Tuesday 23rd of April 2024

the little trooper .....

the little trooper .....

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday shrugged off the findings of a state inquiry into the 'Troopergate' affair, which concluded that she had used her position as governor to pursue a private feud with a State Trooper. 

Speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, she remained defiant, insisting the inquiry outcome proved she had not broken the law. Shrugging her shoulders while addressing her audience, she said: 'If you read the report, you will see there was nothing unlawful... or unethical about replacing a cabinet member.' 

Her solicitor, Thomas Van Flein, said there was no evidence she had breached any ethical code. 'In order to violate the ethics law, there has to be some personal gain, usually financial. [The report] has failed to identify any financial gain.' 

However, an already tense US presidential election campaign was electrified by the publication of the damning verdict, delivered by Stephen Branchflower, a retired prosecutor who was appointed as investigator last July by a Republican-dominated committee of the Alaska state legislature. Branchflower found that Palin had breached the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act, which states that 'each public officer holds office as a public trust and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust'.

the best and the not so kind...

Palin mimic gets US public's vote
By Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC News, Washington

At a campaign rally in Florida, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin shouts out to the crowd: "I love her, she's a hoot and she's so talented."

She is referring to Tina Fey, who, along with the Alaskan governor, has become one of the most talked about women in this election campaign.

Tina Fey's impersonations of Mrs Palin have generated millions of viewers, website clicks and water cooler conversations.

It is on the hit US comedy show Saturday Night Live that Fey parodies Governor Palin.

The resemblance is uncanny, as are the mannerisms and the accent.

Most of the sketches are direct spoofs of Mrs Palin's television appearances.

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That presidential election is not coming soon enough to take us out of our misery... see toon at top...

no plumber's crack...

October 23, 2008

$150,000 Wardrobe for Palin May Alter Tailor-Made Image

By PATRICK HEALY and MICHAEL LUO

Sarah Palin’s wardrobe joined the ranks of symbolic political excess on Wednesday, alongside John McCain’s multiple houses and John Edwards’s $400 haircut, as Republicans expressed fear that weeks of tailoring Ms. Palin as an average “hockey mom” would fray amid revelations that the Republican Party outfitted her with expensive clothing from high-end stores.

Cable television, talk radio and even shows like “Access Hollywood” seemed gripped with sartorial fever after campaign finance reports confirmed that the Republican National Committee spent $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue in September for Ms. Palin and her family.

Advisers to Ms. Palin said on Wednesday that the purchases — which totaled about $150,000 and were classified as “campaign accessories” — were made on the fly after Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, was chosen as the Republican vice-presidential candidate on Aug. 29 and needed new clothes to match climates across the 50 states. They emphasized, too, that Ms. Palin did not spend time on the shopping, and that other people made the decision to buy such an array of clothes.

Yet Republicans expressed consternation publicly and privately that the shopping sprees on her behalf, which were first reported by Politico, would compromise Ms. Palin’s standing as Senator McCain’s chief emissary to working-class voters whose salvos at the so-called cultural elite often delight audiences at Republican rallies.

That possibility was brought to colorful life, for instance, on “The View” on ABC, as Joy Behar, a co-host, noted the McCain campaign’s outreach to blue-collar workers — like an Ohio plumber who recently chided Senator Barack Obama over taxes — after another co-host, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, defended the expenditures.

“I don’t think Joe the Plumber wears Manolo Blahniks,” Ms. Behar said.

see toon at top...