With friends like these
We thought that the SNL parody of the Palin interview on CBS was over the top, but then we watched the real interview. Palin’s performance was pretty bad. However, she still benefits from the media’s attempts to discredit her, such as this report from the AP:
When Palin needed to sell her house during her last year as Wasilla mayor, she got the city to sign off on a special zoning exception — and did so without keeping a promise to remove a potential fire hazard. She gladly accepted gifts from merchants: A free “awesome facial” she raved about in a thank-you note to a spa. The “absolutely gorgeous flowers” she received from a welding supply store. Even fresh salmon to take home…
She asked the City Council to add a friend to the list of speakers at a 2002 meeting — and then the friend got up and asked them to give his radio station advertising business…she tried to help a neighbor and political contributor fighting City Hall over his small lakeside development. Palin wanted the city to refund some of the man’s fees, but the city attorney told the mayor she didn’t have the authority…
Some of her first actions after being elected mayor in 1996 raised possible ethical red flags: She cast the tie-breaking vote to propose a tax exemption on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one, and backed the city’s repeal of all taxes a year later on planes, snow machines and other personal property. She also asked the council to consider looser rules for snow machine races. Palin and her husband, Todd, a champion racer, co-owned a snow machine store at the time.
It isn’t just Palin who benefits from the attention of her adversaries. The NYT has a silly piece today on McCain and Indian casinos, and Frank Rich said that the Arizona Senator “may be the first presidential candidate in our history to risk wrecking the country even before being voted into the Oval Office.” Well, that settles that.