UPDATE 10/11/08 7:43 AM EDT: Jim Hoft is lying about the Troopergate report into Sarah Palin’s misconduct:

The Alaska panel reported that Palin abused power by firing insubordinate employee.
The conclusion:

The investigator, Stephen Branchflower, found that Monegan’s refusal to fire Wooten “was not the sole reason” but was “likely a contributing factor” to his firing.

In other words—there was no violation.

Hoft is careful not to post a link to the report itself. He’s afraid that his faithful flock of sheeple might read it. Page 8 states:

For reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides

“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”

Emphasis mine.

Is Jim Hoft ever going to stop lying? Apparently not.

UPDATE 09/07/08 9:02 AM EDT: In his never-ending quest to top his past lies, Jim Hoft is off on another Adventure in Mendacity:

In the latest smear to discredit Governor Palin, the liberal media claims that the popular governor did not sell the governor’s jet on Ebay.

But what does the CBS News story that Jimmycrap links to actually say?

In a video tribute to Sarah Palin at the Republican convention, the voice-over boasted that she had “auctioned the governor’s jet on eBay.” Yesterday, John McCain stretched the story a little further.

“You know what I enjoyed the most?” McCain asked. “She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay—made a profit.”

That’s not what happened.

[I]n fact, the jet did not sell on eBay. It was sold to a businessman from Valdez named Larry Reynolds, who paid $2.1 million for the jet, shy of the original $2.7 million purchase price, according to contemporaneous news reports, including a story in the New York Times. Dan Spencer, the director of administrative services for Alaska’s Public Safety Department, said that the Republican speaker of the Alaska House, John L. Harris, brokered the deal. Reynolds made campaign contributions to both Palin and Harris in 2006 and 2007.

What happened? It appears that, as promised during her bid for governor in 2006, Palin did try to sell the plane on eBay but that doing so was not as easy as it might have sounded. After putting it up to auction, there was one serious bid, in December 2006, and it fell through.

It is clear that, in fact, the plane did not sell on eBay. The media is correct in reporting this.

It is also clear that McCain lied about the plane having sold on eBay.

Will Jim Hoft return to the real world and tell his readers that?

Of course not.

UPDATE 08/08/08 11:32 AM EDT: So guess who’s lying (still)?

Yup… Jim Hoft, aka “Gateway Pundit”!

FANTASY: Barack Obama has received more campaign contributions from oil companies than has John McCain.

So guess who’s really getting more from Big Oil?

...”Pockets” Obama!

FACT: John McCain has to date received three times more money from the oil industry than has Barack Obama.

Jim Hoft cites a report from the site Open Secrets. He deliberately omits the following facts from that report:

McCain leads the money race with nearly every other top giver in the oil and gas industry, though — Koch Industries, Valero, Marathon Oil, Occidental Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, the list goes on… McCain also has a big edge with Hess Corp. — $91,000 to Obama’s $8,000 — which has gotten some attention. And, overall, McCain’s campaign has gotten three times more money from the industry than Obama’s has—$1.3 million compared to about $394,000.

ThinkProgress notes that…

The report shows that, since McCain’s reversal in favor of offshore oil drilling, oil industry contributions to his campaign have skyrocketed — creating the perception that he is outsourcing his energy policies to the oil companies…

Jim Hoft, and far-right bloggers of his sort, may wish to consider that their propensity for distortions of fact and outright mendacity is unlikely to advance their cause.

UPDATE 07/22/08 7:13 AM EDT: In recent weeks, Jim Hoft has made repeated claims that Iraq has achieved 15 of 18 Congressional benchmarks set for it. To no one’s astonishment, it turns out that he is lying yet again.

The May 2008 report that the Administration submitted to Congress does not state that fifteen benchmarks have been met. Instead, it claims that progress on those fifteen benchmarks is “satisfactory”. Not one of the benchmarks is listed as “met”, “achieved”, or “completed”.

A recent GAO report gives a far more accurate picture of the status of Iraq. Among its many findings:

• “Iraq has spent only 24 percent of the funds it budgeted for reconstruction.”
• “The United States has not achieved its goal of defeating al Qaeda in Iraq and ensuring that no terrorist safe haven exists in Iraq.”
• “The number of Iraqi security force units deemed capable of performing operations without coalition assistance has remained at about 10 percent.”
• “The government has not yet established the commission needed to reinstate former Ba’athists in the government. In addition, the government has not enacted legislation that will provide a legal framework for managing its oil resources, distributing oil revenues, or disarming militias.”
• “The dangerous and volatile security conditions continue to hinder the movement and reconstruction efforts of international civilian personnel throughout Iraq.”
• ”[al Daeda in Iraq] remains highly lethal and maintains a significant presence in parts of the Tigris River Valley, Ninewa province, and other areas of Iraq. According to an MNF-I report, AQI is now predominately based in northern Iraq, especially in Mosul, where frequent high-profile attacks continue.”
• “The number of trained Iraqi security forces may overstate the number of troops present for duty. According to DOD, the number of trained troops includes personnel who are deceased or absent without leave.”
• “Although the de-Ba’athification law was enacted in February 2008, implementation of the law has stalled, delaying the possible reinstatement of an estimated 30,000 former government employees.”
• “Key legislation has not passed, including the provincial elections law, hydrocarbon laws, and disarmament and demobilization.”
• “Since September 2007, the constitutional review process has made little progress.”

Unwarranted claims that “Iraq has met 15 of 18 benchmarks” are misleading and deceptive. Honest debate about the Iraq war can occur only where all participants stick to the facts. Jim Hoft neither wants an honest debate, nor would he know how to be a part of an honest debate if he stumbled upon one.

Here’s a list of the posts (as of this writing) in which Jim Hoft has propagated this lie:

• Gotcha!... Democrats Ask For It & Get It Good on Iraq
• Ruh-Roh… Iraq Reaches 15 of 18 Benchmarks …Update: Dems say they would have brought “Solid Progress” by retreating!!
• It Took One Week- But Barack Obama Flips On Surge
• Joe Biden Attacks John McCain — Hilarity Ensues
• HAH!!... OBAMA SCRUBS “CIVIL WAR” FROM IRAQ WEBPAGE!!
• Oops!... Obama Forgets To Scrub His ‘Surge Is Failing’ Document
• Hah! Obama Demands That “We Must Surrender in Iraq” & “We Must Succeed In Iraq” In Same Paragraph
• Vets For Freedom Releases 2nd Ad: “Some in Washington”
• Stop the Press!... AP Admits Iraq War Basically Over
• “Day By Day” Reports on GP & Obama’s Scrubbing Techniques
• More Good News… Diwaniya Province Is Turned Over to Iraqi Forces
• McCain Uses Barack Obama to Slam Barack Obama On Iraq
• New York Times Refuses to Publish McCain Editorial!

UPDATE 07/20/08 4:03 PM EDT: Jim Hoft lies the way other men breathe.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, has reversed its stance on climate change.

Ummm, no. This claim originated with a post at the extreme right-wing blog ‘Daily Tech’. The posting touted the work of Lord Monckton of Brenchley, a well-known and well-debunked climate change denialist. His argument in the article in question has been quite expertly demolished by Tim Lambert at Deltoid. Monckton has been caught out lying about his non-existent membership in the British House of Lords.

It should also be noted that the newsletter in which Monckton’s paper appeared is not peer-reviewed, is not an official publication of the American Physical Society, and does not speak for that organization. The APS position on climate change remains unchanged, and the APS has published a statement regarding the newsletter article:

APS Position Remains Unchanged

The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007:

“Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”

An article at odds with this statement recently appeared in an online newsletter of the APS Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 units of APS. The header of this newsletter carries the statement that “Opinions expressed are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the APS or of the Forum.” This newsletter is not a journal of the APS and it is not peer reviewed.

Discussion of climate change can be productive only if all parties are honest about the facts. Jim Hoft is utterly uninterested in honest discussion of anything.

UPDATE 07/14/08 11:28 AM EDT: Yes, children… another day, another lie from Jimmycrap Hoftwad:

The fact that there were more US fatalities in Afghanistan the last two months was not because the violence is surging there but because of the success of the Bush surge in Iraq:

Ummm, no. The reason that there were more US fatalities in Afghanistan the last two months is, in fact, because the violence is surging there. Look at the very graph that Jimmycrap uses to illustrate his point: it shows 45 coalition deaths in Afghanistan in June of this year, the highest monthly total since the coalition began combat operations in that country. Deaths in Afghanistan are increasing because the Taliban is stepping up its attacks on coalition forces in that country.

Golly, why don’t we just send more troops to Afghanistan to deal with the problem? Well, we don’t have them. Why? Because they are tied up in Iraq:

The nation’s top military officer said yesterday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan to tamp down an increasingly violent insurgency, but that the Pentagon does not have sufficient forces to send because they are committed to the war in Iraq.

Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said insurgent Taliban and extremist forces in Afghanistan have become “a very complex problem,” one that is tied to the extensive drug trade, a faltering economy and the porous border with Pakistan. Violence in Afghanistan has increased markedly over recent weeks, with June the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war began in 2001.

“I don’t have troops I can reach for, brigades I can reach, to send into Afghanistan until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq,” Mullen told reporters at the Pentagon. “Afghanistan has been and remains an economy-of-force campaign, which by definition means we need more forces there.”

So, the bottom line: Violence is indeed surging in Afghanistan, and Jim Hoft is indeed a liar. Stick with reality, kids… you’ll get far less confused.

07/02/08 8:38 AM EDT: The lies from Jim Hoft just never end:

This is outrageous!
After General Wesley Clark attacked Senator McCain, a 5 year POW in North Vietnam, another Obama surrogate, Senator Jim Webb, came out today and told McCain to “calm down” about using his service in the campaign.
This comes from a freshman Democrat who based his entire campaign on his military service.
Figures.

Here’s a clue for Jim Webb —
McCain didn’t bring it up- Clark did.

Here’s a clue for Jimmycrap Hoftwad: You’re a lying sack of shit, and everyone but your moon-eyed toadies knows it.

The claim that McCain has not raised the issue of his military experience in his campaign is a complete fabrication. McCain has been flogging his military experience as a qualification for holding office for years:

Whether he’s deflecting criticism over his health-care plan or mocking a tribute to the Woodstock music festival, Senator John McCain has a trump card: the Hanoi Hilton.

That’s the nickname for the site where he spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a past that McCain regularly recalls on the campaign trail to fend off policy attacks, score political points and give voters a glimpse of his sentimental side. He campaigns with squadrons of POWs and made a video to mark the 35th anniversary of his release from prison.

When Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator John Edwards, rebuked McCain’s medical-care proposal and noted that he’d always enjoyed government health benefits, McCain responded that he knows what it’s like to get inadequate care — “from another government.’’ During an October debate, while knocking a Hillary Clinton plan to help fund a museum celebrating Woodstock, McCain said he missed the 1969 festival because he was “tied up at the time.’’ Even his rivals applauded.

The McCain campaign brings up the war “often enough to make sure it stays in people’s minds, but not so much that it seems exploitative and crass,’’ said Paul Waldman, co-author of “Free Ride,’’ a book that argues the press has treated the 71-year-old Arizona Republican gently.

...

McCain discovered the political cachet of his POW experiences while running for a House seat in Arizona — after living there for just two years.

At a candidates’ forum, he dismissed accusations that he was a carpetbagger with a well-timed ad lib: “The place I lived the longest in my life was Hanoi.’‘

The audience burst into applause, and “the race was effectively over right then,’’ McCain would write in “Worth the Fighting For,’’ a 2002 book about his political career.

Under fire as a senator for questionable dealings with an Arizona friend and supporter during the savings-and-loan scandal, McCain fumed: “Even the Vietnamese didn’t question my ethics.’‘

McCain also touted his POW years at the 1996 Republican National Convention while nominating Dole as the party’s standard-bearer.

Guess who else thinks that military service is not necessarily a qualification for being President, Jimmycrap?

Give up?

That’s right — John McCain himself!

Clark’s argument that military service is not sufficient alone to be president is an argument that has been made by McCain himself:

- During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if “military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief.” McCain said, “Absolutely not…I absolutely don’t believe that it’s necessary.” [National Journal, 2/15/2003]

- I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake.But I’ve never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us. [American Legion Speech, 9/7/1999]

- Earlier this year at Washington’s Gridiron Club, where humor is the required fare, McCain lay bare what underlies his candidacy. Wearing a jacket outlandishly festooned with dozens of fake military medals, McCain said, “The question I ask myself every morning while shaving in front of the mirror is: OK, John, you’re an incredible war hero, an inspiration to all Americans. But what qualifies you to be president of the United States?” [Minneapolis Star Tribune, 11/7/1999]

In fact, in an interview on NPR on May 1, 2004, McCain noted that “some of our greatest presidents have not [had military experience]. … And all of them turned out to be fine commanders in chief.” Thus, by his own admission, McCain’s policies — not his military record — should determine if he is qualified to be president.

Jim Hoft will continue to lie whenever he can. Lying is the only talent that Jim Hoft really has.

06/29/08 8:45 AM EDT: Jimmycrap has found a new lie:

June 13:

Malik Obama: “My Brother Will Be Good For Jews Despite His Muslim Background”

June 28:

She may also want to talk with Obama’s own brother in Kenya Malik Obama who says that Obama is a Muslim.

The truth? Malik Obama never made that statement. Jim Hoft is lying — again.

Media Matters has posted the transcript of the phone interview of Malik Obama. Only his answers are audible; the audio file does not include the interviewer’s questions. Malik Obama does not say what Jimmycrap Hoftwad quotes him as saying. He doesn’t say anything that even comes close.

Jimmycrap will continue to lie whenever he can. Lying is the only talent that Jim Hoft really has.

06/23/08 7:48 AM EDT

What Jimmycrap Hoftwad claims:

“Obama Says “We Are No Longer a Christian Nation”“

What he himself admits Obama said:

“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer just a Christian nation…”

(Emphasis mine.)

Jimmycrap Hoftwad: lying sack of shit, or just too goddamned stupid to understand plain English?

06/04/08 8:49 PM EDT

Once Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit has invented a lie he loves, he never lets it go.

[W]hen Barack Obama was asked last month about Israel’s drag on America, he replied, ”...I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy.”

Goddamn Fucking Liar Jimmy Hoft tears this quote out of context from an interview published last month in The Atlantic. Read the entire article, and it becomes clear that Obama is referring not to Israel as a “constant sore”, but the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, Obama voices strong support for Israel:

If one bothers to read the entire article, one sees that “this constant sore” is in fact the inability of the US to effectively assist in the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

“Look, we don’t do nuance well in politics and especially don’t do it well on Middle East policy. We look at things as black and white, and not gray.”

But by God, the Goddamn Fucking Liar Jimmy Hoft will ignore every scrap of context in his eagerness to print smears.

Here is some more of the context that Jimmycrap Hoftwad will not give his readers:

I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.

...

When I visited Ramallah, among a group of Palestinian students, one of the things that I said to those students was: “Look, I am sympathetic to you and the need for you guys to have a country that can function, but understand this: if you’re waiting for America to distance itself from Israel, you are delusional. Because my commitment, our commitment, to Israel’s security is non-negotiable.”

...

I welcome the Muslim world’s accurate perception that I am interested in opening up dialogue and interested in moving away from the unilateral policies of George Bush, but nobody should mistake that for a softer stance when it comes to terrorism or when it comes to protecting Israel’s security or making sure that the alliance is strong and firm. You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel’s security.

...

The notion that a vibrant, successful society with incredible economic growth and incredible cultural vitality is still plagued by this notion that this could all end at any moment—you know, I don’t know what that feels like, but I can use my imagination to understand it. I would not want to raise my children in those circumstances. I want to make sure that the people of Israel, when they kiss their kids and put them on that bus, feel at least no more existential dread than any parent does whenever their kids leave their sight.

Anyone who trusts Jim Hoft to explain to them what Barack Obama, or any other public figure, has said and what they mean will be deliberately misled.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

There is no limit to Jim Hoft’s dishonesty.

That’s what happens when her handlers forget to give her some notecards to read from…

John McCain is not man enough to own his shit. John McCain will not openly confront Obama with his smears and lies and innuendo. John McCain will not come out and talk about Ayers, he has to be asked. That is why he goes to places like Fox News, so he can be asked. What a coincidence.

John McCain is a coward.

John McCain would rather hide behind his wife and Sarah Palin than say it himself.

He would rather produce 2 minute ads that his campaign will never pay to air anywhere, and hope that the tire-swinging media will bring up the topic so he doesn’t have to do it himself.

John McCain just wants to throw shit out there, and “raise questions” about Obama, and hope his supporters connect the dots, because he is too much of a coward to directly push this toxic stew. He would rather hide behind right-wing bloggers, surrogates, and scummy websites staffed with wingnut welfare recipients like the NRO and the Weekly Standard.

John McCain had 90 minutes to bring this stuff up to Obama, to his face, and passed.

John McCain is a coward.

And let me point out to my friends out in the wingnutosphere: Every time to repeat one of these smears, you are carrying the water for a coward. You are doing a coward’s work. You are enabling a massive act of cowardice.

Somehow, knowing the sort of person that a wingnut has to be, that isn’t surprising.

Fact Check: Obama Did Vote to Defund Troops in Combat, McCain Didn’t

Well, that simply isn’t true.

On March 29, 2007, McCain voted against H.R. 1591, an emergency spending bill that would have funded the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and would have provided more than $1 billion in additional funds to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Senate passed that bill, H.R. 1591, by a margin of 51-47. The Senate subsequently agreed to the bill’s conference report on April 26, 2007, by a vote of 51-46, but McCain did not vote on that version of the bill. By contrast, Obama voted for the bill on both occasions.

Like many of her wingnut pals, Amy Proctor has chosen to poison the public debate on the issues by injecting lies and distortions into the discussion. That is her choice — but of course, she makes it obvious just how weak her position is, every time she lies.

More:

• LA Times reported Vets for Freedom ad attacking Obama over troop funding vote, but ignored Obama’s response and McCain’s own record
• UPDATED: CBSNews.com, MSNBC.com, FactCheck.org falsely claim McCain never voted against troop funding bill
• Media repeat Cindy McCain’s attack on Obama troop-funding vote, ignore John McCain’s troop-funding vote

This giant billboard, posing hard questions for Sarah Palin, was lit up across the road from her LA rally site on Saturday: you could send your own Palin questions to it via SMS.

(hat tip: BoingBoing)

Over the weekend, Sarah Palin addressed Republicans in California, Texas and Nebraska. Coming just a few days after Congress passed an unprecedented $700bn bail-out plan for Wall Street, you’d think that the economy would be at the forefront of Palin’s mind and that she’d be concerned with reassuring American taxpayers that they will never again have to bear the burden for corporate greed. But no!

Instead, the Republicans decided to change the subject to Obama’s extremely tenuous association with the controversial 1960s left-wing activist Bill Ayers. “Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin said at a fundraiser in Denver on Saturday. She repeated the claim at a rally in California on Sunday. “Turns out one of his earliest supporters is a man, who according to the New York Times, was a domestic terrorist,” she said.

By choosing to focus on irrelevant topics such as Obama’s alleged friendship with Ayers – which Obama has repudiated – the Republicans are showing America that their campaign is so vacuous and unsubstantial when it comes to matters of substance that this is all they are able to draw attention to. The truth is that if McCain and Palin genuinely had anything different to offer from what George Bush has been giving America for the past eight years, particularly in this economically unstable time, they would tell everyone about it in no uncertain terms. But they aren’t talking about the things that matter because they don’t have anything to say.

The McCain campaign cannot win on the issues. Let us hope that the American electorate is intelligent not to give McCain the win simply because his handlers are good at character assassination.

"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

And yet, John McCain made almost identical remarks during his presidential bid in 2000:

“In the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying—he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such—in high altitude.”

Where’s the outrage?

(hat tip: Think Progress)

It’s damn near impossible to read anything written by Justin Higgins without tripping over a lie every few words. Here’s his latest:

[Obama] got one bill passed. One. Four years in the United States Senate and he got one bill passed.

Justin Higgins is lying. Just flat out lying his lazy, chickenhawk ass off. Here’s a partial list of the bills intorduced by Obama that have passed into law:

• A bill providing a foreign aid package for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• The Lugar-Obama nonproliferation initiative
• A bill mandating the creation of a searchable database of federal awards of federal financial assistance and expenditures

There is also a considerable list of amendments introduced by Obama that have passed into law, as well.

The really sad part is that all of this has already been pointed out to Justin in the past. He simply refuses to acknowledge any facts that might conflict with the talking points he is parroting.

Justin Higgins, in his infinite wisdom claims that Obama “will never be ready to lead”. With his latest pack of lies, Justin Higgins demonstrates yet again that he will never be ready to tell the truth.

For FY 2000, however (July 1st, 1999-June 30th, 2000), only $1,000 was allocated for the “contractual services” police department line item. Note that page A-1 of the budget (available here) states that “the Wasilla city council hereby adopts the operating budget for the Fiscal Year 2000, as presented by the Mayor and introduced on April 26, 1999.” At the bottom of this page is Sarah Palin’s signature.

The actual line-item showing the cut in funds allocated for contractual services can be found on page F-28. The line item index confirming that this line-item still referred to “medical testing, road maintenance, equipment rental, airport snow removal” can be found on page H-5 of the line-item index for fiscal year 2000 (available here).

Of the insufficient $1,000 allocated, only $152 had been used by December 31st, 1999, according to data from the FY2001 budget. That budget was “submitted by Mayor Sarah Palin” on April 24, 2000.

The wingnut response, of course, will be quite predictable:

(hat tip: Media Matters)

In the real world of political ads, McCain and his surrogates are shouting ugly insults at Barack Obama. He is accused is saying that US airstrikes have killed innocents. This is true and McCain said it, too. They say he was on a committee with a professor who used to be a Weatherman 40 years ago. And…?

How nonsensical these attacks are is demonstrated by the inability of McCain to repeat them to Obama’s face.

What sort of allegation won’t hold up in a debate? A flimsy one. One with the form of propaganda.

“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”

This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.

Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)

AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. “She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler.”

...

The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama’s tenuous connection to graying, ‘60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins’ connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.

Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.

Where’s the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama’s fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.

 
(hat tip Instaputz)

And finally…
   8. Why are you either unwilling or unable to discuss substantive issues during this election cycle?

"It's a dangerous road, but we have no choice," a top McCain strategist told the Daily News. "If we keep talking about the economic crisis, we're going to lose."

‘Nuff said.

Sarah Palin slams Barack Obama for ‘palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.’ Pretty rum stuff, as Tbogg points out, coming from a woman who happens to be fucking a traitor herself.

I could not possibly say it more succinctly than that.

For more:

• Palin’s TPM Election Central: Attack On Obama’s Patriotism Legitimizes Questions About The Palins’ Association With Group Founded By America-Hating Secessionist.
• Informed Comment: McCain Campaign No. 1 at Self-Parody; McCain support for Mujahideen Papered Over.
• CNN Political Ticker: Fact Check: Is Obama ‘palling around with terrorists’?