (waiting for a wreck). Biden's problems on the stump are purely a matter of him going off the stump script; Palin's issues are more a matter of being the best moosekiller on a ticket since Teddy Roosevelt. Both have seemed to have learned the lesson from Bush of never admitting you're wrong, even when you are clearly wrong. Even Reagan admitted that "mistakes were made," although he didn't care to elaborate.
Amusingly, McCain is currently running an ad here in NC that blames Democrats for the current fiscal and financial mess. Almost as if his close adviser (and putative Treasury Secretary Phil Gramm didn't push for the repeal of Glass-Steagle under Clinton and his party had control of all three branches of government for six years. Whatever, the American people have the attention span of weasels on meth.
Posted by: kehrsam | October 11, 2008 10:04 PM
"Michael Heath said: I remain bemused that a Palin supporter would want to repeatedly bring up the topic of rhetorical integrity, especially given how long ago Biden's acts took place relative to the incredibly large number of lies told by Gov. Palin these past several weeks. Also surprising when considering how trivial Biden's were"
But Michael, all errors are equal, and if you claim otherwise, you are applying a double standard, dontcha know? None of that application of judgement or appreciation of scale or any of your high falutin college boy crap. Never mind that Biden's FDR gaffe involved a few years and Palin's pledge/founding fathers gaffe involved almost a century. Fairness and balancedness requires equal treatment. So sayeth the book of binary thought so popular with GOPers these days.
Posted by: Science Avenger | October 11, 2008 10:45 PM
kehrsam said "Even Reagan admitted that 'mistakes were made,' although he didn't care to elaborate." [Emphasis and punctuation mine]
Note Mr. Regan used the passive voice (yes really this time, honest). That is "mistakes were made, but not by me". A classic distancing trick used by serial liars everywhere. -DJ
Posted by: DIngoJack | October 12, 2008 12:50 AM
kehrsam,
If you think that's amusing, have you tried paying attention to McCain and his campaign's statements about the bailout bill? I'll admit to the possibility of minor mistakes here, but I believe the timeline looks something like this: (Note that some of the statements I attribute to "McCain" were made by his staff, but since they work for and represent him, I don't see much of a difference)
-Shit publicly hits the fan, and everyone panics.
-McCain "suspends" his campaign and "rushes" back to Washington to save the economy, managing to lie to, and piss off, Letterman in the process.
-McCain takes credit for getting the first bill passed, a few hours before...
-The first bill is voted down, primarily by his fellow Republicans.
-McCain blames Obama for the bill failing.
-Eventually, the second bill is passed in the Senate, with both Obama and McCain voting for it.
-McCain takes credit for getting the second bill, which includes another $150 billion in earmarks (that he's been campaigning against), passed.
-McCain, in the same interview as the above point, complains about the bill, calling it "insanity", "obscenity", and "a waste of tax-payers' money"...
-And finally, 2 days ago, McCain makes another 180, and claims credit for "blowing up" the FIRST bill (the one without the $150 billion in earmarks), after having spent a lot of time blaming Obama for it.
The only conclusion I can reach, is that the spinning has made McCain and his team as dizzy as it's made me.
Posted by: Kaerion | October 12, 2008 1:35 AM