Step 1) Sean Hannity states typical right wing talking point (fill in yourself).
Step 2) Hannity says, “Don’t you agree Sarah.”
Step 3) Palin agrees, repeats same talking point
Step 4) Repeat Step 1
Of course since this is Palin throw in a few random lies. Andrew Sullivan gives an example of one, with follow up here.
Everyone seems to be attacking John McCain for not adequately vetting Sarah Palin. Maybe we misjudged him on this one. Considering how McCain’s campaign is now based upon lying, and repeating the same lies once caught, maybe he knew what he was doing in picking Palin. Today The Washington Post’s fact checker gave Palin Four Pinocchios for lying about Alaska’s role in providing energy. What is remarkable about this is that this occurred after these lies were already exposed by Factcheck.org. Their report concludes:
After nonpartisan Factcheck.org pointed out Palin’s error in her interview with Gibson, the governor revised her statement somewhat, limiting it to oil and gas. But data compiled by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) contradict her claim that she oversees “nearly 20 percent” of oil and gas production in the country. According to authoritative EIA data, Alaska accounted for 7.4 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production in 2005.
It is not even correct for Palin to claim that her state is responsible for “nearly 20 percent” of U.S. oil production. Oil production has fallen sharply in Alaska during her governorship. The state’s share of total U.S. oil production fell from 18 percent in 2005 to 13 percent this year, according to the EIA.
The McCain-Palin campaign did not respond to a request for an explanation.
THE PINOCCHIO TEST
The Republican vice presidential nominee continues to peddle bogus statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.
There are also people in Alaska who are getting fed up with Palin’s dishonesty. The Anchorage Daily News has an op-ed entitled No one is above the truth, even Palin. Republican Don Fagan writes:
You really can’t experience the full effect of Monday’s news conference featuring Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton unless you hear it for yourself. Stapleton passionately attacked former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan. Her rhetoric was plain, desperate, and obvious. Her tone, pure shrill…
The governor has given so many different reasons for firing Monegan I’ve lost count. From the “we need new direction” and “new energy” to “he wasn’t hiring enough cops,” to “he wasn’t doing enough about alcohol in the bush” to “he lobbied for budget increases” to the latest version, which is a doozy; Monegan displayed “egregious rogue behavior.”
The governor also originally said that neither she, Todd nor anyone from her administration pressured Monegan regarding Trooper Wooten. Palin then was forced to admit there was serial contact once the Frank Bailey tape surfaced. But she insisted she was just learning of it. But e-mails have surfaced detailing Palin complaining to Monegan about Wooten.
The governor also originally said an investigation was needed and promised to cooperate. Then she instructed her employees not to talk to the investigator and has herself refused to be interviewed. Palin can’t constantly change her story and expect us to believe her each time she does…
I want McCain and Palin to win too. But with Palin’s refusal to cooperate with the independent investigator and her transparent delay tactics, Americans deserve to know what Palin is trying to hide before we vote her a heartbeat away from the leader of the free world.
My fellow conservatives, remember how frustrating it was when Bill Clinton committed perjury and liberals looked the other way.
As conservatives, we are no better unless we demand full disclosure from our governor when it comes to Troopergate.
No politician is so popular and charismatic that they should be above accountability and telling the truth. Not even Sarah Palin.
I want McCain and Palin to win too. But with Palin’s refusal to cooperate with the independent investigator and her transparent delay tactics, Americans deserve to know what Palin is trying to hide before we vote her a heartbeat away from the leader of the free world…
As conservatives, we are no better unless we demand full disclosure from our governor when it comes to Troopergate.
No politician is so popular and charismatic that they should be above accountability and telling the truth. Not even Sarah Palin.
It is good to see a conservative demand honesty here.
We are still not getting straight talk from John McCain. Jake Tapper exposes that McCain is not telling the truth here when he claims to have warmed about the financial crisis:
“Two years ago, I warned that the oversight of Fannie and Freddie was terrible, that we were facing a crisis because of it, or certainly serious problems,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told CBS this morning. “The influence that Fannie and Freddie had in the inside the Beltway, old boy network, which led to this kind of corruption is unacceptable and I warned about it a couple of years ago.”
How does this claim of foresight square with this interview that McCain gave to the Keene (NH) Sentinel, discussing the subprime mortgage crisis, in December 2007?
Q: “Well the dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, to many others there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot. Going back several years. Were you one of them? Or, I mean you’re a busy guy, you’re looking at a lot of things, maybe subprime mortgages wasn’t something you focused on every day. Were you surprised?
McCain: “Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse and I was surprised at other times in our history. I don’t know if surprised is the word, but…
Q: “S&Ls?”
McCain: “I don’t — what did you say?”
Q: “The S&Ls.”
McCain: “Yeah, the S&Ls.”
Q: “Is this bigger than that?
McCain: “I don’t know the dimensions of this. It’s hard to know what the dimensions are. As I say, I never thought I’d pick up the paper and see a city in Norway is somehow dramatically impacted by it. When I say ‘surprised’ I’m not surprised when in capitalist systems that there’s greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption’ or something like that, that people have disputed for years.
“But so, in this whole new derivative stuff, and SIBs and all of this kind of new ways of packaging mortgages together and all that is something that frankly I don’t know a lot about.
“But I do rely on a lot of smart people that I have that are both in my employ and acquaintances of mine. And most of them did not anticipate this. Most of them, I mean I can find some that did. But, a guy that’s on my staff named Doug Holtz-Eakin, who was once the head of the Office of Management and Budget, said that there was nervousness out there. There’s nervousness. There was nervousness that we had such a long period of prosperity without a downturn because of the history of our economy. But I don’t know of hardly anybody, with the exception of a handful, that said ‘wait a minute, this thing is getting completely out of hand and is overheating.’
“So, I’d like to tell you that I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not.”
(Watch the whole thing HERE.)
That hardly sounds like a person who is capable of handling crisis involving the economy, as once more we see that it is just too risky to have John McCain as president. Besides, does anyone really believe the claims that John McCain will take on the insiders and lobbyists he’s indebted to? Obama had a great line on this:
Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he’s president that he’ll take on, and I quote, ‘the old boys network in Washington.’
Now I’m not making this up. This is somebody who’s been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign.
And now he tells us that he’s the one who’s gonna’ to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that’s called a staff meeting. Come, on!
Republicans have won before with campaign messages which have been counter fact, but this time they are trying to sell even bigger fantasies. It is hard to believe John McCain can really get away with what amounts to a campaign promising to reform both the party whose policies he has pledged to continue as well as his closest supporters.