From Kansas City Star: Sarah Palin weighs in on Jeffrey MacDonald case
WILMINGTON -- The Jeffrey MacDonald case has pulled an unusual book
critic into its web of conspiracy theorists and strong camps of
opinions.
Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor,
has posted a complimentary review of Errol Morris’ new book about the
case, “A Wilderness of Error,” on her Facebook page.
It has her byline on it, too. ( tinyurl.com/8ndxtk8)
In his book published this month by The Penguin Press, Morris offers a fresh look at the MacDonald case.
The
Oscar-winning documentarian’s literary style is unusual, including
documents, transcripts and other details amid his narrative of a case
that spans four decades. Morris offers his readers no conclusion on
whether MacDonald is guilty of slaughtering his family, as a jury found
in 1979.
But in interviews since publication, Morris has said he
thinks MacDonald is the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice, likely
innocent and certainly suffering from a botched investigation and
prosecutorial misconduct.
Joe McGinniss, another author who has written about the case in the best-selling “Fatal Vision,” concluded otherwise.
And that debate between authors is where Palin comes in.
McGinniss
also wrote “The Rogue: the Search for the Real Sarah Palin” after
moving in next door to the Palins in Wasilla, Alaska, in May 2010.
Neither the Palins nor the Wasilla townspeople were too thrilled about the new resident or the work he produced.
And Palin makes that clear in her review of the Morris book.
She
endorses Morris’s description of her “old neighbor” as “a craven and
sloppy journalist who confabulated, lied, and betrayed while ostensibly
telling a story about a man who confabulated, lied, and betrayed.”
She went on to say:
“MacDonald
signed a contract giving McGinniss exclusive rights to his life story,
and so McGinniss was given unprecedented access to the defense team –
living with them, working with them, eating with them. But when the
guilty verdict came down, McGinniss did a one-eighty on them.
Apparently, falsely convicted men don’t make for good books. McGinniss
decided it was a better story to agree with the jury. MacDonald wasn’t a
sympathetic figure. He did himself no favors with some media
appearances. So, McGinniss went about writing a book that would convince
people the government got the right verdict and we could all pat
ourselves on the back and leave Jeffrey MacDonald to rot in his jail
cell till Judgment Day.
“McGinniss’ book actually embellished the
prosecution’s case – even supplying a motive. According to McGinniss’
theory of the case, MacDonald secretly wanted to break free of his wife
and kids and so he murdered them one night in a fit of rage induced by
some diet pills he was taking. (Oddly enough, the millions of other
people who were also taking those same diet pills somehow avoided
murdering their families.)”
Palin, no surprise, has a more glowing report about Morris:
“Morris
argues with refreshing clarity that objective truth is real and worthy
of being sought after despite the pretentious nonsense preached in
faculty lounges about all truth being relative. In fact, he argues
passionately that the search for truth is what journalism and justice is
all about.”
Morris and McGinniss are both in Wilmington this week.
Morris has been in the courtroom, taking volumes of notes.
McGinniss,
who was provided unfettered access to MacDonald and his defense team
during the trial, has been less visible. He is on the list of possible
witnesses.
Morris was outside the federal courthouse on Tuesday, waiting with a crowd of others to see the MacDonald proceedings.
A woman in line ahead of him asked about his book.
With a telling smile, he said he was thrilled with his latest review, a positive one, “from Sarah Palin.”
Palin,
some might recall, was the butt of many late-night TV jokes after her
inability in 2008 to come up with a list of the newspapers and magazines
she read during an interview with Katie Couric.
When asked whether he thought Palin had read his book from cover to cover, Morris said: “Somebody did.”
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Monday, September 10, 2012
Sarah Palin: John Kerry 'Diminished Himself By Even Mentioning My Name' In DNC Speech
From HuffPo Politics: Sarah Palin: John Kerry 'Diminished Himself By Even Mentioning My Name' In DNC Speech
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) responded to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Thursday, moments after the Democrat invoked her in a jab at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney during his Democratic National Convention speech.
“I think he diminished himself by even mentioning my name," Palin said in an interview on Fox Business Network. "How does he even know my name? I mean aren’t these guys supposed to be these big wig elites who don’t waste their time on the little people like me -- me representing the average American who, yeah I did say in Alaska you can see Russia from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to transportation corridors and resources that are shared and fought over [in] Alaska and I as the governor had known what I was doing in dealing with some international issues that had to do with our resources that could help secure the nation."
During his DNC address Thursday night, Kerry dinged Romney's foreign policy experience by referencing a famous remark made by Palin in the 2008 presidential race.
"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska," started Kerry. "Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."
Palin appeared to find Kerry's quip somewhat unexpected.
"So it’s funny that he would take a little pot shot like that, but it’s funny he even knows my name,“ she said.
Perhaps Palin chose to forget that the two engaged in a brief verbal skirmish back in 2009, when she was still in office and Republican Mark Sanford, then governor of South Carolina, had disappeared on an unannounced jaunt to visit his mistress in Argentina.
Kerry struck first.
"Too bad if a governor had to go missing, it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin," he joked.
Palin later swiped back.
"He looked quite frustrated and he looked so sad," she said. "I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say 'John Kerry, why the long face?'"
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) responded to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on Thursday, moments after the Democrat invoked her in a jab at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney during his Democratic National Convention speech.
“I think he diminished himself by even mentioning my name," Palin said in an interview on Fox Business Network. "How does he even know my name? I mean aren’t these guys supposed to be these big wig elites who don’t waste their time on the little people like me -- me representing the average American who, yeah I did say in Alaska you can see Russia from our land base and I was making the point that we are strategically located on the globe and when it comes to transportation corridors and resources that are shared and fought over [in] Alaska and I as the governor had known what I was doing in dealing with some international issues that had to do with our resources that could help secure the nation."
During his DNC address Thursday night, Kerry dinged Romney's foreign policy experience by referencing a famous remark made by Palin in the 2008 presidential race.
"Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska," started Kerry. "Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV."
Palin appeared to find Kerry's quip somewhat unexpected.
"So it’s funny that he would take a little pot shot like that, but it’s funny he even knows my name,“ she said.
Perhaps Palin chose to forget that the two engaged in a brief verbal skirmish back in 2009, when she was still in office and Republican Mark Sanford, then governor of South Carolina, had disappeared on an unannounced jaunt to visit his mistress in Argentina.
Kerry struck first.
"Too bad if a governor had to go missing, it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska. You know, Sarah Palin," he joked.
Palin later swiped back.
"He looked quite frustrated and he looked so sad," she said. "I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say 'John Kerry, why the long face?'"
Flip side of Sarah Palin
From SalonPolitics: Flip side of Sarah Palin
What was the biggest difference between the Tampa Republicans and the Charlotte Democrats? That’s easy: substance. Policy substance, that is. Bill Clinton’s tour de force on Wednesday night was a substantive defense of Barack Obama’s accomplishments and attacks on Mitt Romney’s proposals. Obama, too, got a little on the wonky side; the first half of his speech reminded people of a State of the Union, with a laundry list of programs to defend and propose. In Tampa? Not so much. Lots of effect, but a lot less policy.
Paul Ryan, we were all told when he was selected, was a wonk; his selection meant that we were going to have a big ideas debate. And yet his vice-presidential speech was anything but, and what substance he did include was blasted by the fact checkers.
Sort of the way another Republican running mate was blasted for inaccuracies in her convention speech four years ago. Remember how she bragged about opposing the bridge to nowhere, only to have it be revealed that she had first supported it?
OK. Paul Ryan is no Sarah Palin. He is, after all, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, and he certainly knows federal public policy issues far better than the Sage of Wasilla ever has.
And yet Ryan’s reputation for true wonkishness seems to be vastly overstated. He’s less a wonk than a policy naif’s idea of a wonk – just enough “baselines” and “percent of GDP” and charts to make it all look nice, but very little under the hood. As Paul Krugman said recently:
What was the biggest difference between the Tampa Republicans and the Charlotte Democrats? That’s easy: substance. Policy substance, that is. Bill Clinton’s tour de force on Wednesday night was a substantive defense of Barack Obama’s accomplishments and attacks on Mitt Romney’s proposals. Obama, too, got a little on the wonky side; the first half of his speech reminded people of a State of the Union, with a laundry list of programs to defend and propose. In Tampa? Not so much. Lots of effect, but a lot less policy.
Paul Ryan, we were all told when he was selected, was a wonk; his selection meant that we were going to have a big ideas debate. And yet his vice-presidential speech was anything but, and what substance he did include was blasted by the fact checkers.
Sort of the way another Republican running mate was blasted for inaccuracies in her convention speech four years ago. Remember how she bragged about opposing the bridge to nowhere, only to have it be revealed that she had first supported it?
OK. Paul Ryan is no Sarah Palin. He is, after all, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, and he certainly knows federal public policy issues far better than the Sage of Wasilla ever has.
And yet Ryan’s reputation for true wonkishness seems to be vastly overstated. He’s less a wonk than a policy naif’s idea of a wonk – just enough “baselines” and “percent of GDP” and charts to make it all look nice, but very little under the hood. As Paul Krugman said recently:
Krugman is concerned in that post with how Ryan dupes self-proclaimed budget hawks, but Ryan is duping Republicans, too.Look, Ryan hasn’t “crunched the numbers”; he has just scribbled some stuff down, without checking at all to see if it makes sense. He asserts that he can cut taxes without net loss of revenue by closing unspecified loopholes; he asserts that he can cut discretionary spending to levels not seen since Calvin Coolidge, without saying how; he asserts that he can convert Medicare to a voucher system, with much lower spending than now projected, without even a hint of how this is supposed to work. This is just a fantasy, not a serious policy proposal.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
North Dakota Democrat takes Palin approach on energy
From the Politico: North Dakota Democrat takes Palin approach on energy
Democrat Heidi Heitkamp emerged from the North Dakota Senate debate with a unique approach: aligning herself more with Sarah Palin than President Barack Obama — at least on energy.
In the first debate with Republican Rep. Rick Berg, Heitkamp insisted she would be an independent voice and took pains to separate herself from top leaders in her party. That tact couldn’t have been clearer when she wholeheartedly embraced Palin’s approach to energy production in her oil rich state.
Heitkamp entered the debate ready for the line of attack and countered by portraying Berg, a freshman lawmaker, as an ineffective, uncompromising legislator unable to break Washington’s gridlock. Berg had only mentioned Obama once and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid twice when Heitkamp dove into a well-prepared defense.
“Congressman Berg will repeatedly talk about Harry Reid and Barack Obama, and I find it interesting, because this morning, when I woke up and brushed my teeth, I looked in the mirror and I did not see a tall, African-American, skinny man,” she said. “So let’s make it clear that my priorities are North Dakota priorities. That you cannot run this campaign … by simply talking about a political party. You have to talk about ideas.”
But Berg returned to his big picture argument about changing power in the Senate, drilling home the point during an exchange on energy.
“The reality and the problem is, if we’re going to get these things done, we’ve got to change Washington. And we can’t do that without changing the Senate,” he said.
Heitkamp — a former attorney general and tax commissioner — made an effort to underline areas where she’s broken with party orthodoxy.
She called the Senate’s inability to craft a budget “deplorable,” and she came out in favor of a balanced budget amendment — a position many Democrats have derided as “extreme.” After reciting a laundry list of provisions in the health care law she supports, Heitkamp acknowledged “there’s bad” parts that need to be fixed.
She dismissed environmentalist concerns about fracking — the hydraulic technology used to expand natural gas production — as “junk science. “People who say they’re against fracking don’t even know what it is,” she said.
After her line of defense at the top of the debate, she never mentioned the current president again. Yet she did laud former President Bill Clinton for producing the last balanced budget in the country and singed former President George W. Bush for attempting to privatize Social Security.
“My opponent, Rick Berg, has tried to make this race about party. I just don’t think that way. I think about who’s got a good idea, where we can solve the problem. You can’t vote 100 percent with your party and then think you’re going to solve problems with every idea that’s on the table,” Heitkamp said.
Berg repeatedly fingered Democratic leaders for the stalemate on big issues.
The lack of progress on a national energy approach? “Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, he says coal and oil make us sick and are ruining our country.”
While there were no knockout blows by either candidate, Democrats believe Heitkamp got under Berg’s skin when she took on his state legislative record, where he served as majority leader and speaker.
Heitkamp charged that Berg failed to prepare North Dakota for its current energy boom by neglecting to invest in infrastructure projects over the past decade.
She then took it a step further, noting that he hasn’t put ample congressional staff in western North Dakota to help deal with issues caused by the accelerated growth.
That comment produced Berg’s most animated response of the debate, handing him an opportunity to tout the state’s 3 percent unemployment rate — the lowest in the country.
“I will take my record in the North Dakota Legislature against anyone else. We are the No. 1 state in jobs, No. 1 state in budget. A growing budget, a growing economy,” he said, raising his voice among cheers from his supporters. “I am very proud about what we’ve done in North Dakota, and I won’t step down to anyone that attacks us or attacks the North Dakota Legislature.”
Heitkamp and Berg are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 15 and Oct. 25.
Democrat Heidi Heitkamp emerged from the North Dakota Senate debate with a unique approach: aligning herself more with Sarah Palin than President Barack Obama — at least on energy.
In the first debate with Republican Rep. Rick Berg, Heitkamp insisted she would be an independent voice and took pains to separate herself from top leaders in her party. That tact couldn’t have been clearer when she wholeheartedly embraced Palin’s approach to energy production in her oil rich state.
“I think ‘Drill, Baby Drill’ is the way we need to do
it,” Heitkamp said in response to a moderator’s question during a
50-minute North Dakota Broadcasters debate in Bismarck Wednesday
morning. “This is an area where I have vehemently disagreed with the
administration. They’ve walked away from coal. They’re hostile to oil.”
Heitkamp has good reason to articulate as many Republican-sounding
positions as possible. North Dakota’s open Senate seat is critical for
control of the upper chamber, and Republicans are trying to link her to
Obama as much as possible in a state that almost certainly will
overwhelmingly vote for Mitt Romney in November.Heitkamp entered the debate ready for the line of attack and countered by portraying Berg, a freshman lawmaker, as an ineffective, uncompromising legislator unable to break Washington’s gridlock. Berg had only mentioned Obama once and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid twice when Heitkamp dove into a well-prepared defense.
“Congressman Berg will repeatedly talk about Harry Reid and Barack Obama, and I find it interesting, because this morning, when I woke up and brushed my teeth, I looked in the mirror and I did not see a tall, African-American, skinny man,” she said. “So let’s make it clear that my priorities are North Dakota priorities. That you cannot run this campaign … by simply talking about a political party. You have to talk about ideas.”
But Berg returned to his big picture argument about changing power in the Senate, drilling home the point during an exchange on energy.
“The reality and the problem is, if we’re going to get these things done, we’ve got to change Washington. And we can’t do that without changing the Senate,” he said.
Heitkamp — a former attorney general and tax commissioner — made an effort to underline areas where she’s broken with party orthodoxy.
She called the Senate’s inability to craft a budget “deplorable,” and she came out in favor of a balanced budget amendment — a position many Democrats have derided as “extreme.” After reciting a laundry list of provisions in the health care law she supports, Heitkamp acknowledged “there’s bad” parts that need to be fixed.
She dismissed environmentalist concerns about fracking — the hydraulic technology used to expand natural gas production — as “junk science. “People who say they’re against fracking don’t even know what it is,” she said.
After her line of defense at the top of the debate, she never mentioned the current president again. Yet she did laud former President Bill Clinton for producing the last balanced budget in the country and singed former President George W. Bush for attempting to privatize Social Security.
“My opponent, Rick Berg, has tried to make this race about party. I just don’t think that way. I think about who’s got a good idea, where we can solve the problem. You can’t vote 100 percent with your party and then think you’re going to solve problems with every idea that’s on the table,” Heitkamp said.
Berg repeatedly fingered Democratic leaders for the stalemate on big issues.
The failure of the Senate to pass a budget? Reid doesn’t want his members to have to take a tough vote, Berg argued.
The looming $1.2 trillion across-the-board cuts due to sequestration?
“This is sitting in Harry Reid’s hands to move on,” he charged.The lack of progress on a national energy approach? “Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, he says coal and oil make us sick and are ruining our country.”
While there were no knockout blows by either candidate, Democrats believe Heitkamp got under Berg’s skin when she took on his state legislative record, where he served as majority leader and speaker.
Heitkamp charged that Berg failed to prepare North Dakota for its current energy boom by neglecting to invest in infrastructure projects over the past decade.
She then took it a step further, noting that he hasn’t put ample congressional staff in western North Dakota to help deal with issues caused by the accelerated growth.
That comment produced Berg’s most animated response of the debate, handing him an opportunity to tout the state’s 3 percent unemployment rate — the lowest in the country.
“I will take my record in the North Dakota Legislature against anyone else. We are the No. 1 state in jobs, No. 1 state in budget. A growing budget, a growing economy,” he said, raising his voice among cheers from his supporters. “I am very proud about what we’ve done in North Dakota, and I won’t step down to anyone that attacks us or attacks the North Dakota Legislature.”
Heitkamp and Berg are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 15 and Oct. 25.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Sarah Palin goes Eastwood on Obama
From Washington Post, Op ed: Sarah Palin goes Eastwood on Obama
Sarah Palin utilized one of her three avenues for communication to deliver a policy pronouncement yesterday. Piggy-backing on the notoriety of Clint Eastwood’s empty chair, the author, reality television star, former half-term governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee sent out the following tweet.
Palin had an opportunity to run for Obama’s job and she opted to stay rich and unaccountable. That’s understandable. The world outside the Mama Grizzly’s natural habitat of Twitter, Facebook and Fox News is rather unforgiving of the unserious.
Sarah Palin utilized one of her three avenues for communication to deliver a policy pronouncement yesterday. Piggy-backing on the notoriety of Clint Eastwood’s empty chair, the author, reality television star, former half-term governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee sent out the following tweet.
America’s kids are going to be stuck paying for Obama’s Empty Chair Style of Leadership #EmptyChairDayIf you click the link you will see a plastic baby chair strapped to an otherwise empty chair. Ah, Palin. She’s such a card. I guess it’s too much to ask that she produce her own detailed plan to reduce the deficit, reform entitlements and create jobs for the millions of Americans who need work. There’s a lot to criticize President Obama for. But having a 140-character policy fight with the president of the United States is pathetic for someone who eschewed actual national leadership.
Palin had an opportunity to run for Obama’s job and she opted to stay rich and unaccountable. That’s understandable. The world outside the Mama Grizzly’s natural habitat of Twitter, Facebook and Fox News is rather unforgiving of the unserious.
Time goes by so fast!
Didn't realize I'd missed 6 days of posting here... I'd been doing things for Labor Day long weekend...
Sorry about that!
Sorry about that!
Monday, August 27, 2012
Sarah Palin still grabs limelight, even away from GOP convention
From HuffPost: Sarah Palin Grabs Limelight Away From GOP Convention
When the Republican National Convention kicks off Monday in Tampa, the star of the 2008 GOP gathering, Sarah Palin, will be 2,000 miles away in Arizona, campaigning for congressional candidates. But don't bet against the former Alaska governor finding a bit of the limelight anyway.
When the Republican National Convention kicks off Monday in Tampa, the star of the 2008 GOP gathering, Sarah Palin, will be 2,000 miles away in Arizona, campaigning for congressional candidates. But don't bet against the former Alaska governor finding a bit of the limelight anyway.
Palin will be in
little Gilbert, Ariz., helping serve up barbecue Monday afternoon
alongside congressional hopeful Kirk Adams and later stumping for a
couple of incumbent Republican congressmen, Jeff Flake and Paul Gosar.
If Palin will miss being at the big dance with Mitt Romney and other Republicans in Florida, she showed no sign of it in a Fox News
interview Saturday. She chatted merrily about her plans for the coming
days, in the familiar sing-song cadences (and run-on, multiclause
sentences) that became her trademark in 2008.
“I’m making sure to get out there around the country,”
Palin said, “and sometimes supporting underdogs — those that are
underfunded, underpresented in terms of name recognition and surrogates
out there on the political scene — making sure that those that need to
be put on the map — because their message is the right message and their
intentions are right — are heard from.”
A viewer
unhappy with both sides in the presidential campaign asked whether they
should simply not vote. Palin urged the woman to “give Romney a shot,”
stressing the importance of removing President Obama and ending his policies, including the healthcare law she called “the mother of all unfunded mandates.”
Asked
about the potential creation of a third party, Palin offered a bit of
history and said it could happen again someday if Republicans don’t
adhere to their principles.
“You know in studying
history, look what happened in the mid-1800s when the Whig Party went
away and the Republican Party surfaced because people, the electorate,
got sick and tired of both parties fighting for power and [not] doing
the will of the people,” Palin said. “That’s why the Republican Party
rose up.
“So, you know, if history is any indication,
it’s certainly a possibility at some point if Republicans don’t
remember what the planks in their platform represent. And the planks in
the platform are all about equality. They are about equal opportunity,
to prosper and thrive in the most exceptional nation in the world, and
how do we do that through a free market .”
That’s the way she said it. And with a smile.
Another
viewer wondered whether Palin, who quit office before her term was
over, would run for governor of Alaska again. The viewer got the
opposite of a “you betcha” response.
“I would much
rather be able to work on unlocking Alaska’s vast resources,” Palin
said, “the largest state in the union, so rich in oil and gas and zinc
and iron and copper and gold and the world’s richest wild seafood
fisheries in … on our planet. I would rather work on unlocking our
resources to help secure our nation for solvency for our sovereignty as a
union than be holed up in Juneau again.”
So the star of Convention 2008 makes her way modestly into the brave new world of Convention 2012, where a new V.P. star, Paul D. Ryan, is due to be crowned. Far from the center stage, she’s bound to still find her way into the conversation.
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