With all the hoo-hah over Sarah Palin’s documented desire to ban books from the Wasilla public library, and her vindictive effort to fire a popular city librarian who openly expressed her opposition to mayoral censorship, perhaps we should have been focusing less on the books Palin wanted to ban, and a bit more on the books she actually reads.
As New York Times columnist Frank Rich astutely pointed out on Sunday, Americans should find Palin’s apparent reading list downright scary:
This was made clear in the most chilling passage of Palin’s acceptance speech. Aligning herself with “a young farmer and a haberdasher from Missouri” who “followed an unlikely path to the vice presidency,” she read a quote from an unidentified writer who, she claimed, had praised Truman: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.”
[…] There were several creepy subtexts at work here. The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office. Just as striking was the unnamed writer she quoted. He was identified by Thomas Frank in The Wall Street Journal as the now largely forgotten but once powerful right-wing Hearst columnist Westbrook Pegler.
Palin, who lies with ease about her own record, misrepresented Pegler’s too. He decreed America was “done for” after Truman won a full term in 1948. For his part, Truman regarded the columnist as a “guttersnipe,” and with good reason. Pegler was a rabid Joe McCarthyite who loathed F.D.R. and Ike and tirelessly advanced the theory that American Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe (“geese,” he called them) were all likely Communists.
So… exactly how right-wing was Pegler? As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. points out today on the Huffington Post, so right-wing as to have publicly called for his father’s assassination.
Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that “some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies.”
When a vice presidential candidate can admiringly quote a fascist, racist, anti-semitic hate-monger like Pegler—in her acceptance speech no less—and America barely bats an eye, it tells you a lot about where our nation is potentially going.
McSame must be defeated. A White House with Sarah Palin one heartbeat away will plunge this country into economic depression and the darkness of fascism.
“Americans should find Palin’s apparent reading list downright scary:”
Now the Democrats want to ban books!
Re the idiot @ 2
See how they lie.
Goldy: You give Palin more credit than she deserves. She has no idea who Westbrook Pegler was.
I wonder if she admires Truman’s small-town belief in universal medical care for all?
But how can we expect her to know about things that happened before she was born?
Like presidential spokesliar Dana Perrino expressed her huffy indignation about her ignorance of the Bay of Pigs: ‘Happened ‘fore I was born!’
@2
Sorry, no.
We think that candidates for vice-president should be well vetted and that people who quote fascists in an approving manner shouldn’t be elected to that office.
Insider @2,
Shortly after the whole Horse’s Ass initiative story broke, KING-5 interviewed me in my living room, and I got a couple of angry, threatening emails from viewers who noticed a copy of Das Kapital on the bookshelf behind me. Of course, it was sitting there next to copies of Mein Kampf and the Holy Bible. Reading Mein Kampf didn’t make me any more of a fascist than reading the Bible made me a Christian… but admiringly quoting Hitler in public or in private…? Well, that would be another story.
It should be noted that prior to becoming V.P. Truman had served as the commander of a artillery battery in WWI, as a judge and for a decade in the senate.
Palin’s got what, small town mayor and over seeing one session of the Alaskan state Ledge?
@6
You where doing good until you added the Bible on your book shelf.
Typical for a rat.
Wingnut @ 8
You own a Blackberry? Did you know McSame invented it?
LMAO!!!
How does it feel? Loser.
McSame is looking like a deer in the headlights.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....26854.html
He points the finger at the “fat-cats” who fund his campaign! LMAO!!
@9
Gee, Can we get something straight on this web site for once.
Gore Said he invented the Internet.
Senator McCain NEVER SAID HE INVENTED the Blackberry!
I know the truth is far from being a rule on this site but a little truth goes a long way.
@11 Ever hear of NREN? I thought not. Go ahead and spread the long debunked myth of Gore and the internet and deny today’s truly relevant news of McCain and the invention of the Blackberry.
A little truth may indeed go a long ways, troll, but you’re utterly lacking in truth, and that’s why you’re going nowhere.
@11: No, he didn’t. What it exactly was that Al Gore said:
Trust a rightie to not know the difference (or not care, or deliberatly distort) between taking the initiative to create and “invent”.
Hey did you know Obama voted to raise taxes on people making as little as $31,850 annually.
Yes, it was the Democrats’ proposed FY 2009 budget.
A little fact forgotten by the moronic many here.
Barak Obama stayed in a racist church for 25 years;only after it became politicaly expedient,did he quit.
Obama has associated with many extremists.Goldy obviously isn’t supporting Obama. lmao
@13
“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.”
Creating or inventing big deal. What is the difference between is and IS?
Some idiot named idiotxxxx asked in another thread about Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld and to whom did he contribute to.
Well I posted these PuddyyFacts in another thread but since idiotxxxx asked I’ll provide it again since I guess, being a Donkey, Internet searches are difficult when you don’t have much computer experience…
http://www.newsmeat.com/ceo_po.....d_Fuld.php
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
John F. Reed (D)
NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE (R)
Hillary Clinton (D)
Barack Obama (D)
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
Chris Dodd (D)
John McCain (R)
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE
Harold, Jr. Ford (D)
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION FUND B, THE
Dianne Feinstein (D)
Nita M. Lowey (D)
FREEDOM FUND
Mike Crapo (R)
FREEDOM FUND
Kent Conrad (D)
Joseph Lieberman (D)
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION FUND B, THE
Hillary Rodham Clinton (D)
Senate – NY
Erskine Bowles (D)
Pete Coors (R)
Joe Driscoll (D)
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (CBC-PAC)
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
John Kerry (D)
SECURITIES INDUSTRY AND FINANCIAL MARKETS ASSOCIATION FUND B, THE
ACTION FUND OF LEHMAN BROTHERS HOLDINGS INC.
Chris Dodd (D)
Senate – CT
Chris Dodd (D)
George W Bush (R)
Dick Gephardt (D)
Joe Lieberman (D)
President
Charles Schumer (D)
Nita M. Lowey (D)
Kevin L. Raye (R)
Robert G. Torricelli (D)
DNC SERVICES CORPORATION/DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE (D)
DEMOCRATIC SENATORIAL CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE (D)
Chris Dodd (D)
CORZINE, JON S (D)
Joseph Lieberman (D)
Senate – CT
Bill Bradley (D)
President
BYRNE, BRENDAN THOMAS JR (D)
Senate – NJ
Enough about Sarah Palin’s supposed book banning. What about Joe Biden’s record on civil liberties? Declan McCullagh takes him to task in several areas, ironically one of which has to do with library policies:
Even more incredibly, McCullagh traces the beginnings of the Patriot Act to none other than Joe Biden; Biden even bragged of it:
Do Democrats really want to get into a debate over the credentials of the VP candidates on civil liberties?
@16: Yeah, there is a difference between “create” in reference to enabling legislation, and “invent”, as in the technology.
But you’ve never cared about the accuracy of this distortion, have you?
“But how can we expect her to know about things that happened before she was born?”
She appears to be remarkably ignorant of much of what’s happened since, as well.
16 “Taking the initiative” in Congress would mean supporting legislation that assured funding for the work of those who actually did “invent the Internet”. Gore almost certainly did that. Righties at the time would most likely have been appalled at the Dept. of Defense wasting money on some such thing that wasn’t directly connected with killing and maiming people.
@21
Next you tell us Gore created Global warming myth.
Hey idiotxxx: David Goldfarb from Lehman gave to Donkey too…
http://www.city-data.com/elec2.....NY-08.html
idiotxxxx : Lehman Brothers $374,080 – Hillary Clinton
idiotxxxx: see this: http://www.opensecrets.org/new.....fanni.html
Top 5
1. Dodd, Christopher J $133,900
2. Kerry, John $111,000
3. Obama, Barack $105,849
4. Clinton, Hillary $75,550
5. Kanjorski, Paul E $65,500
All Donkey
@23 Republicans give money to cops!
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.c.....convi.html
Well, it was only $20. And the cop would have had to let the Republican blow him in a park topilet. But, still, Republicans give to cops!
McCain Palin submitted a plan to fix Fannie and Freddie. All Obama has done is point fingers. Figgers.
Another democrat gets punked.
A “democrat” writes a letter to the editor, thinking he was going to get away with lying. One of the tricks the left always engages in, pretending to be a disgruntled republican. Well this democrat got caught and outed.
http://www.ldnews.com/letterseditor/ci_10436829
I’m guessing that chrissy tarsa doesn’t understand the fine art of googling, otherwise he would have used someone else’s name.
BHO,Bans free speech.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/n.....ma_ca.html
Well, we know speechwriter Matthew Scully admiringly quoted Pegler. Palin? She was just a hired reader.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
Thanks for playing..
Marvin Stamn @ 28
Looks more like Christopher Tarsa has switched parties since 2000. He used to be a Republican, now he is a Democrat. He is now head of the Lebanon County (PA) Democratic Party — a fact that must obviously be well-known in that county. And he signed his letter as head of the county Democrats.
Your point was?
@31
Okay, He “create” The INTERNET
Better ?
He didn’t sign his letter with the information about his party affiliation. The paper added it for full disclosure.
Pretty dishonest.
That was my point.
33 – If you’re equating “invent” with “create” then you’re still making a false claim according to snopes.
And you’re still a right wing dolt.
Thanks for playing.
Frank Rich, Where waiting for you’re in depth investigation on Obama’s best and only friend since he was 8 years old.
William Charles “Bill” Ayers.
What a shocker. I-Don’t-Lie Goldy lied again. And again. And again.
“With all the hoo-hah over Sarah Palin’s documented desire to ban books from the Wasilla public library …”
Lie. There is not a single bit of documented evidence that she desired to ban any books.
“… and her vindictive effort to fire a popular city librarian who openly expressed her opposition to mayoral censorship”
Lie. She never tried to censor anything, and there is no evidence she fired anyone out of “vindictiveness.”
“… perhaps we should have been focusing less on the books Palin wanted to ban …”
Lie. She never wanted to ban any books.
Goldy == Liar. A simple equation.
I am not even going to keep reading beyond that, because Goldy is a liar, and nothing he says can be trusted.
You righties amuse me. You lie and distort like you breathe.
Yes, Palin called her librarian to ask about banning books. This would be less relevant to all of us, except she has so little in her history of any major impact, every little act takes on major significance.
Then she wanted to fire enemies, hired totally incompetent friends, paid them huge amounts of money to do things they were not competent to do, and wants us to think this is not relevant. How Republican. Sghe is a petty tyrant. I don’t want to think what she would do with real power.
Fuck you and your comments on Gore. He never said he invented the internet and Repubs want to speread this lie and deny the fact his committe started the Arpanet which laid the groundwork for the internet. Government does have a role to play. And on that subject, should we have kept regulations on the financial and insurance sectors? Shit I don’t know. The cost of not doing so is only the downfall of western finance and economies.
I could go on all night, but I am tired. Keep telling lies. Fuck you again.
The real laugher is to compare her to Biden on civil rights. Harrr, harrr, harr. What a joke. He is a champion against Bush administration abuses (See the “New Republic” this week. If you can read.) She doesn’t know what the Bush policy is, what the the Bush doctrine is, or what the bill of rights says. Quick 14th amendment- what does it say Sarah?
Go to bed. What a joke.
@38
The press who’s a paycheck away from bankruptcy will now attack Obama; this will be the Oct. Surprise. Their readership will go up and there profits for once.
Barry is toast best you get used to seeing him in the middle of the desert with his teleprompter cause no one will be hearing him unless you’re a sand bug.
Tom Foss:
At the time she became mayor, the library censorship was an issue. She asked what the librarian would do if asked to ban books to understand the issue. She never asked to ban a book, never attempted to ban a book … not even after getting a new librarian.
I have not a single problem with firing “enemies.” She’s the elected mayor/governor. If you can’t work with her, you SHOULD be fired. That’s a no-brainer. And you are lying about her hiring practices.
You’re also lying about there being no regulations on the financial and insurance sector.
I am not lying here. Goldy is, and you are.
And I know what the 14th Amendment says: it says that Al Gore’s attempt to have selective and different styles of recounts in Florida was illegal.
@40
>At the time she became mayor, the library censorship was an issue.
Was it an issue or did she make an issue? Can you quote a source that says censorship was an issue that already existed and she didn’t create?
The question here is perception. Politics, ethics and integrity are grounded is perception.
If a politician asks someone a hypothetical about their job, get an answer that is seemingly counter to the politician’s views, and then the politician sends a request for resignation without explanation a short time later, it’s reasonable to suspect that the events are linked. They may not be related but it appears that way. As others have said, with so little record, people are what little exists. Saying the issue already existed waters down the issue but doesn’t appear to be accurate.
Firing people who are your enemies is poor management skill at best and foolish on balance. Good leaders/managers hire people they don’t get along with, build loyalty to the team and not the leader, don’t apply loyalty tests, value experience and knowledge enough to try to keep it. Harvard Business Press is replete with articles describing team building and leadership that describe the above. In 20 years of reading HBR, I’ve never seen a single article saying a loyalty test was appropriate or a change management article that said “fire everyone you don’t like immediately.”
All sources I’ve seen indicate that all the people Gov. Palin admitted to sending loyalty tests resignation requests to were solid performers who did their jobs well. I’d confidently describe this scenario as one of poor and inexperienced management.
rla:
Not a SINGLE source is provided to show that Palin wanted to censor anything, and now you demand *I* show sources?!
Just how deep does your hypocrisy go?
And getting rid of the librarian was not “a short time later.”
And no, firing people who won’t work with you is what EVERY elected executive SHOULD do. Get rid of the chaff. Out they go. You are lying to say this is about “loyalty.” It’s about working against the executive instead of with her. Gone. Fired. Buh bye.
Now, you can question her judgment if you feel like it, but she felt that the police chief and others would not work with her. People who frame this as a “loyalty test” are pro-Obama who are making things up that never happened. Sad that you’d fall for it without evidence.
@42, dude, deep breath, step back, deep breath.
I didn’t say there was a fact that she wanted to censor something. Only that it’s reasonable to suspect that was her agenda if she repeatedly asked the question without context. You said it was already an issue thereby implying that there were reasons for her to ask these questions and therefore providing the context. I see no evidence that there was an issue before she began asking the questions, therefore I asked for a source. Simply looking for information to put things in perspective.
No hypocrisy here at all. Don’t attribute attitudes to me that you do not know I have.
Secondly, she told the Anchorage Daily News that she sent the letters within a few days of taking office as a “test of loyalty.” Even if it wasn’t a test of loyalty, the timing is the proper context. She could not have known if they would work against her or if their skill was valuable enough to invest the time to bring them on board. Moreover you can’t make the statement that these people would not have worked with her because she couldn’t have known that in reality unless they blatantly said “We’re going to submarine you at every turn.” Again I see no evidence that would lead me to believe that she knew they wouldn’t.
Anyone with any management chops knows that there are “door slammers” when a new leader comes in. Some she sent letters to had campaigned for her opponent. Yet these same people were well respected and had performed their jobs well according to quite a number of sources. I’ve taken many management jobs where some on the team were very loyal and tied to the former executive. Most hated me and blamed me for the situation. Simply firing them isn’t in the best interest of getting the job done. The time it takes to get a new person up to speed when you’re new yourself is often far more costly than relationship building and bringing someone on board.
The rip the bandaid off school of management does exist, but I’ve rarely ever seen it be successful. Chainsaw Al Dunlap took the same approach and really sunk companies that were his … projects … If you’ve been successful with getting “rid of the chaff” in management positions, you probably had success due to other factors than management skill.
And I do not care who does it. If I saw Obama take a contentious management/executive job and start firing people within a few days, I’d say he had poor management and executive skills.
The key here is that we are hiring people for a job without the benefit of an interview. All we have is public record and A LOT of talking heads and unfounded opinion muddying the waters. I’m doing my level best, as many are, to make a judgement on who is best for this job. I don’t necessarily need someone to agree with me on all topics and would be foolish to expect that. I do however, require someone who has the basic skill to execute the job. Based on what I’m able to observe weeding through the swamp, I’m concerned about Gov Palin’s executive capabilities.
Pudge @42,
My interpretation of the events are entirely reasonable in light of the facts. So, if this makes me a liar, what does that make Palin when she repeatedly claims that she said opposed the Bridge to Nowhere and said “thanks, but no thanks” to the federal earmarks?
Huh?
rla:
“I didn’t say there was a fact that she wanted to censor something.”
I didn’t say you did. I said the burden of proof is not on me.
“Only that it’s reasonable to suspect that was her agenda if she repeatedly asked the question without context.”
Suspect, perhaps, but not assert.
“You said it was already an issue thereby implying that there were reasons for her to ask these questions and therefore providing the context. I see no evidence that there was an issue before she began asking the questions, therefore I asked for a source. Simply looking for information to put things in perspective.”
Did you ask Goldy or anyone else making assertions that she DID attempt to censor, for THEIR evidence? I don’t believe you did. This is why I called it hypocrisy. If you did do this, and I just missed it, then I will apologize.
“Secondly, she told the Anchorage Daily News that she sent the letters within a few days of taking office as a ‘test of loyalty.'”
There is no quote backing this up. ADN asserts it, but provides no quotes, so as far as we know, that is merely their intepretation of what she said. So no, there is no actual evidence she said this.
“Even if it wasn’t a test of loyalty, the timing is the proper context. She could not have known if they would work against her …”
Perhaps you’ve never lived in a small town, but what you’re saying is obviously not true. Almost everyone there knows each other.
And even in a larger place … I live in a county of a few hundred thousand, and I can tell you right now that if I became Snohomish County Executive, and if I had the authority (I wouldn’t, as it is an elected position, but play along), I would fire Sheriff John Lovick as my first official act, because I know my interests and his are not compatible.
Besides, as I said … you can question her judgment (although your assertion she couldn’t have known is obviously fallacious), but that is a far cry from questioning her motives.
“Yet these same people were well respected and had performed their jobs well according to quite a number of sources.”
BIG YAWN. A lot of people would say the same about John Lovick.
“Simply firing them isn’t in the best interest of getting the job done.”
You weren’t there. You cannot begin to reasonably second-guess her. It’s irrational.
Goldy:
“My interpretation of the events are entirely reasonable in light of the facts.”
No, they are not.
You said there was a documented desire to ban books. There IS NO such documentation. You are lying.
This is not reasonable at all. You are claiming something exists that, in fact, does not exist.
You are lying.
“So, if this makes me a liar …”
Typical liar. When he is proven wrong, he starts to change the subject. I’d be happy to discuss that subject with you, if you admit the fact that you lied.