Sarah Palin and Mark Halperin's complaints of "liberal media" (Glenn Greenwald)

[struggle4progress]

WEDNESDAY SEPT. 3, 2008 14:25 EDT

... That was 1996. It was that same year -- in October -- when Palin was elected Mayor of Wasilla. According to The Anchorage Daily News article reporting her victory, "the final tally was 617-413." There are High School Student Council elections with more votes than that. She ran her campaign, and won, based on the precise GOP wedge strategies that John McCain, to this day, pretends to decry. As a Wasilla councilman put it at the time:
Palin offers no management qualifications, basing her campaign on the buzzword planks and the political might of the far-right Republicans. She obtained endorsement by the NRA. Why is the Republican Party so interested in local elections? Why is the NRA involved in such a contest? The three council seats up this year also saw challengers running on the basis of the Republican Party platform, using the same tactics.

I would never suggest that an individual or organization refrain from participating in any election, but I had hoped this valley and Wasilla could avoid the nationwide tendency that sees such elections become more and more partisan. Bad enough that state decisions are made more often on the basis of party politics and in party caucuses. We don't need that at the local level ...

... Thereafter, Palin fired the City Attorney, who was replaced by Ken Jacobus, the counsel for the Alaskan state Republican Party. Between this behavior almost immediately upon becoming Mayor and her subsequent firing of the State Police Commissioner while Governor, Palin has a rather clear pattern of trying to use her power to advance personal grievances and fill government positions with political hacks, cronies, and those who are loyal to her politically -- exactly what has infected so much of the Federal Government over the last eight years ...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/03/halperin/