McCain and Palin - reformers??

You know, John McCain and Sarah Palin have positioned themselves as "reformers" and "change agents." They said she has military experience because of the National Guard. He says he's against earmarks and special interests and for helping save the environment. That all sounds pretty good, but let's take a look at the facts, why don't we?

1. Sarah Palin claims she said "no, thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere, the $223 million earmark put in the federal budget for a bridge in Alaska to an island with few inhabitants. That's right, almost a quarter of a billion dollars of taxpayer money - yours, mine, and everybody else's in America. Now, what Gov. Palin said would lead one to believe that the $223 million went back in the federal coffers. But this is not so... the label was simply taken off the earmark, and Alaska received $223 million federal taxpayer dollars to spend on whatever she darn well pleases. So her statement revved up the red meat eaters at the convention, but if this is not quite a lie, it is tantamount to one.
2. She pushed through and signed ethics legislation -- true. It's also true that this legislation was in the works for some time before she became governor, and was actually begun by... Democrats.
3. Does she command the National Guard in Alaska? Kind of -- she can call them out, but only in the case of a natural disaster or a security issue. But the Guard is actually under the direct command of a Major General. And if they are deployed overseas she may not get so much as an e-mail about what they're doing, much less command any troops.
4. She is an environmental nightmare. She has voted against limiting mining where runoff from the operation would endanger salmon. She doesn't want polar bears listed as an endangered species, because she doesn't want them getting in the way of drilling as much as possible in her state. She wants to open a wildlife refuge, ANWR to drilling (what about the word "refuge" do these people not understand)?? I could write a book about how stupid that would be, and how illogical, but I may save that for another time. And by the way, she also thinks human activity does not contribute to climate change.
5. She has requested more earmark money per capita than any other state in the country (and, as we now know, she received $27 million in federal money for her town of 6,700 when she was mayor). Did McCain know about this when he asked her to be his running mate? Hmmmm....
6. But she has made some small sacrifices -- when she became governor she did lay off her personal chef. He must not have known how to make mooseburgers! But her assertion that she sold the governor's private jet on eBay is only partially correct. It was listed on eBay but it did not sell there. Eventually it was sold to a political contributor of hers, but despite the fact that McCain likes to say she made a profit on it, it was sold at a loss of around $600,000. Remember, this was state property, not her personal property, so she cost the state $600,000 just so she could say she sold it.
7. Gov. Palin is currently under an ethics investigation to see whether she abused her office in trying to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired when he and her sister went through a nasty divorce. The campaign has been trying to get the results of that investigation stalled until after the election.
8. John McCain was one of five senators accused of corruption in the Keating Five scandal, during the savings and loan crisis in 1989. They were accused of interceding to get regulators to look the other way in exchange for political contributions. The Senate Ethics Committee, after an investigation, decided that three of the five committed improper acts. The other two, including McCain, got a slap on the wrist. Because the regulators did not seize the savings and loan in question in time to prevent a failure, federal taxpayers had to bail the company out to the tune of $2.6 billion.
9. The head of that savings and loan was a friend of McCain's. He gave McCain and his family numerous trips that McCain did not admit to until after the scandal broke.
10. McCain's first marriage ended when he returned from Vietnam. While he had been gone, his wife had a horrific car accident, rendering her partially disabled and causing her to gain weight. He was dating Cindy before his divorce, and he and Cindy were married five weeks after his divorce was final. So much for "in sickness and in health," huh??

The truth kind of gives you a different perspective, doesn't it?