Sarah Palin: a hypocrite with lipstick

Sept. 12, 2008

Gov. Sarah Palin

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

We're pretty sure this won't be the last GOP Hypocrite of the Week for Palin, but for now, she's got enough vetted hypocrisy that we thought the time was ripe for her first GOP Hypocrite of the Week Award.

One of the first things we'd like to do is follow the money. Palin says she rejected big government spending, when really she only gave up the "Bridge to Nowhere" after it became politically untenable. Her state gets more government money spent on its citizens than any other in the nation, making it #1 in pork. Not only that but also, as mayor of a tiny town (the most generous estimates put the population at 9,000), she used a lobbyist to get $27 million from the federal government.

And it's not just ordinary Alaskans that Palin thinks deserve federal money. Apparently Palin billed the state tens of thousands of dollars for her husband and kids to travel. She claimed a per diem allowance intended for food and lodging costs while she was staying in her own home.

She also tried to paint herself as a pork-cutting politician by saying she fired a personal cook, but now it looks like she only reassigned the employee to the legislative branch and continued to use her services from another location. Her statements about selling the governor's jet on eBay are less than truthful as well.

There's a lot floating around about Palin flip-flopping on family values. Not all of the information is unbiased or vetted, but we can say that a top gubernatorial aide said he was fired because Palin didn't like the fact that he was dating a woman who was in the midst of a divorce with one of her husband's friends. Yet, she seems in full support of John McCain, who's first divorce and second marriage came so close together as to offend other prominent Republicans.

As for her other "family" values, we applaud Palin for standing beside her pregnant teen daughter, but we're willing to bet she wouldn't call an inner-city teen on welfare who unintentionally gets pregnant a blessing that has her unconditional support. 

The McCain strategy for beating back all the reports about Palin's lies and hypocrisy is to call the media and Democrats "sexist." But Palin is on tape criticizing Sen. Hillary Clinton for trying the same trick in the primaries. So now they're resorting to fighting accusations of hypocrisy with more hypocrisy? Good luck with that one...

Another stop on the hypocritical campaign trail of the newly-minted McCain/Palin ticket is the "don't talk to my kids unless it benefits the Republican Party" edict. While Palin's children (and soon-to-be son-in-law) are supposedly "off limits" to the media, the campaign set up a packaged news event of Bristol Palin's fiancée arriving at the Republican convention with McCain giving an uncomfortably stiff hug and apparent endorsement of the union. Also, seven-year-old Piper Palin was convinced to make a cute little video for Meghan McCain's blog exhorting people to "vote for my mommy and John McCain."

Like we said at the beginning, there's a lot about the governor of Alaska that we don't know. So check back to GOP Hypocrite every week to stay up to date.

Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

See you next week!

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