Palin Is "Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean"
by Charley James
This article originally appeared
in The Progressive
Curmudgeon.
"The governor uttered the
slur and then laughed loudly."
"So Sambo beat the bitch!"
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin
described Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a
restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential
nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the
time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch
with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came
up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would
likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates
joined in appreciatively.
"It was kind of disgusting," Lucille, who is part
Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of
being discovered telling folks in the "lower 48" about life near the North
Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, "But that's just
Alaska."
Racial and ethnic slurs may be "just Alaska" and, clearly,
they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.
"People who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska's
Aboriginal people as ‘Arctic Arabs.'"
Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N'-Fetch-It, "darkie
musical" swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska's
Aboriginal people as "Arctic Arabs" - how efficient, lumping two apparently
undesirable groups into one ugly description - as well as the more colourful
"mukluks" along with the totally unimaginative "f**king Eskimo's," according to
a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.
But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin
iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also
vindictive and mean. We're talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive. No wonder
the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild
for Sarah: They adore the type, it's in their genetic code. So much for
McCain's pledge of a "high road" campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of
one.
Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It's not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak
critically about Palin - especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For
one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska
have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that
"all circuits are busy" or numbers just wouldn't ring. I should think a state
that's been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell
towers for everyone.
On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and
particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because
they're afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine.
Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.
"The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here," an
insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. "It's
corrupt and arrogant. They're all rich because they do private sweetheart deals
with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they
have to."
"Once Palin became mayor," he continued, "She became part of
that inner circle."
Like most other people interviewed, he didn't want his name
used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it's the long winter nights where you
don't see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they're under
constant danger from "the authorities." As I interviewed residents it began
sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is
like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that's happening, say nothing
offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you
get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how-long.
Alright, that's an exaggeration brought on by my getting
too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But
there's ample evidence of Palin's vindictive willingness to destroy people she
sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before
firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or
the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor
Palin demanded.
"There's ample evidence of Palin's vindictive willingness
to destroy people she sees as opponents."
Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator
by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into
trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall
campaign.
"People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on
her enemies list to this day," states Anne Kilkenny,
a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record,
for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail
letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.
For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from
office because, she told a local newspaper, he "intimidated" her.
Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views
Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks
when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion
platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal
elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe
evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her
campaign.
Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that
chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be
anything but.
"She's doesn't like different opinions and she refuses to
compromise," Kilkenny notes. "When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren't
hers. Worse, ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who
proposed them."
Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney's reincarnate.
Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax
policies, and a "refund surpluses but borrow for the future" attitude.
According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as
Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and
increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The
tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate
property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny
insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to
make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian's with whom I spoke said
property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin
regime.
"Palin may well be Dick Cheney's reincarnate."
To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich
town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with
$22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor - especially
since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city's infrastructure
or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend
the taxpayer's money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?
For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over,
as a matter of fact.
Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that
no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled
out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports
complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear
title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation
and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated
price of the facility.
She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5
million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing.
Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good
Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond
dealers.
For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big
box stores and disconnected parking lots.
Sarah Barracuda
En route to the governor's igloo, Palin managed to land what
Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of
Alaska's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year
patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings.
She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it
turned out, not liking the work.
"She hated the job," an OGCC staff member who is not
authorized to speak with the news media told me. "She hated the hours and she
hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn't figure out a way to
get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski" and the state Republican
Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn't get appointed.
But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way.
First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position
was overpaid and should be abolished - despite the fact that she lobbied
Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin
raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an
undeserved reputation as a "reformer."
But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer
Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.
"She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids," said
the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. "I heard
she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it's nothing like you can
imagine until she turns it on you."
Not surprising since some of her high school classmates
still openly call her "Sarah Barracuda," Kilkenny insists.
Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get
herself elected running under the false flag of a "reformer."
And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience
other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than
some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial
experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla.
No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A
philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.
And what has she done since winning the job?
According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than
suggesting the state's multi-multi-million dollar, oil-generated surplus be
distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money.
Gee, doesn't that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he
inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush's
economic policies left the nation.
It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me,
what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain's running mate, her
mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, "What has Sarah done to qualify her to
be vice president?" Of course, when the woman - said by many I spoke with to be
well-respected in Wasilla - was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah
refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.
"She only opposed the ‘bridge to nowhere' after it became
clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it."
As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and
budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then
she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects,
calling them pork. "They were restored because of public outcry and legislative
action," the aide said. "She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what
they were or why they were important."
But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly
unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as
being "anti-pork".
In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand
stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens.
She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be
politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then,
Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel
politics.
As for being "ready on day one" to be commander in chief,
despite the repeated public claims she's made, the Alaska National Guard
commander said that, "she has made no command decisions, other than sending
some troops to help fight a few brush fires and march in parades at county
fairs."
"Sambo Beat the Bitch"
"Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole," someone who
thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin's
tenure in Alaska state and local politics.
"She's a bigot, a racist, and a liar," is the more blunt
assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is
now a businessman in Idaho.
"Juneau is a small
town; everybody knows everyone else," he adds. "These stories about what she
calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually,
were around long before she became a glint in John McCain's rheumy eyes. Why do
I know they're true? Because everyone who isn't aboriginal or Indian in Alaska
talks that way."
"Sambo beat the bitch" may be everyday language up in the
bush. Whether it - and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when
she says such things in public - should be part of a presidential campaign is
another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does
about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements
(as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.
Charley James is an American journalist, author
and essayist who lives in Toronto. He
can be contacted through his blog, The Progressive Curmudgeon.
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