Want McCain to lose?

[azza33]

Anyway we can get George W to have a third term.... The place is going to be so boring without him!

[azza33]

Sorry guys i couldn't help myself  

[post-op lover]

I think Bush II set the bar very low and now everyone thinks the game is limbo: how low can you go?

POL

[BlueBallz]

Its funny as the abortion issue is such a red herring. IF 3 of the ultra left leaning justices bought the farm tomorrow, and IF GW appointed three right wing justices, and IF they all got confirmed, and IF the Court DECIDED to take a case similar to Roe v Wade, and IF the Court over turned Roe v Wade, the issue would be kicked back to the individual states and you could still get an abortion on demand in all the left wing states. Its a non issue as far as I can see it.

As far as the dollar being worthless, the worm is starting to turn. The dollar has been batered because the Fed has had to lower rates in order to bail out these crokked bankers . They, in collaboration with stoopid lenders, caused this sub prime mess. This in turn helped the economic slowdown in the USA. So far the European Central Bank has decided NOT to lower its rates, hence, the Euro pounding the dollar. Recent economic data has stated that the USA GDP did better than expected and the GDP of various large European countries has slowed more than expected. Its happened in the UK the last couple of weeks and the dollar has started to pound the pound. The dollar has fought back against the Euro in anticipation on a rate cut in Europe and possible tightening in America.....food for thought.

[smuttleydfs]

Crooked Bankers=Republicans

Stoopid Lenders=Republicans

Sorry BB my politically miguided cock sucking buddy I couldn't resist!!!!

[BlueBallz]

You serious Smutts?? You think the Repubs have a monopoly on corruption and stoopidity?? Come on now.......I can give you a couple of examples if you like.

BTW check out the NFL Forum-how about a suicide pool???

[smuttleydfs]

(BlueBallz @ Sep. 03 2008,12:06) You serious Smutts??  You think the Repubs have a monopoly on corruption and stoopidity??  Come on now.......I can give you a couple of examples if you like.

BTW check out the NFL Forum-how about a suicide pool???

Actually no....my right wing bro!!!!

Politician=Corrupt..........be it right, left or in between

You going to watch your girl tonight try and justify how her fabulous moral upbringing led her daughter to dropping her drawers and forgoing any type of contraception to become a typical unwed mother?

How divinely democrat of her!!!!        

Oh the hypocrisy of the right!!!!
   




 

[Torurot]

Precisely what I thought as well. It's not that she's pregnant, it's the hypocrisy of the "christian" right. It's "do as I say, not as I do" except when it's one of their own. The party of two-face!

[Lefty]

http://www.alternet.org/electio....h_palin

Top Ten Most Disturbing Facts and Impressions of Sarah Palin

1: Palin supports gunning down wolves from planes

Sarah Palin is no friend of wildlife. And let's not blame this on her being a hunter. Plenty of subsistence hunters respect animals. But Palin reportedly came out against legislation introduced by Rep. George Miller, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, that would "end Alaska's policy of allowing people to shoot wolves from airplanes."...

2: Palin doesn't believe global warming is man-made

At every campaign stop, McCain says that human activity is the driving force behind global climate change.

For the first time in its history, the GOP caught up to the rest of the planet by accepting the reality of man-made climate change in its 2008 platform. It reads, "The same human activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere," and "increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth."

But Palin is among the conservative fringe that rejects the scientific consensus. According to the Washington Post, "Sarah Palin told voters there she wasn't sure climate change wasn't simply part of a natural warming cycle." Palin told the conservative Web site NewsMax, "I'm not one ... who would attribute it to being man-made."...

3: Palin is the candidate of powerful far right-wing cabal; her nomination seals their support for the little-wanted McCain

As Max Blumenthal reports:


Last week ... the country's most influential conservatives met quietly in Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.

CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges. ... This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain...

4: Palin staunchly opposes abortion, even in cases of rape and incest

Sarah Palin is strongly anti-choice, but she has taken her views on abortion to an extreme that may prove unpopular even among Republicans. Palin only supports abortion if the mother's health is in danger. Rape and incest don't register with her as legitimate reasons to honor a woman's right to choose -- not even if the women is her own daughter. In 2006, when her daughter Bristol was only 14, Palin said that she would not support choice even if her daughter were raped.
She made that announcement at a time when Alaska was plagued with a rape rate more than twice as high as the national average...

5: Palin takes unnecessary risks with the health of her own child, supports failed abstinence-only programs

Amid the now-disproven rumors that the Palins' fifth child, Trig, was the son of her 17-year-old daughter, are reports that Sarah Palin seriously endangered her child during labor. Palin was in Texas delivering a speech when she allegedly began to leak amniotic fluid. Instead of immediately checking into a hospital, Palin finished her speech. She then flew to Anchorage, Alaska, where she drove to a hospital 45 minutes away to give birth.

Palin's apparent need to rush to Alaska for the delivery helped fuel rumors she was faking the pregnancy to cover for her daughter. Now that the story has proven to be false, it nevertheless raises questions about Palin's judgment. In this case, she seems to have taken unnecessary risks in the delivery of her child. As the past eight years have shown us, the last thing we need is a reckless politician in office...

6: Palin is under investigation for allegedly abusing her power as governor to help her sister in a messy divorce

Politicians are supposed to recuse themselves, or step away from matters, when there is a conflict of interest. Yet according to the Washington Post and other news outlets, Palin "has been embroiled in a bitter family feud that has drawn in the state police, the attorney general, the governor's office and the state legislature." In fact, a "bipartisan state legislative panel has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Palin improperly brought the family fight into the governor's office," the newspaper reports.

At issue is whether Palin and her staff pressured and then fired the public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, because he did not fire Palin's ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, from the state police after he apparently threatened her sister and other family members, including her father, in 2005. The Post reported that Palin heard Wooten "threatening to kill their father" for helping his daughter obtain a divorce. Palin, who did not call the police that day, later reported the incident...

7: Palin lied about her plans for the "Bridge to Nowhere"

When accepting the GOP's nomination for vice president, Sarah Palin took credit for killing a controversial bridge project in Alaska dubbed the Bridge to Nowhere: "I told Congress, 'Thanks but no thanks on that Bridge to Nowhere,'" she exclaimed to a cheering audience in Ohio. But it turns out that her relationship with the bridge wasn't that cut and dry.

The Gravina Island Bridge would have linked the town of Ketchikan to its international airport, which is extremely difficult to get to by car, as it is on Gravina Island (there is currently a ferry in place to shuttle people to and fro). The bridge was to be federally funded but was quickly labeled a pork barrel project by many conservatives in Washington, including McCain.

So maybe it was an eagerness to please her new boss that caused Palin to lie to the American people right out of the gate. Who can say? But thanks to reports from the Washington Post and the Anchorage Daily News, we are now aware that that is exactly what she has done.

It turns out that initially Palin was a big fan of the bridge -- although it could be that Palin wasn't so much a fan of the bridge as she was a fan of telling Ketchikan's 14,000 residents that she was while on the campaign trail in September 2006. "She was the only candidate who was saying, 'We're going to build that bridge,'" former governor Tony Knowles, a Democrat who lost to Palin in the 2006 general election, told the Washington Post. "She's taking a position now which certainly wasn't what it was when she was campaigning."

After a long fight about how much federal assistance should be granted to Alaska for the bridge, Congress decided to grant Alaska a lump sum of $454 million to spend on general infrastructure projects, instead of specifically earmarking federal money for what had become a very unpopular project.

Even then, though, there where plans for the bridge. It wasn't until September 2007, a year after her promise to the people of Ketchikan, that Palin finally shut down the project, citing overspending. As Keith Ashdown, an investigator with Taxpayers for Common Sense, told the Post: "She made the final decision to kill a very bad project, so she deserves credit for that. But she didn't do it as an ideological opponent of earmarks. She did it as someone who had to balance the books."

Palin lied to her constituents about getting the bridge done, and now she is lying to the American people about what her position was in the first place. It looks like Palin isn't the type of politician who would clean up Washington after all.

8: A so-called political reformer, Palin has big money ties to Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, who has been indicted for political corruption

Former Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil was known for political witticisms, including "Dance with the one that brung ya." That refers to being loyal to your supporters through the thick and thin of political life. According to the Washington Post's The Trail, from 2003 to 2005, Palin was one of three directors of "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors. A "527" refers to a section of the tax code governing such campaign groups.

"Palin, an anti-corruption crusader in Alaska, had called on Stevens to be open about the issues behind the investigation," the Post reported. "But she also held a joint news conference with him in July, before he was indicted, to make clear she had not abandoned him politically."

Stevens, who is running for re-election this year, was inducted by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., this summer for failing to disclose sizeable gifts from a now-defunct Alaskan oil company, including assistance with renovating a vacation home...

9: Palin exploits her son's Iraq service for political gain

Taking the stage alongside John McCain last Friday, it took no time for Palin to play the 9/11 card. "On September 11th of last year," she announced, "our son enlisted in the United States Army. ... And on September 11th, Track will deploy to Iraq. ... And Todd and I are so proud of him and of all the fine men and women serving this country."

Palin's public pride in her son served a purpose, one the media dutifully picked up. As campaign operatives rebuffed charges that Palin is unprepared, they reached for her son's military service. Confronted with her admission that she has "not paid much attention" to the war in Iraq, one guest told Hardball's Chris Matthews that, as a military mother, "she pays attention to it with her heart."

Maybe so, but Palin is hardly alone. The 2008 presidential race is remarkable in that three of the candidates have sons in the active duty military. But standard practice seems to be not to discuss it publicly...

10: During her time as mayor, Palin drove a town deep into debt

According to Politico, "Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla. That amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements."

[Lefty]

http://www.alternet.org/election08/97350/

8 More Shocking Revelations About Sarah Palin

Since the McCain campaign apparently didn't even bother Googling Sarah Palin before picking her to join the Republican ticket, we've taken it upon ourselves to compile some important -- and terrifying -- revelations about Palin.

Yesterday AlterNet ran a piece titled "Top Ten Most Disturbing Facts and Impressions of Sarah Palin." And in only 24 hours, almost as many exaggerations, misrepresentations and outright lies have reared their ugly heads. If you already read yesterday's piece, here's the next installment:

1: Palin Tried to Ban Books From Local Library

Thanks to Bush, the Republican Party is not strongly associated with intellectualism. But Sarah Palin has apparently taken the conservative derision for book-learnin' to a whole new level: Time reports that as mayor of Wasilla, Palin asked the town librarian how to go about banning books from the local library. News reports from the time show that the librarian, who, strangely enough, was opposed to a tactic commonly employed by totalitarian regimes, had her job threatened for not giving her "full support" to the mayor.

The People for the American Way have issued a statement condemning Palin's actions and demanding an explanation from her:


People can disagree about a lot of things, but censorship is completely beyond the pale. Our democracy was founded on the belief that government shouldn't tell people what kinds of books to read or what kind of beliefs to hold. No one with that kind of history should be anywhere near the White House. Sarah Palin needs to clarify her stance on freedom of speech immediately, and John McCain needs to explain why he chose a running mate with so little regard for the Constitution.
So far the McCain campaign has been quiet about Palin's attempts to legislate what books people should be allowed to read.

2: Palin Apparently Doesn't Put "Country First"

A central and integral part of the McCain campaign's message is "Country First." McCain is a POW who has always put country before personal gain, as he and his handlers have reminded the public time after time after time. So if the vetting process of Palin was as thorough as McCain's people (and McCain himself) have been claiming, how is it that they missed this:


Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which since the 1970s has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

Lynette Clark, the chairman of the AIP, tells ABC News that Palin and her husband Todd were members in 1994, even attending the 1994 statewide convention in Wasilla. Clark was AIP secretary at the time.

"We are a state's rights party," Clark -- a self-employed gold miner -- tells ABC News. The AIP has "a plank that challenges the legality of the Alaskan statehood vote as illegal and in violation of United Nations charter and international law."
"Alaska First -- Alaska Always." Huh, I don't suppose there's an unless-you-are-nominated-to-be-vice-president clause, is there? No, probably not.

3: Palin's Love Affair With Earmarks

McCain, when introducing Palin on Friday in Ohio, praised her as a champion for "reform to end the abuses of earmark spending." When it was Palin's turn to speak, she mentioned her claimed opposition to the famous pork barrel project, "the Bridge to Nowhere," as an example of her tough stance on earmarks. Well, we all know now that she was actually for the bridge long before she was against it. Apparently her love affair with earmarks doesn't end there:


... under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget ...
But hey, it was her first shot at being governor of Alaska. Maybe things were different when she was mayor?


As mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin appears to have made use of the system she now decries, hiring a Washington lobbyist, Steven Silver, to represent the town.

After he was hired, the city obtained funding for several projects, including a city bus facility that received an earmark valued at $600,000 in 2002. That year a local water and sewer project received $1.5 million in federal earmarks, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog organization.

Hmmm, Steven Silver, why does that name sound familiar? Talking Points Memo is quick to remind us:


... Silver appears to have additional ties that could further undercut Palin's image as a squeaky-clean reformer. According to Senate lobbying disclosure reports examined by TPMmuckraker, from 2002 to 2004 Silver listed as a client Jack Abramoff's lobbying firm, Greenberg Traurig. On Greenberg's behalf, Silver lobbied the federal government on "issues relating to Indian/Native American policy," "exploration for oil and gas" and "legislation relating to gaming issues" -- the very issues that Abramoff headed up for Greenberg at the time. In other words, Silver appears to have been a part of "Team Abramoff.
So this is the breath of fresh air that McCain wants in Washington? Earmarks aplenty and links to the infamous Jack Abramoff? If that's a step in the right direction, I don't want to see the step in the wrong one.

4: Palin Slashed Funding for Teen Moms

Not many pregnant teens are as privileged as Bristol Palin. And for those who are not, Sarah Palin made things a little harder a few months ago when she used a line-item veto to cut funding for a transitional home for teen moms in Alaska. According to the Washington Post:


After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation -- "SP" -- Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.

According to Passage House's Web site, its purpose is to provide "young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives" and help teen moms "become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families."
(It certainly doesn't sound like the teen moms were joyriding in Cadillacs on the government's dime, but you never know.)

In classic "compassionate" conservative fashion, Palin opposes programs that teach girls how not to get pregnant, lobbies against their right to decide whether to have a child, then kills social programs that exist to cushion the impact of those policies. She then has the gall to trot out her own pregnant daughter as a symbol for "family values."

5: Crazy Reverend, Crazy Church

From the age of 12 and for most of her adult life, Sarah Palin attended the Wasilla Assembly of God. Apparently, Sarah Palin's God was a vengeful God -- one that made Himself helpful to the Bush administration from time to time by damning critics of the president, Democrats and other irredeemable sinners. The Huffington Post writes that the church's preacher, Ed Kalinins:


... preached that critics of President Bush will be banished to hell; questioned whether people who voted for Sen. John Kerry in 2004 would be accepted to heaven; charged that the 9/11 terrorist attacks and war in Iraq were part of a war "contending for your faith;" and said that Jesus "operated from that position of war mode."
Kalinins also offered a nuanced view of foreign policy, preaching that 9/11 and the Iraq war were part of a greater struggle over Christianity, with Jesus playing an important role as a very exacting general:


"What you see in Iraq, basically, is a manifestation of what's going on in this unseen world called the spirit world. ... We need to think like Jesus thinks. We are in a time and a season of war, and we need to think like that. We need to develop that instinct. We need to develop as believers the instinct that we are at war, and that war is contending for your faith. ... Jesus called us to die. You're worried about getting hurt? He's called us to die.
It can't necessarily be assumed that Palin agrees wholeheartedly with her former pastor. But in an address to the church three months ago, Palin also used disconcertingly religious language to frame the conflict in Iraq:


"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending (U.S. soldiers) out on a task that is from God," she exhorted the congregants. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan."
Considering how much flak Obama got for the statements of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, this is an issue Palin needs to address.


6: McCain Picking Palin Reeks of Sexism

The McCain campaign is already doing its best to deflect all the negative stories that are coming out about Palin by calling Democrats sexist, and by claiming that they are the party that values women's rights. Of course, Dems had a woman on the presidential ticket in 1984 (Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro), so Republicans aren't breaking glass ceilings here but are actually 24 years late to the party. When it comes to sexism, it seems the party that isn't for equal pay or for a woman's right to choose should take a quick look in the mirror before accusing others of sexism. In fact, McCain's idea that women will vote for the McCain/Palin ticket just because Palin has a vagina is incredibly condescending, as Ann Friedman at the American Prospect writes:


Palin's addition to the ticket takes Republican faux-feminism to a whole new level. As Adam Serwer pointed out on TAPPED, this is in fact a condescending move by the GOP. It plays to the assumption that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters did not care about her politics -- only her gender. In picking Palin, Republicans are lending credence to the sexist assumption that women voters are too stupid to investigate or care about the issues, and merely want to vote for someone who looks like them. As Serwer noted, it's akin to choosing Alan Keyes in an attempt to compete with Obama for votes from black Americans.
A candidate should be chosen because they are qualified for the job, not because of their gender. Any hardworking woman who has been passed over for a promotion could have told the McCain campaign that.

7: Palin Can't Even Run a Car Wash

Many politicians have a strong background in business: CEOs, executives, business presidents, self-made millionaires, etc. The thinking is that a businessperson is economically savvy, has executive experience, and can make tough calls and quick decisions. Well, Palin has some experience in the private sector: While she was mayor of Wasilla, Palin had time to open up a car wash in Anchorage. Good for her, nothing wrong with a little public service cushioned by some private business while raising a family. But by the time Palin was governor of Alaska, her business had run into trouble, as Matthew Mosk reports for the Washington Post:


State records show the business ran into trouble with Alaska's division of corporations business and professional licensing after Palin became governor of the state in 2006.

A Feb. 11, 2007, letter to the governor's business partner advises that the car wash had "not filed its biennial report and/or paid its biennial fees," which were more than a year overdue.

The warning letter was written on state letterhead, which carried Palin's name at the top, next to the state seal.

On April 3, 2007, the state went further and issued a "certificate of involuntary dissolution" because of the car wash's failure to file its report and pay state licensing fees.
The least you can accuse Palin here is of mismanagement (of a car wash!); at worst, she was abusing her political clout by trying to cut corners. Either way, Palin doesn't come off as the kind of executive you'd want running your business, let along your country.

8: Lied About Foreign Travel

In an attempt to inflate her nonexistent foreign policy credentials, Palin's spokespeople stated shortly after her nomination that she had traveled to Germany, Kuwait and Ireland: you know, the three countries most likely to give rise to catastrophic national security emergencies in the next four years.

But not only is Palin's travel history unimpressive, it was also being blatantly misrepresented. According Jim Aravosis, an Irish blogger has just revealed that Palin was in Ireland for a brief refueling layover.

And as Aravosis argues, Palin's lack of travel experience outside of "duty-free diplomacy" has major implications:


... John McCain, who is 72 and has had 4 bouts of cancer, (has) picked Sarah Palin to replace him as commander in chief should he die or be incapacitated in office.

[katoeylover]

2: Palin doesn't believe global warming is man-made

seems a real good reason to Vote for her!!

[Tomcat]

(Lefty @ Sep. 04 2008,17:54) this unseen world called the spirit world. ...

Ya, like she also believes this...i see where shes coming from now...

[Lefty]

Sarah Palin, Wrong Woman for the Job

http://www.thenation.com/blogs....the_job

John McCain's choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate shows how desperate he is to distract attention from the fact that he is a cranky old man with nothing to offer but more of the same. Palin is a blatant pander for the women's vote. He must think we have the collective IQ of a Tampax.

Sure, Palin is cool -- she's pretty and vivacious and athletic, a former beauty queen who runs marathons, hunts , fishes and eats mooseburgers, plus she's got five kids with unusual names like Willow and Track, including a newborn with Down's syndrome. I feel tired just thinking of what her daily life must be like, and if she were my neighbor I would probably like her a lot. It shows how deeply feminism has penetrated American culture that even anti-choice, right-wing-Christian women are breaking out of the old sugary-submissive pastel-suited stereotype. And if life were a Lifetime movie, Palin would do just fine running the country should McCain keel over. Girls can do anything! and look great doing it!

But seriously. Vice President? After a stint as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of less than 8000, and barely two years as governor of a state with more grizzly bears than people? She makes Obama's resume look as thick as Winston Churchill's.

Here's the reality: Palin is a rightwing-Christian anti-choice extremist who opposes abortion for any reason whasoever, except to save the life of the girl or woman. No exception even for rape, incest, or the health of the woman. No exception for a ten-year-old, a woman carrying a fetus with no chance of life, a woman on the edge of suicide-- let alone the woman who is not ready to be a parent, who is escaping domestic violence, who is already stretched to the limit as a single mother. She wants to force over one million women and girls a year to give birth against their will and judgment. She wants to use the magnificent freedom the women's movement has won for her at tremendous cost and struggle--the movement that won her the right to run those marathons and run Alaska -- to take away the freedom of every other woman in the country.

Her selection does not tell us McCain is a "maverick" who is just stringing the Christian right along, wink-wink. It tells us that he has thrown in his lot with James Dobson, the Family Research Council, the Catholic hierarchy and others for whom criminalizing abortion is the number-one issue. His record of votes against abortion and birth control--125 votes out of 130 in his congresssional and Senate career-- apparently wasn't quite enough for them. By choosing Palin, he wins their enthusiastic support.

McCain is gambling that women will vote their gender, and not their interests.

I expect pro-choice women will see through this gambit pretty fast. If not, we really are as dumb as he thinks we are.

[Lefty]

http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/...videoId=184086


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[Lefty]

Palin's Alaska Reaps the Windfall Profits McCain Decries

http://www.truthdig.com/report....?ln

By Robert Scheer

Welcome to the People's Republic of Alaska, where every resident this year will get a $3,200 payout, thanks in no small measure to the efforts of Sarah Palin, the state's Republican governor. That's $22,400 for a family of seven, like Palin's. Since 1982, the Alaska Permanent Fund, which invests oil revenues from state lands, has paid out a dividend on invested oil loot to everyone who has been in the state for a year. But Palin upped the ante by joining with Democrats and some recalcitrant Republican state legislators to share in oil company windfall profits, further fattening state tax revenue and permitting an additional payout in tax funds to residents.

No wonder she is popular with voters in a state whose residents pay no income or sales taxes but are blessed with state coffers rolling in cash at a time when all other states are suffering. Indeed, when the oil companies pay more taxes to the state of Alaska, they get to write that off against their federal tax obligation, leaving the rest of us to make up the shortfall.

The state of Alaska owns most of the oil-producing land and was getting upward of 85 percent of its budget from the oil companies that lease the fields, even before Palin helped increase the state's cut. While other states fire schoolteachers because of the economic downturn, Alaska has, as Palin indicated in accepting John McCain's offer to join him on the GOP ticket, more money than it knows what to do with. In a display of plucky arrogance at her coming-out press conference, Palin boasted deceptively that if Alaskans wanted that infamous bridge to nowhere, "we'd build it ourselves."

She originally had supported having U.S. taxpayers finance that boondoggle, before McCain and others in Congress blasted it.

Not that I blame Palin for wrangling for her state a bigger cut of oil company windfall profits; it's just not an option that will work wonders for states without oil. Of course we can remedy that by having a federal windfall profits tax of the sort that Barack Obama dared propose, and which McCain and his fellow congressional Republicans have managed to quash. Their argument, rejected quite pointedly by Palin for Alaska, is that it would discourage oil companies from investing in boosting oil field yields.

McCain derided Obama's call for the windfall profits tax, saying it would "increase our dependence on foreign oil and hinder exactly the same kind of domestic exploration and production we need." I am far more interested in how McCain handles the contradiction between his and Palin's position on windfall oil profits than whether he properly vetted her on her family-values commitment to the abstinence-only teenage sex education program.

Why is it a good thing for the folks up in Alaska to get a cut of exorbitant oil company profits, but not the rest of us, if we are all part of one nation? Didn't taxpayers from across the U.S. buy the place from the Russians? Isn't it our federally collected tax dollars that have been subsidizing Alaska more lavishly than any other state, both before and after the bonanza of oil?

Just witness the success of Palin, who, as mayor of the hamlet of Wasilla, hired a big-time lobbying firm intimately connected with the state's now-indicted Republican Sen. Ted Stevens and thus obtained $27 million in federal earmarks during her tenure. As The Washington Post calculated in a devastating report on Mayor Palin's assault on the federal treasury, her home town of Wasilla (with about 6,000 inhabitants in 2002 when she was mayor) received $6.1 million, or $1,000 per resident in earmarks, almost as much as Boise, Idaho, got this year with a population that is 30 times larger.

It obviously helped to have Alaska's now-indicted senator as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. And despite McCain's claims that Palin distinguished herself by breaking with Alaska's discredited Republican establishment in February, the governor sent Stevens a request for $200 million to support various state projects. With representatives like that, it's no wonder that Alaska, despite its oil boom, is still at the top of states subsidized by federal dollars, receiving $1.84 back from Washington for every $1 that Alaskans pay in federal taxes. (California receives 78 cents for every $1.)

Unfortunately, looking to Palin for advice on helping the rest of us during the oil crunch, as McCain has promised, is a bit like asking a Saudi oil minister or Russia's Vladimir Putin to provide a model for our nation's economic woes. They hardly feel our pain at the pump.