Palin's secession flirtation

[babsbunny]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks4-2008sep04,0,3731150.column

For years she has courted the Alaska Independence Party, which wants to split the state from the U.S.
Rosa Brooks
September 4, 2008


That John McCain -- he's such a maverick!

Just when you thought you had him figured out, McCain threw another curveball -- picking rookie Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whom he barely knows, as his running mate.

As ex-Democrat Joe Lieberman told the Republican convention Tuesday night, everyone recognizes McCain's "record of independence. ... God only made one John McCain, and he's his own man."

Uh-huh. Some might call it reckless for a 72-year-old to offer the vice presidency of the United States to someone with as little national experience as Palin. The McCain campaign calls it showing independence.

Still, don't be too hard on Palin. Like McCain, she's independence-minded -- very, very independence-minded. And, it turns out, there's much more to her than you might at first have thought.

Granted, a week ago Palin -- ex-mayor of Wasilla and a runner-up for Miss Alaska -- probably couldn't have explained the difference between a G-string and the G-8, or between a demolition derby and a diplomatic demarche. But who among us can? Policy, my friends, is boring.

[whistle]

1. Now that deserves deference from all America

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

2. Very very happy to recommend this post

There's some new information here. I knew Palin addressed the AIP convention in 2008, where she told them "keep up the good work". I didn't know she also addressed them in 2006. I'd like to see a video of her address to them, if it was recorded.

...

Over the years, Palin has actively courted the Alaska Independence Party, or AIP, an organization that supports Alaskan secession from the U.S. To be clear, we're not necessarily talking about friendly secession either: As the AIP's founder, Joe Vogler, told an interviewer in 1991: "The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. ... And I won't be buried under their damn flag."

...

Share Vogler's sentiment? You can purchase a "Joe was right!" T-shirt on the AIP's website for $25. The AIP's website also provides helpful links to other secessionist groups, including the Southern Independence Party of Tennessee (which boasts of going after "these Politically Correct Liberal Communist"), Ulster nationalists and Chechen separatists.

The McCain campaign denies that Palin ever joined the AIP. But while it is in dispute whether she attended its 1994 convention, she did visit the 2000 one and addressed AIP conventions in 2006 and 2008. Her husband, Todd, was a registered AIP member from 1995 to 2002, and the AIP leadership certainly considers her one of their own.

Video footage shows AIP Vice Chairman Dexter Clark describing Palin at the 2007 North American Sessionist Convention as an "AIP member fore she got the job as a mayor of a small town -- that was a nonpartisan job. But you get along to go along. She eventually joined the Republican Party, where she had all kinds of problems with their ethics, as well. I won't go into that". (No need to. The Alaska Legislature's ethics investigators are on the case.) Apparently with Palin in mind, Clark then went on to urge AIP members to "infiltrate" the major parties.


ON EDIT: something weird is going on. The last couple of paragraphs are crossed out and they weren't in the article. I didn't do anything to alter them and I even tried to retype them in. Does anyone know why it would be doing this?