The Divine Sarah

No, not Sarah Bernhardt. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska and McCain’s pick for VP.

Her Wikipedia entry is largely sourced by a biography of her that was just published on April 1^st of this year - Sarah: How a Small Town Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear. Wikipedia lists the title as "Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down"

Whether she’s a Hockey Mom or a Small Town Mom or Both doesn’t really matter, but it serves as a nice reminder always to check and to double-check the wikipedia sources on anything you’re researching.

I mention this because the Wikipedia article depicts her as being everything for which the current conservative movement could ask. I'm skeptical of her perfection. Her bio couldn't be better written by Hollywood.

In high school (and possibly prior to high school) she would sometimes get up at 3AM to go moose-hunting with her father before school. She was the head of her school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and would lead the team in prayer before games. The prayers paid off, as she helped win the state champion in 1982 with a critical free-throw in the last few seconds. Oh, and she had a stress fracture in her ankle at the time.

She married her high school sweetheart. They have 5 children. The eldest is deploying to Iraq next month.

As mayor of her town of Wasilla, Alaska she kept her campaign promises, reducing her own salary and reducing property taxes by 60%.

She’s a lifetime member of the NRA. She also ice fishes, snowmobiles, and owns a float plane. She likes to eat mooseburgers.

She was elected governor after making a name for herself as a whistleblower, helping to expose corruption within the Republican party, which appears to be rampant in Alaska.

Wikipedia starts citing other sources when detailing her accomplishments as Governor, including AP, CNN, and other reputable news sources. As governor:

• She brought an end to the “Bridge To Nowhere” project. (I didn’t know it had been called off, but CNN reported it dead nearly a year ago.)
• She sold a jet her predecessor had bought with state money.
• She increased taxes on oil company profits, and is planning to give money back to the Alaskan people to offset high energy costs.
• She cut spending massively from the state budget in 2007, vetoing 13 percent of the state's proposed budget for capital projects.
• She has encouraged development of Alaska’s natural resources, while insisting on strict compliance with state requirements. Through her Alaska Gasline Inducement Act she has eliminated the typical oil companies (BP, Conoco, Exxon Mobil) from the field of applicants to build a natural gas pipeline,
• She gave birth to her fifth child, returning to work 3 days later.

I’m not going to vote for McCain, regardless of his selection for Veep, but this is the best choice he could possibly have made to woo some of the die-hard Hillary fans. She looks too good to be true.

If Palin was running for president against Hillary, I would probably vote Palin.

It's Obama versus McCain, though, and I'm voting Obama.

Update: Yes, Palin is under investigation, but what Republican in Alaska isn't? Still, she's just not a team player. Her investigation is nothing like the others.

The corruption investigations in Alaska are mostly about people getting kickbacks from oil companies. Palin is not being investigated for this or any kind of inappropriate financial or material benefit of her office. Palin is being investigated for firing her Public Safety Commissioner. The allegation is that she did so because the commissioner wouldn't fire a state trooper married to Palin’s sister.

The trooper in question has been found guilty of, among other things, tasering his own stepson.

This action – firing the middleman – fits her pattern. She did a very similar thing when dealing with the state Creamery Board.

That being said, if she is ultimately behind the commissioner’s firing then she’s handling it really well. She’s co-operating with the independent investigator, releasing information without being forced to by subpoena, and generally looks like she’s going to come out of the whole things smelling like a rose.