GOP women on Palin's fashion

GOP women on Palin's fashion.

-- Dan Damon

Mayor Palin - Trail of bad blood

One of the throng of journalists who are camping out in Alaska and interviewing everyone in sight to cover Sarah Palin, Alec McGillis writes in yesterday's Washington Post on her time as Mayor of Wasilla.

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties,
Left Trail of Bad Blood

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, September 14, 2008; A01

WASILLA, Alaska -- On Sept. 24, 2001, Mayor Sarah Palin and the City Council held their first meeting after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The council condemned the attacks and approved a $5,000 gift to a disaster relief fund. Palin said she would try to obtain materials from both attack sites to include in the town's "Honor Garden."

And then the council and mayor returned to their normal business: approving funds to upgrade the public well, issuing a restaurant permit and taking up a measure forbidding residents from operating bed-and-breakfasts in their homes. After a lively debate, the bed-and-breakfast measure lost, 4 to 1.

Since joining the Republican ticket, Palin has faced questions about whether she is qualified to be vice president or, if necessary, president. In response, the first-term Alaska governor and Sen. John McCain point to the executive qualifications she acquired as Wasilla mayor, a six-year stint from 1996 to 2002 that represents the bulk of her political experience.

Palin says her time as mayor taught her how to be a leader and grounded her in the real needs of voters, and her tenure revealed some of the qualities she would later display as governor: a striving ambition, a willingness to cut loose those perceived as disloyal and a populist brand of social and pro-growth conservatism.

But a visit to this former mining supply post 40 miles north of Anchorage shows the extent to which Palin's mayoralty was also defined by what it did not include. The universe of the mayor of Wasilla is sharply circumscribed even by the standards of small towns, which limited Palin's exposure to issues such as health care, social services, the environment and education.

Firefighting and schools, two of the main elements of local governance, are handled by the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, the regional government for a huge swath of central Alaska. The state has jurisdiction over social services and environmental regulations such as stormwater management for building projects.

With so many government services in the state subsidized by oil revenue, and with no need to provide for local schools, Wasilla has also made do with a very low property tax rate -- cut altogether by Palin's successor -- sparing it from the tax battles that localities elsewhere must deal with. Instead, the city collects a 2 percent sales tax, the bulk of which is paid by people who live outside town and shop at its big-box stores.

The mayor oversees a police department created three years before Palin took office; the public works department; the parks and recreation department; a planning office; a library; and a small history museum. Council meetings are in the low-ceilinged basement of the town hall, a former school, and often the only residents who show up to testify are two gadflies. When Palin was mayor, the population was just 5,500.

Palin limited her duties further by hiring a deputy administrator to handle much of the town's day-to-day management. Her top achievement as mayor was the construction of an ice rink, a project that landed in the courts and cost the city more than expected.

Arriving in office, Palin herself played down the demands of the job in response to residents who worried that her move to oust veteran officials would leave the town in the lurch. "It's not rocket science," Palin said, according to the town newspaper, the Frontiersman. "It's $6 million and 53 employees."

Further constraining City Hall's role is the frontier philosophy that has prevailed in Wasilla, a town that was founded in 1917 as a stop along the new railroad from Anchorage to the gold mines further north. The light hand of government is evident in the town's commercial core, essentially a haphazard succession of big-box stores, fast-food restaurants and shopping plazas.

The only semblance of an original downtown is a small collection of historic cabins that have been gathered for display in a grassy area beside a shopping center. Most residents live in ranch houses scattered through the woods. Churches, offices, stores and most other buildings are made of corrugated metal or composite materials. Standing in contrast to the utilitarian architecture are the lakes and majestic peaks.

Many of those in town were astonished to learn that Palin had been named McCain's running mate six years after leaving City Hall.

"I was happy in a way, because it is a new beginning for the country, but also I am very worried due to her lack of experience," said Darlene Langill, a self-described arch-conservative who served on the City Council during Palin's first year in office.

Duane Dvorak, the city planner when Palin took office, said the mayor's ambition had been plain to see, but added: "My sense is that this opportunity maybe came along before she was ready for it or thought it would come along."

The McCain campaign declined to respond to questions about Palin's tenure as mayor, but the current mayor, Dianne Keller, said Palin's tenure has prepared her to be vice president.

"Executive experience is executive experience. Whether you are a mayor or a governor or an executive at a company, the duties and responsibilities are the same," said Keller, who served on the City Council under Palin.

* * *

As constrained as Palin's duties as mayor were, her rise to power in Wasilla allowed her to hone the sharp political instinct that has guided her since. When she ran for City Council in 1992, it was as a young PTA mother and daughter of a well-liked local family.

But in her four years on the council, she picked up on sentiment that was building against the three-term incumbent, John Stein, who pushed for the 2 percent sales tax to pay for road, sewer and water upgrades. These investments laid the way for the city's growth, but they also unnerved some residents.

"People said, 'What are you doing to my city? I liked it better when we didn't have government,' '' said Richard Deuser, the city attorney at the time. "And Sarah really pandered to that resentment, that resistance to change. Sarah became their person."

Running against Stein, Palin called for an end to his "tax-and-spend mentality" -- and introduced Wasilla to the kind of socially conservative campaigning that was taking hold across the nation. A national antiabortion-rights group sent cards to voters praising Palin, and her brochures said she was "endorsed by the NRA." After she won with 616 votes -- 58 percent of the total -- a local TV station referred to her as Wasilla's "first Christian mayor," even though Stein and his predecessors were also Christian.

Palin took office as mayor in October 1996 with a show of force. She fired the museum director and demanded that the other department heads submit resignation letters, saying she would decide whether to accept them based on their loyalty, according to news reports at the time. She clashed with Police Chief Irl Stambaugh over his push for moving bar closing time from 5 a.m. to 2 a.m. and for his opposition to state legislation to allow people to carry guns in banks and bars.

In notes that he took during a meeting in Palin's first week on the job, Stambaugh wrote that the new mayor told him "that the NRA didn't like me and that they wanted change," according to the Seattle Times, which reviewed the notes at a federal archive in Seattle. Stambaugh was fired on Jan. 30, 1997, partly, the mayor said, because he had not taken seriously her request for a weekly progress report "on at least two positive examples of work that was started, how we helped the public, how we saved the City money, how we helped the state, how we helped Uncle Sam." Stambaugh filed a wrongful-termination suit, which he lost.

Palin also differed with the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons. The Frontiersman reported at the time that Palin asked Emmons three times in her first weeks in office whether she would agree to remove controversial books. The librarian said she would not. The McCain campaign has confirmed Palin's questions but said that she never demanded removal of any specific books. Palin also fired Emmons on Jan. 30 but reinstated her after an uproar.

Although the town had a $4 million surplus, Palin cut the museum budget by $32,000, and the three older women who worked there quit instead of deciding which would have to go. But Palin dipped into the budget to create the deputy administrator slot, which some council members complained was at odds with her small-government stance. She told city officials not to talk to reporters.

A recall effort in early 1997 fizzled out, but hard feelings lingered. "Working in small towns, I had never seen someone come in and clean house like that in such a precipitous manner. It was pretty scary and emotional," said Dvorak, the city planner, who left after eight months.

Deuser, the former city attorney, said it was upsetting to hear the McCain campaign refer to Palin's takeover as a matter of getting rid of the "good ol' boy network."

"They were just good public servants who did a really admirable job and deserved better," said Deuser, who was replaced in 1997.

Jeff Carney, another local attorney, said Palin was just trying to assert herself against skeptics. Members of the town's old guard "thought they could run over her and were bothered that she could think for herself and make up her own mind up and not do what someone older and wiser told her to do," he said.

In 2006, Palin told the Anchorage Daily News she learned from it all. "At the time, it seemed perplexing that people would object. I was very bold about what needed to be done," she said. "It was rough with a staff who didn't want to be there working with a new boss. I learned you've got to be very discerning early on and decide if you can win them over or not. If you can't, you replace them early on."

Palin's replacements included a public works director who lacked engineering experience but was married to a top aide to a former Republican governor, and she made a former state GOP lawyer city attorney, according to the Daily News. Langill, the former councilwoman, said the new hires fit Palin's management style.

"Sarah always did and still does surround herself with people she gets along well with," she said. "They protect her, and that's what she needs. She has surrounded herself with people who would not allow others to disagree with Sarah. Either you were in favor of everything Sarah was doing or had a black mark by your name."

But things did run more smoothly from then on, and department directors whom Palin hired said she was good at delegating authority and letting them do their job. "She's a quick study," said Don Shiesl, who took over public works in 1998. "She's a heck of a public speaker and she works her magic on people. Give her four years, with some training, and she'll be up to snuff. She's not dumb, she'll be able to catch on to stuff real quick."

* * *

The town's coffers swelled as more stores moved in, letting Palin reap the political benefits of Stein's sales tax and infrastructure upgrades. With her natural charisma putting voters at ease after the initial turbulence, she was reelected in 1999 to the $68,000-a-year job. The budget expanded by nearly half during Palin's tenure as she increased spending on police and public works but kept a lid on city planning and the library, and further reduced the property tax.

Further buttressing the budget were the earmarks Palin sought for the town after hiring a Washington lobbyist for $38,000 a year. The town secured $27 million in all, including $1.9 million for a transportation hub, $900,000 for sewer repairs and $15 million for a rail project.

Despite the city's flush accounts, the police department under the chief Palin hired to replace Stambaugh required women who said they had been raped to pay for examination kits themselves, a policy Palin now says she rejects. State legislation passed a year later required the town to pay for the kits.

The social-issues platform of Palin's first campaign found little outlet in town, beyond some symbolic moves such as declaring Wasilla a "City of Good Character" and a resolution opposing the legalization of marijuana. Instead, she focused on continuing the city's growth and development. Her second city planner, Tim Krug, said last week that the city would sometimes "lighten" regulations, to "make things more welcoming."

Some in town had for years pressed the city for a new space for the cramped library. Palin, who calls herself a "typical hockey mom," instead focused on building a sports complex with an NHL-size rink. In 2002, by a 20-vote margin, voters approved a $14.7 million bond to be financed by a half-cent sales tax hike.

Palin had forged ahead with the project despite a lingering legal dispute over whether the city had ownership of the land. A judge had initially ruled in the city's favor, but it later lost on appeal and had to pay $1.3 million more for the land.

"The only accomplishment of note was the building of the sports complex . . . and it was bungled," said Deuser, the former city attorney. Keller, the new mayor, defended Palin, saying she had relied on legal advice in proceeding with the project.

Bound by term limits, Palin ran for lieutenant governor in 2002, came in a strong second and was later rewarded with a high-paying spot on the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

In September 2002, she presided over her last City Council meeting. The council took up an ordinance to ban sex shops. The police chief announced that Raymond Chiemlowski was promoted to sergeant. Keller "reported that traffic lights on Knik-Goosebay Road will be turned on soon and encouraged everyone to use caution while adjusting to the new traffic pattern."

And with that, at 9:48 p.m., Sarah Palin's final meeting as mayor of Wasilla was adjourned.

Read the original HERE.

Carla Katz: Palin and good-old-boy rules

Writing in the Sunday Star-Ledger, Carla Katz, ex girl-friend of New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, has a go at analyzing Sarah Palin and concludes she has mastered understanding the 'old boy network'.

Sarah Palin, good ol' boy

Sunday, September 14, 2008

BY CARLA KATZ

She is reported to be smart, tough and a politically savvy working mother.

She has become the subject of celebrity-style media interest and of an astonishing barrage of stories and photos about her and her family -- some real and some fabricated -- winging across the internet.

Her arrival on the scene has triggered endless kitchen table discussions about parenting, work, teenage pregnancy and feminism. Her name has outpaced Google hits for "Paris Hilton" and "Michael Phelps."

Her speech to the Republican convention met with such breath less excitement from the mostly male delegates that I wondered if she had appeared, as depicted in that now-famously faked photo, in a flag bikini with a rifle rakishly held aloft.

The McCain team has worked tirelessly to project its vice presidential choice, Sarah Palin, as a "reformer" and a tough, whistle- blowing politician who took on the "old boys" in Alaska and won. But the reality is that Palin is herself completely entrenched in the "old boys network" it claims she fought.

Worse, Palin's policies, which are far to the right of the majority in this country, would not help women but would roll feminism backward and the "old boys" for ward.

Facing Barack Obama's popularity with women and blue-collar voters, the demographic that could likely decide this election, the McCain team needed a way to lift its campaign from its narcoleptic stupor. The surprising and risky choice of a nearly unknown Alaskan governor as McCain's running mate seemed like an ill-advised, ob vious attempt to capitalize on and lure discontented Hillary Clinton supporters who had fervently hoped to see a woman on the presidential ticket.

The notion that women who might have voted for Clinton would now vote for Palin (and McCain) simply because they share a gender seems preposterous. Yet one re cent ABC News-Washington Post poll suggests that on the heels of the Palin pick, white women have moved from backing Obama by eight points to supporting McCain by 12 points.

It's still unknown whether those poll numbers reflect a shift among women voters or whether they are a wild swing. What is becoming clearer, as Palin's past slowly surfaces, is that she is perfectly comfortable exchanging favors and playing by the "old boys club" rules -- seemingly with their playbook.

Palin has not been shy about accepting or giving political plums. In 2002, shortly after an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor, she was appointed by former Gov. Frank Murkowski to chair the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and given a six-figure salary despite the fact that she had no background in such issues.

After Palin unseated Murkowski as governor, she handed out the plums herself. One plum -- a paid position as director of the $35 billion Alaska Permanent Fund, which rebates oil royalties to residents -- went to Palin's close friend Debbie Richter, who also served as treasurer of Palin's gubernatorial campaign committee. Another went to Aryne Randall, branch manager of the Wells Fargo bank that gave the Palins and Richters loans for their properties. Palin's tendencies toward cronyism and a heavy-handed management style have pockmarked her political as cent, and she has left a string of questionable firings and resignations in her wake.

Once elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996, Palin fired the police chief, demanded the resignations of all other department heads, including the city planner and finance direc tor, and attempted to fire the city's librarian -- who refused to remove books from the town library -- re lenting only when the town op posed her action.

Local critics charge that Palin replaced the "old boys club" with a "new set of old boys," hiring inexperienced staff and a town administrator to do the work of running the small town while she still ac cepted her mayoral salary.

While governor, she fired the state's public safety commissioner, allegedly because he refused to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper engaged in a custody battle with Palin's sister. An investiga tion into "troopergate" continues. Last year, Palin abruptly fired her longtime aide and legislative direc tor, John Bitney, just weeks after her friend Scott Richter told her that Bitney was having an affair with Richter's now ex-wife, Debbie.

While there is still little known about Palin, we do know that McCain has selected a running mate who, as a potential leader of the Free World, holds positions on women's issues that are out of touch with the majority of voters. That's especially true of her pro-life stance, which would deny women abortions even in cases of rape and incest.

We know that the swirling accusations of abuse of power, cronyism and a legacy of firings have infected her political life. We also know that the "old boys' network" lets women play if they play by the rules, and Palin seems to have mastered them.

Carla Katz is a labor leader who also writes and lectures on politics, power and issues affecting women and working families.

Read the original HERE.

Mayor: Under Palin, rape victims charged for exams

Under Sarah Palin's leadership as mayor, Wasilla was the only community in Alaska to charge rape victims for forensic examinations, a former governor disclosed. The policy provoked the Legislature to pass a law requiring communities to pay for such exams, reports George Bryson, writing in McClatchy's Anchorage Daily News.

Posted on Thu, Sep. 11, 2008

Critics: Under Palin, Wasilla charged rape victims for exam

George Bryson | Anchorage Daily News

Two state leaders lashed out at the public record of Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday as witnesses in a new "Alaska Mythbusters" forum coordinated by supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Speaking to a teleconference audience of reporters around the nation, former Gov. Tony Knowles and current Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein -- both Democrats -- accused Palin of misleading the public in her new role as the vice presidential running mate of Arizona Sen. John McCain.

While some of their complaints have already been aired, Knowles broke new ground while answering a reporter's question on whether Wasilla forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests when Palin was mayor.

True, Knowles said.

Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill -- signed into law by Knowles -- that banned the practice statewide.

"There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla," Knowles said

A May 23, 2000, article in Wasilla's newspaper, The Frontiersman, noted that Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies regularly pay for such exams, which cost between $300 and $1,200 apiece.

"(But) the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests," the newspaper reported.

It also quoted Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon objecting to the law. Fannon was appointed to his position by Palin after her dismissal of the previous police chief. He said it would cost Wasilla $5,000 to $14,000 a year if the city had to foot the bill for rape exams.

"In the past we've charged the cost of exams to the victims' insurance company when possible," Fannon told the newspaper. "I just don't want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer."

An effort to reach Fannon by phone Wednesday was not successful.

Knowles and Weinstein also went after the Republican ticket on several statements now airing in campaign ads around the nation, including Palin's claim that she opposed federal money for the "bridge to nowhere."

The governor has refused to acknowledge her explicit support for the $230 million Gravina Island Access Project in her effort to sound more like an anti-earmark reformer to a national audience, Weinstein said.

And she still supports spending $400 million to $600 million on "the other Bridge to Nowhere," the Knik Arm Crossing, which would provide residents in Palin's hometown of Wasilla faster access to Anchorage, Knowles added.

"That project is moving right ahead," said Knowles, who served as governor of Alaska from 1994 to 2002. "The money for that project was not diverted anywhere else. ... So (for her) to say she said, 'Thanks, but no thanks....' I would say she said, 'Thanks!'"

A phone call to Meg Stapleton, a spokeswoman for the Alaska office of the McCain-Palin campaign, was not returned Wednesday.

However, the Republican side lost little time in organizing a national truth squad of its own to battle what it considers "smears" of Palin by Democrats. A list of the names of more than 50 members of a Palin truth team, posted Monday on the Atlantic Monthly magazine Web site, included three Alaskans: Stapleton (a former Palin aide); Kristan Cole, a longtime friend; and Republican Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell.

As a former governor, Knowles said, he's reluctant to criticize an active governor. But he decided to make an exception with Palin.

"In this situation it's not just a sitting governor," he said. "Our current governor is a candidate for the vice presidency and a heartbeat away from the presidency."

Read the original HERE.

Troopergate: Adviser warned her situation was 'grave'

Seems that a Palin adviser was so concerned about 'Troopergate' he bothered to advise her -- before McCain tapped her as his VP candidate -- that the matter could snowball into a bigger scandal. Jim Carlton writes in the Wall Street Journal --

Ethics Adviser Warned Palin
About Trooper Issue
Letter Described Situation as 'Grave,'
Called for Apology

By JIM CARLTON

September 11, 2008; Page A8

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- An informal adviser who has counseled Gov. Sarah Palin on ethics issues urged her in July to apologize for her handling of the dismissal of the state's public safety commissioner and warned that the matter could snowball into a bigger scandal.

He also said, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal (see here), that she should fire any aides who had raised concerns with the chief over a state trooper who was involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister.

In the letter, written before Sen. John McCain picked the Alaska governor as his running mate, former U.S. Attorney Wevley Shea warned Gov. Palin that "the situation is now grave" and recommended that she and her husband, Todd Palin, apologize for "overreaching or perceived overreaching" for using her position to try to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired from the force.

Mr. Shea was acting on his own in writing the letter, with no official capacity. In late 2006, Gov. Palin asked him to co-write an ethics report for Gov. Palin with then-House Democratic leader Ethan Berkowitz that recommended new financial-disclosure rules for elected and appointed officials in the statehouse. That report served as a key document for the ethics bill she later signed into law.

After his initial letter in July, Mr. Shea followed up with another letter, dated Aug. 4, in which he told Gov. Palin that she probably couldn't legally shun a legislative investigation into the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

Gov. Palin has taken the opposite tack, hiring a private attorney to advise in a matter that has become known as "Troopergate." Seven Palin administration employees have refused to meet with the independent investigator. The McCain-Palin campaign has argued that the state legislature has no right to look into the matter. Palin spokesmen say the state personnel board is the appropriate investigative body, setting up a showdown between the state's legislative and executive branches.

The McCain-Palin campaign referred comment on the letters to the governor's office, which confirmed receipt of them. "While we can't always act on every idea, Gov. Palin thanks Mr. Shea for his counsel," Sharon Leighow, the governor's deputy press secretary, said in a statement.

Members of the House and Judiciary committees overseeing the probe -- which lawmakers want wrapped up by early October -- meet Friday to consider issuing subpoenas to the governor's staff.

Mr. Shea, in his Aug. 4 letter, warned Gov. Palin against taking her current approach. "My feeling is this is not a personnel matter. It doesn't have anything to do with the governing of the state of Alaska," he said in an interview this week.

The governor has denied any wrongdoing in the matter and said the commissioner was removed over an unrelated budget dispute. After bipartisan committees of the state legislature in late July approved $100,000 to hire an independent investigator to see if any laws were broken, Gov. Palin pledged the full cooperation of herself and her staff.

Write to Jim Carlton at jim.carlton@wsj.com.

Read the original story HERE.

Wall Street Journal: Record contradicts Palin on bridge

No less than the Wall Street Journal lights into Palin over the matter of her support of the infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere' -- before she stopped supporting it.

Record Contradicts Palin's 'Bridge' Claims

By ELIZABETH HOLMES and LAURA MECKLER

September 9, 2008

The Bridge to Nowhere argument isn't going much of anywhere.

Despite significant evidence to the contrary, the McCain campaign continues to assert that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told the federal government "thanks but no thanks" to the now-famous bridge to an island in her home state.

The McCain campaign released a television advertisement Monday morning titled "Original Mavericks." The narrator of the 30-second spot boasts about the pair: "He fights pork-barrel spending. She stopped the Bridge to Nowhere."

Gov. Palin, who John McCain named as his running mate less than two weeks ago, quickly adopted a stump line bragging about her opposition to the pork-barrel project Sen. McCain routinely decries.
[Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee's Summit, Mo.]
Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate John McCain (right) and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, at a campaign rally in Lee's Summit, Mo.

But Gov. Palin's claim comes with a serious caveat. She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.

"We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge," Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, "and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative." The bridge would have linked Ketchikan to the airport on Gravina Island. Travelers from Ketchikan (pop. 7,500) now rely on ferries.

A year ago, the governor issued a press release that the money for the project was being "redirected."

"Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer," she said. "Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public's attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened."

On Monday in Missouri, Gov. Palin put it this way: "I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere. If the state wanted to build a bridge we would built it ourselves."

Senior adviser Mark Salter pointed to her role in killing the project while in office and allocating the money elsewhere. When pressed further that it was actually Congress that stopped the earmark, Mr. Salter said: "She stopped it, too. She did her part." Mr. Salter added that he welcomed a fight over earmarks with the Obama campaign.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama used a town-hall style event in Flint, Mich., to attack Gov. Palin over the "Bridge to Nowhere" debate. He accused the vice presidential nominee of lobbying for the bridge and then hiding her initial position when she ran for governor and the project became unpopular.

"You can't just make stuff up. You can't just recreate yourself. The American people aren't stupid," he said. It's like "being for it before you were against it," Sen. Obama said, a reference to a damaging statement John Kerry made in 2004.

Why is this one issue such a big deal? Sen. McCain's anti-earmarks stance has been paramount to his campaign. The Arizona senator has blamed everything from the Minneapolis bridge collapse to Hurricane Katrina on Congress's willingness to stuff bills full of pork barrel spending.

As such, Gov. Palin's image as a "reformer" is part of the storyline the McCain campaign needs to complement the top of its ticket. Her quip about passing on the bridge and "building it ourselves" has been a staple of her stump.

But she's drawn considerable fire as result. Sen. Obama's campaign released an advertisement pointing out her original support of the bridge. And on Monday, an Obama staffer emailed a photo of Gov. Palin holding up a T-shirt that was made shortly after the bridge caught national attention. It reads "NOWHERE ALASKA" and "99901," the zip code of Ketchikan.

The McCain campaign jumped back with spokesman Brian Rogers calling the attacks "hysterical."

"The only people 'lying' about spending are the Obama campaign. The only explanation for their hysterical attacks is that they're afraid that when John McCain and Sarah Palin are in the White House, Barack Obama's nearly $1 billion in earmark spending will stop dead in its tracks," Mr. Rogers said.

At a rally today, Sen. McCain again asserted that Sen. Obama has requested nearly a billion in earmarks. In fact, the Illinois senator requested $311 million last year, according to the Associated Press, and none this year. In comparison, Gov. Palin has requested $750 million in her two years as governor -- which the AP says is the largest per-capita request in the nation.

--Amy Chozick contributed to this story.

Write to Elizabeth Holmes at elizabeth.holmes@wsj.com
and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com

Read the original story HERE.

List of books Palin supposedly banned is an urban legend

Over at OpEd News, Rob Kall, posts on the latest urban legend: the list of books Sarah Palin supposedly wanted Wasilla's librarian to ban. Problem is there is no such real list.

I hope you haven't embarrassed yourself by forwarding this or similar emails!

Here is a portion of Kall's post --

I must have received ten of these emails telling me that this was THE list of books Sarah banned or attempted to ban from the Wasilla library when she was mayor. Save yourself from having to apologize to the list of people you would have forwarded this to. It's a bogus list, probably one assembled by adlebooks, here. They say it's an incomplete list of books that others have attempted to ban over the years.

Here's one of the many emails I received that is providing bad information:

Palin's Banned Books

*The following is a partial list of books that Sarah Palin tried to get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. For the complete list, please click on this article. *

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women's Health Collective
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff

This list probably came from a list assembled by Adler Books, a bookseller, here where they state, "Books Banned at One Time or Another in the United States,"making a qualifying remark that it's an incomplete list.

You can read the complete story HERE.