Posts about sue schafer

UPDATE: AP with Palin’s response, okie dokie ma’am:

Sarah Palin is disputing online reports that she has canceled her bus tour of historic American sites, saying in a Facebook posting that her schedule will be tight the next few weeks because she’s been called for jury duty.

Palin said Wednesday that her “One Nation” bus tour would resume “when the time comes.” She added that she’s looking forward “to hitting the open road again.”

Well folks, if and when Palin’s tour bus rolls again, we and every media outlet in the country will be sure to bring it to you live–assuming, of course, that it’s still considered a news event by then. Until the “time comes,” we return you to your regularly scheduled sideshow(s).

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As Real Clear Politics reports, Republican Sarah Palin and her family have apparently ended their much-ballyhooed nationwide bus tour and returned to Alaska…with no explanation for anything:

Though Palin and her staff never announced a timeline for the remaining legs of her trip, aides had drafted preliminary itineraries that would have taken her through the Midwest and Southeast at some point this month. But those travel blueprints are now in limbo, RCP has learned, as Palin and her family have reverted to the friendly confines of summertime Alaska, where the skies are currently alight for over 19 hours a day and the Bristol Bay salmon fishing season is nearing its peak….

…More than a few of Palin’s core supporters have grown impatient and confused about her strategy, venting their frustration on Internet fan sites…

…Palin’s extended hiatus could mean that in spite of her readily apparent “fire in the belly,” her family has persuaded her not to further pursue the presidency. Alternatively, it could indicate just the opposite — that she is plotting her next move and wants to ensure that it is well thought-out — and that she retains the element of surprise. Indeed, the problem with assessing how Palin’s movements figure into her 2012 calculus is that she remains one of the most unpredictable political figures in America — even to her most trusted aides. [Pols emphasis]

Palin’s astounding political rise from unknown Alaska governor to GOP Vice Presidential nominee has been well-chronicled. In the years and months since the 2008 election, she has made millions of dollars from books and speaking appearances as political observers anticipated a potential run at the Republican nomination for President. But as the paragraph above suggests, the interest in Palin has increasingly become more about her unpredictability than about who she is or what she may (or may not) stand for as a political figure. She’s interesting because it’s impossible to tell what she might do next; the downside, however, is that her actual “decisions” aren’t nearly as interesting as the randomness in their choosing. The ramifications of her choices matter much less than watching her choose.

Considering that Palin is less popular than Charlie Sheen, perhaps this unpredictability is the only card she has left. Palin has always been a spectacular sideshow while politicos wondered if she would ever enter the center ring. It seems more obvious than ever that there is only sideshow, and nothing more.

Gotta love this story from The Associated Press, including the headline: “Palin Pre-Empts State Report, Clears Self.”

Trying to head off a potentially embarrassing state ethics report on GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report Thursday that clears her of any wrongdoing.

Sen. John McCain’s running mate is the subject of a legislative investigation into whether she abused her power as governor by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner, Walter Monegan, says he was dismissed in July for resisting pressure from Palin’s husband, Todd Palin, and numerous top aides to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother-in-law.

The move came hours after the state Supreme Court refused to halt the ethics investigation. Lawmakers were expected to release their own findings Friday.

If you’re wondering why John McCain’s campaign had been refusing to allow reporters to interview VP choice Sarah Palin, here’s why:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin left open the option Thursday of waging war with Russia if it were to invade neighboring Georgia and the former Soviet republic were a NATO ally.

“We will not repeat a Cold War,” Palin said in her first television interview since becoming Republican John McCain’s vice presidential running mate two weeks ago.

Palin told Charles Gibson of ABC News that she’d favor including Georgia and Ukraine, both former Soviet republics, in NATO despite opposition by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Asked whether the United States would have to go to war with Russia if it invaded Georgia, and the country was part of NATO, Palin said: “Perhaps so.”

Look, we know Russia is Palin’s neighbor and all, but suggesting that we might go to war with them is probably not a good idea. Nor is letting her speak without a script, apparently.

UPDATE (by DavidThi): According to TPM

Todd Palin, husband of Sarah, was a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party from 1995 through 2002. That’s the information we just got from the Alaska Division of elections.

UPDATE: According to The Associated Press:

Asked about whether Palin’s background was thoroughly checked out before he selected her, McCain told reporters in Philadelphia: “The vetting process was completely thorough and I’m grateful for the results.”

This was really the only thing McCain could say, because it’s better to try to appear like you were okay with her faults than to look incompetent.

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John McCain’s campaign is taking a lot of hits over a flurry of disclosures about VP pick Sarah Palin. And not because of the disclosures themselves, but because of the growing idea – which is more harmful itself to McCain – that Palin wasn’t actually vetted before she was offered the VP slot. As The New York Times reports:

A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice.

Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.[Pols emphasis]

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described.

Yikes. This is starting to really look bad for McCain, and it’s become obvious that nobody in the campaign was really prepared for the questions about Palin. Watch this interview with a McCain spokesman and you’ll see what we mean – the guy clearly has no answer for questions that you would have thought they should be well prepared to answer. These aren’t even all questions about Palin – they are basic messaging questions surrounding her selection that the campaign doesn’t seem to know how to deal with.