Lying & Quitting: The New republican Standard

About once in a generation comes a politician that wraps up the entirety of the political essence of the times. For me, that politician was Richard Milhouse Nixon. He combined a lying, ass-covering attitude with deceit and political intrigue. He was the encapsulation of what the republican party was in the late 1960s and 1970s. In short, he lied, got caught and then quit politics before he had to pay the piper.

For this generation, that example is Sarah Palin. She does not have the gravitas that Nixon did, nor are her lies of the magnitude that his were but then she never really had the chance to be any bigger than what she was. She ran for Vice-President but on a ticket that was doomed to failure in the shadow of the George Bush years. Like I said, she never had a chance. But that never stopped her from lying out of her ass at every available opportunity and, when the going got to be tough because of her behavior in office, she up and quit. Unlike Nixon who sought obscurity for a long time afterwards, Palin has made it clear that her quitting just means she is a fighter (whatever the hell that means) and that she will be speaking up on issues as she deems it appropriate to do so. In other wqrds, she’s not really going away – she’s just getting out of the line of fire by giving up her governorship.

She had a big ride in the two and a half years she was in the limelight. She managed to rack up a body of lies that is quite impressive. I was stunned when I read an account of them. I knew about them all but to read them back-to-back was astonishing. Among the lies that Sarah whipped on her adoring fans were these:

• Sarah lied all the way through the Trooper-gate incident including lies about why her public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan got shitcanned.
• Sarah lied about the Bridge To Nowhere claiming that she refused the money for it when, in fact, she lobbied extensively for it.
• Sarah lied about the firing of Wasilla’s police chief and the town librarian.
• Sarah lied about the infamous gas pipeline she was promoting in Alaska.
• Sarah lied about the collection of clothes that were bought for her by the RNC
• Sarah lied about the various ethics reports she claimed had cleared of wrongdoing when they found she had violated the law.

Sarah lied about so many things of small and big importance that it became almost a full time job to keep track of them all. She does Richard Nixon proud. Her quitting, in my opinion, is the perfect tribute to Nixon and the body of lies that he told in his many years of public office holding. Te say that she will be missed is, well, a lie I won’t be telling.

link: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/the-odd-lies-of-sarah-palin-a-roundup.html

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Posted in Politics
Tags: Alaska, governor, republican liar, Richard Nixon, Sarah Palin