Gov. Palin's Speech: Fact or Fiction?

KTVA Alaska reports that "Not all Alaskans believe Palin's speech is accurate". This from the very people who would know the difference.

Please use this information to tell the country the truth.

It was the speech that electrified the nation and shook up the Republican campaign for the presidency. But when Gov. Sarah Palin talked about what she's done for the state of Alaska, not all are calling it accurate.

"Is it truthful? Well, no, I mean, she certainly embellished some of the details," said UAA political science Prof. Carl Shepro.

What? The attack speech by the Presidential Nominee - sorry, the Vice nominee - was inaccurate? How so?

Among the more noticeable to Alaskans--her statements on the gasline.

"I know some people interpreted what she said to say that we're going to have a gasline very soon," Gara said. "I don't know if she meant to say that, but a gasline is coming, we hope in 2018 or 2020. And we have a lot of major hurdles, a lot of work ahead of us."

What? 10+ years before Alaska can be shipping natural gas to the lower 48? WHAT?!?! The gas won't be going to the lower 48, but to heat up Albertan tar sands in Canada to produce the most high-environmental-impact petroleum on the planet?

Willy Hickel at the Anchorage Daily News explains:

And they need to be honest that the motivation for a Canadian line is not to get Alaska gas to America after all. The oil producers want to use our gas to heat up the Alberta tar sands to produce crude oil, an environmental disaster in the making.

C'mon, KTVA, show us some of that Great Alaskan Truth in Palin's speech!

But Shepro said, even more egregious than the gasline comment "is that she's taken credit for cleaning up corruption in Alaskan government."

Irksome to local lawmakers is that she takes credit for what was a team effort.

"Well, I've spent my last six years in this Legislature trying to clean it up. And she has, at times, worked with us on that, and I appreciate that," Gara said. "For me to take credit, or for her to take credit for something we've all done together, I think is a bit of a stretch."

Shepro was more blunt in his criticism: "Everything that has taken place was done by the feds."

You're killing me, KTVA! Where's the Maverick Reformer? You mean the investigation into corruption in Alaskan politics was going on long before Palin became Governor and she just happened to be sitting in the chair when it happened?

Thank the Troll God that at least we can count on that statement about getting rid of the "Bridge to Nowhere"!

But what was, perhaps, most offensive to some Alaskans is when she said, "I told the Congress, 'Thanks, but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

Gara said he was taken aback, "to hear her for the first time call it a 'Bridge to Nowhere' when Alaskans have sort of bristled at that term."

Moreover, Palin declined to elaborate, Shepro said.

"The bridge wasn't built, but that's because the feds took the bridge out, Congress took the bridge, but left the money. And the money was used for other things," he said.

The $233 million was used for state transportation. Also, Congress killed off the earmark before Palin even had the chance to say, "No thanks."

But what puzzles most Alaskans is that she made the statement two years after she publicly supported that very bridge during her run for governor in 2006.

You mean to say she was For the "Bridge to Nowhere?" That she had no say in canceling the bridge, that she took the money anyway, that she pandered to the local population to get elected as Governor and is now pandering to the Lower 48 to get elected for Vice - I mean, "for Vice President"?

What about earmarks? She slashed the Alaskan budget, didn't she? Turned down the federal pork that makes Alaska the #1 consumer of Pork Barrel Funding in the country, now that it is wallowing in petro-dollars?

Analysts pointed out another discrepancy when Palin said she "suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress."

But under Gov. Palin, the state applied for nearly $200 million of earmarks for the fiscal year of 2009. And when Palin was mayor, she helped secure more than $11 million worth of earmarks for Wasilla.

Well then, if every point she put forth about her "exprience" was false, then what the hell was that speech?!?

"I thought it was good political theater," Shepro said.

Jeez, what's left? Are we going to find out that she isn't even really Sarah Palin?

-chris

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/8/11151/52601

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