Another Misrepresentation
Find a Conversation
| Sat, 09-13-2008 - 1:54pm |
What about Palin's resume IS true? She was for the bridge to nowhere before she was against it. She didn't really sell the airplane via Ebay for a profit. Now....she did NOT enter Iraq. Did they just create a narrative and hope nobody would check into it?
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/09/13/palin_camp_clarifies_extent_of_iraq_trip/
Palin camp clarifies extent of Iraq trip
Says she never ventured beyond Kuwait border
Private Christopher T. Grammer/Department of Defense via Associated Press/fileLieutenant Colonel David Cogdell helped Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska test out training equipment at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, on July 24, 2007. (Private Christopher T. Grammer/Department of Defense via Associated Press/file)WASHINGTON - Sarah Palin's visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted of a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate's campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America.
Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone.
But in response to queries about the details of her trip, campaign aides and National Guard officials in Alaska said by telephone yesterday that she did not venture beyond the Kuwait-Iraq border when she visited Khabari Alawazem Crossing, also known as "K-Crossing," on July 25, 2007.
Asked to clarify where she traveled in Iraq, Palin's spokeswoman, Maria Comella, confirmed that "She visited a military outpost on the other side of the Kuwait-Iraq border."
It was the second such clarification in as many weeks of the itinerary of what Palin has called "the trip of a lifetime." Earlier, the campaign acknowledged that Palin made only a refueling stop in Ireland.
In her interview with ABC News Thursday night, Palin did not mention Iraq in describing the visit, saying only that she went to Kuwait and Germany to meet with US forces.
According to an itinerary obtained from the Alaska National Guard, the Republican governor visited troops and airmen at a series of bases in Kuwait, including Camp Buehring, Camp Virginia, and Ali Al Salem Air Base.
Her visit to Iraq itself was during a short stop at Khabari Alawazem Crossing on the second day of her two-day trip to the region.
Palin arrived at Camp Buehring in Kuwait, where she held a town meeting with soldiers and reviewed various training programs designed to prepare troops to deploy into Iraq, said Lieutenant Colonel Dave Osborn, commander of the 3d Battalion, 207th Infantry of the Alaska National Guard, who was in charge of the 570 local troops serving in Kuwait and Iraq.
"The whole intent was to check on the Alaskans," Osborn said in a telephone interview yesterday.
On the second day of the trip, he said, Palin was flown to the border crossing, about 100 miles north of Camp Buehring, where she spent the morning meeting with troops and presiding over a ceremony in which an Alaska National Guard soldier extended his enlistment.
But she did not venture into Iraq, Osborn said. "You have to have permission to go into a lot of areas, and is where her permissions were," he said.
Palin did not stay the night in Iraq, and spent the rest of the second day at Camp Virginia and Ali Al Salem Air Base, Osborn said.
Palin also told ABC that she had traveled to Mexico and Canada. Her campaign had previously mentioned a Canada visit, but not a trip to Mexico. Comella said yesterday that Palin had visited Mexico on vacation, and Canada once last year.
"We did not have 100 percent confirmation about the Mexico trip in the initial days we were being asked. It was a personal trip," Comella said.
Palin's campaign did not respond to requests for details about when she traveled to Mexico and where she went, nor did it provide details of her 2007 Canada trip or indicate whether it was for business or pleasure.>>>

Pages
Naw. The plane was sold at a loss, through a private broker.
Palin claimed "I put it on ebay," in her GoOPer convention speech - implying strongly that it had therefore SOLD on ebay - particularly when Rudy Guiliani's prepared remarks included a flat statement that the jet had sold on ebay, John McCain, two days later, flat-out claimed that she'd sold the jet on ebay, and a campaign spokesperson REPEATEDLY claimed that the jet had, in fact, sold on ebay. Here's McCain saying Palin "sold the jet on eBay - and made a profit."
We don't have any actual video of campaign spokespeople telling reporters that yes, the plane sold on ebay, so you might wish to have a look at this, instead:
(AP Photo/David J. Sheakley)
by Andrew Zajac
What is it about Sarah Palin and e-Bay?
As a gubernatorial candidate, Palin vowed to sell a business jet acquired by then-Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski on e-Bay.
It was a popular move because the jet had come to symbolize Murkowski's arrogance and free-spending ways-- he tried for years to get one, even asking the federal Department of Homeland Security to underwrite a purchase.
When he did buy the jet, for $2.6 million, he used an existing state line of credit to avoid needing the approval of the state legislature, which he likely could not get.
Palin offered the plane for sale on e-Bay three times but bidders didn't meet the reserve price. She eventually turned to a broker, who sold the plane to businessman Larry Reynolds, of Valdez, for $2.1 million, in August 2007.
It's not clear how a good or bad a deal that is, or how much of a waste the plane was, or how wise it was to try to sell it in an on-line auction.
Palin supporters say the state took a loss on the plane, a 23-year-old, 10-seat Westwind II, because Murkowski paid too much to start with.
The plane costs $50,000 per month to maintain even when idle, according to Reynolds, which means the state may have been on the hook for $450,00 during the nine months it was trying to unload the craft.
The jet might have sold faster if the state simulaneously listed the it on e-Bay and with a broker, since they work different channels, said Reynolds, in an interview Friday.
While Reynolds doesn't think e-Bay's a necessarily a bad place to sell a business jet, he said the Alaska Westwind drew only bottom feeders looking to buy the plane at a lowball price so they could flip it for a hefty profit.
A broker might get a better price because he's working for a commission and knows the market value of what he's attempting to sell.
Whatever the best method of sale, it's clear that telling the story of the transaction as an e-Bay deal is important to the McCain campaign.
The Tribune reported yesterday that Palin implied a sale of the plane on the auction site, telling the Republican national convention that she zeroed in on the plane when she took office and "I put it on e-Bay."
There followed a fair number of sometimes nasty e-mails asserting, in the main, that the Tribune was putting words in Palin's mouth, that putting the good ole boy former governor's jet on e-Bay could, in the context of the speech, imply something besides a sale of the plane.
Except that, as was reported in the story, Palin's spokeswoman, Maria Comella, insisted that Palin had indeed sold the plane on e-Bay.
The remarks of Rudy Giuliani as prepared for delivery to the convention also included a flat declaration of an e-Bay sale and at least one other McCain/Palin surrogate, Rep. Michelle Bachman, repeated the sold-on-e-Bay line.
A video tribute to Palin at the convention Thursday included the statement that she "auctioned the governor's jet on e-Bay."
On Thursday night, the Tribune asked Comella a second time to please re-check how the plane was sold, including in an email to her a copy of the Aug. 2007 press release from Gov. Palin's office stating that the jet had NOT been sold on e-Bay.
Comella's email response: "It did end up selling on e-Bay after a few reissues."
Come Friday, McCain himself joined the e-Bay party and added his own untruth, telling a campaign audience in Wisconsin that "she took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on e-Bay -- and made a profit."
Huh?
If the point is to underscore Palin's frugality and willingness to reform an overly cozy, wasteful system, why not just say it:
She got rid of Frank Murkowski's toy.
Why create blog grist by repeatedly peddling the false e-Bay sale scenario?
Some of this may be explained by disorganization. Comella and other McCain campaign people don't know much about Palin, because she was a surprise and by all accounts a last-minute veep selection. Though the McCain forces likely would dispute this, the way Palin was picked means she was not as well vetted as some other candidates and that means there wasn't time to carefully assemble the mosaics of her personal and political stories.
(Late Friday afternoon, after a third query, Comella acknowledged that the jet had not sold on e-Bay.)
But the better explanation may be in the irresistible symbolism of e-Bay and the need for McCain to quickly establish the story line of a maverick reformer for Palin quickly.
In political shorthand, e-Bay is a populist trope for pure, transparent commerce and an end run around the snobs and elites who used to control markets.
Using it for something as audacious as a jet sale marks Palin as someone willing to make the bloated, wasteful governor's office vacated by Frank Murkowski bend to the people's common sense.
You sell your power tool or old baby clothes on e-Bay, so why shouldn't Palin sell Murkowski's despised jet the same way?
What better way to tell the working class voters the McCain/Palin ticket is looking for that "she's one of us"?
Telling people she got rid of a fat cat governor's corporate jet doesn't have the same zing as telling them she sold it on e-Bay.
Even if it never happened.
Bottom line? The McCain campaign most definitely claimed - repeatedly - that Palin had sold the plane on ebay, so they could score the "populist, liquid e-commerce" cred that comes from saying such a thing, even if Palin herself merely strongly implied it.
Now THAT'S Maverick-y, Baby! (not).
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
Here you go:
Now, before you get all revved up to say "that's Palin's aides, not Palin herself" - I know that. But that brings us to a second point: Palin's aides are repeatedly running around saying things which are not at all true about Palin's experiences and deeds. Palin says she "put the plane on ebay," her aides (and McCain himself) repeatedly tell reporters she SOLD it there. Palin says she visited "Kuwait and Germany," her aides repeatedly tell reporters that she visited Iraq, too, in a combat zone.
There are only two (realistic) possibilities here:
Either way, that's not a particularly flattering set of choices: that Palin (and likely McCain) have chosen to lie, deliberately, through surrogates, while allowing the candidates themselves to remain technically truthful, while strongly implying the lie which is then later confirmed by aides....or that Palin's so not-in-control of her own campaign that the people she pays to speak for her regularly say things on record to the press which are false. Not a pretty picture, either way.
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
It's like the McCain campaign's (and some overzealous wingnut pundit's) ludicrous claim to foreign-policy experience because Alaska is "close to Russia."
Someone posted in a comment on a blog a quick and complete smackdown of that nonsense: "And when I look out my kitchen window, I can see the moon. Doesn't make me a friggin' astronaut...."
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
Is anyone besides me noticing a theme here, with the factcheck stuff? The stuff they are debunking which are unflattering falsehoods told about Palin is coming from "anonymous emails" and "sources on the Internet," yet the stuff they're debunking which is FLATTERING falsehoods about Palin come from either Sarah Palin herself, John McCain, or one of the campaign spokespeople.
Not very reassuring; that the people who actually ARE Sarah Palin (and those closest to her, politically, this season) appear engaged in a deliberate and systematic effort to misinform the public about her actual record.
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
No. It would be an honest mistake - or it could potentially be given the benefit of the doubt as such - if it had not already happened in exactly the same manner with the "sold the jet on ebay" nonsense: Palin strongly implies that she sold it there ("I put it on ebay" - what is the point of this, if not to imply that you SOLD it there?), then the aides come through in the immediate aftermath of such a statement, and magically, mysteriously, just HAPPEN to "goof" and confirm what Palin has strongly implied....but it was just an "honest mistake." Over and over again.
Piffle.
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
Sopal
<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />
I just posted a link to a video of John McCain (himself) saying that she sold the plane on Ebay and that it was sold at a profit.
Sopal
<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" />
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling Begging
~It's like the McCain campaign's (and some overzealous wingnut pundit's) ludicrous claim to foreign-policy experience because Alaska is "close to Russia."~
Seriously?
Pages