This Week in Stoopid: Joe Miller

A Salute to Those Who Efforts in Idiocy Go Far Beyond Average for their Height & Weight

For most weeks, competition is quite fierce—and this week was no exception.  However, no one tried harder than Alaska’s own Tea Bagger extraordinaire, Joe “I only LOOK like Yasir Arafat” Miller.

Aileen Hailey. What Joe Miller sees when he thinks about Lisa Murkowski stealing his senate seat.

Background

If there’s anything to remember about the 2010 primaries, it was that this was the year when the traditional off year low turn outs produced a disproportionate number of low IQ candidates.  In particular, four would be Senators really stand out.  Delaware’s GOP, obviously untroubled by the candidate never having held a “job” before, introduced Christine O’Donnell to the nation.  Nevada searched long & hard to find Sharron Angle: conceivably, the only person who could run against Harry Reid, and still lose.  Most notable was the pride of South Carolina, Alvin Greene, selected with a paltry turnout of less than 30 percent of the registered voters, who then went on to garner 28 percent of the vote cast in the general election.  Impressive, considering by pretty much all accounts, Mr. Greene appears to be quite mad.

Not Joe Miller.

But the star of this saga is Sarah Palin Favorite Son (as opposed to Alaska’s Favorite Son) Joe Miller.  In the GOP primary, incumbent Lisa Murkowski showed little to no regard for the Tea Party Express candidate come lately, naively believing that lack of coherent thought and a complete inability to mount a sane campaign enough to doom any candidacy.  But a low turnout proved Ms. Murkowski wrong.

Shut out of the traditional GOP, Ms. Murkowski believed that a second generation pork barreler such as herself had brought home the bacon enough times, that a plurality of voters would remember on which side their bread had been over buttered—and who did the buttering (hint: not that nice boy from Sitka, or the crazy man from Fairbanks).  Heck, ifAmerica’s champion of apartheid could do it in 1954, why couldn’t the daughter of a former governor become America’s Next Write In Candidate for US Senate?

Not Yasir Arafat.

As the dust began settling in the days after November 2, 2010, the People had Spoken: Joe Miller: 90,740 votes; Write In Candidates: 102,252 votes—leaving 60,007 for that nice boy from Sitka and an additional 2,832 votes cast by people you wouldn’t want to invite to your house, regardless of how wild the party. 

The Alaska Department of Elections (DOE) started counting just *who* the write in votes were for.  Out of that group, the DOE decided that roughly 2,000 of the write in votes were cast for someone OTHER than “Lisa Murkowski.”  In fact, 20 of the write in votes were for “Joe Miller”—which goes to show, that just because your drunk and/or an idiot, you can still muster up enough sense to show voter intent…at least in Alaska.  Therefore, DOE declared that roughly 100,800 people voted for Lisa Murkowski.  End of story—or so you’d think.

Shades of hanging chads as was, while each write in ballot was eyeballed by DOE, both Mr. Miller and Ms. Murkowski had their own stooges, fixers, and hired guns on hand…just to make sure everything was on the up & up.  And Joe Miller’s people were extra diligent, claiming that roughly 8,000 of the votes the DOE credited to “Lisa Murkowski” were for someone else, OTHER than “Lisa Murkowski.”  Be that as it may, the DOE was satisfied, and ready to bestow the crown.

But in the tradition of Go Big or Go Home, Mr. Miller declines to return to Fairbanks, and instead goes to court, seeking to have himself—and not “Lisa Murkowski”—crowned Senator from the forty-ninth state.

This week, on December 10, Superior Court Judge William B. Carey granted the State’s Motion for Summary Judgment, and dismissed all of Mr. Miller’s claims.  For anyone who doesn't trust me, the link to to a PDF of the opinion.

Ava Gardner. What does she have to do with Joe Miller? Nothing--but when your notes are as boring as mine are, you've got to go big or go home.

So What?

So what indeed.  People file frivolous lawsuits all the time—and some of them even by people who aren’t political candidates.  What makes Mr. Miller so special?  How about the fact no one connected to the Miller campaign has a basic understanding of simple arithmetic? 

This is one of the reasons why lawyers insist on large retainers up front.  Here are the numbers again:

Miller—90,740 

Murkowski—100,800 (according to DOE).

Number of votes for “Lisa Murkowski” disputed by Miller: roughly 8,000

…meaning there are 92,700 votes for Murkowski, NOT DISPUTED by Mr. Miller.  For the arithmetically challenged among us, allow me to help: 92,700 is bigger than 90,740.

What WAS Mr. Miller’s Gripe?

If you guessed Miller filed an action for intentional infliction of emotional distress against the DOE, for suggesting that Murkowski handed Miller a ten thousand (or better than six percent) ass whoopin’, instead of a mild two thousand vote butt kicking—you’d be wrong.  No, Mr. Miller insisted that Ms. Murkowski should NOT be declared the winner, because Mr. Miller still MIGHT have actually won.  And a moron says “what?”

Here’s how Miller says he might have won.  First, he needs to get just over ten thousand votes for “Lisa Murkowski” thrown out.  To do that, his opening salvo is aimed at the 8,000 his people objected to, during the counting.  The basis for this objection lies with the reading of Alaska Statute 15.15.360(a)(11), which provides “a vote for a write in candidate…shall be counted if the oval is filled in for that candidate and if the name, as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy, of the candidate or the last name of the candidate is written in the space provided.”  Judge Carey concluded to be a valid “vote,” a write in vote needed to have:

1) the oval next to the name filled in, and

2) written on the line next to the filled in oval, either:

a) the name of the candidate as it appears on the write-in declaration of candidacy; or

b) the last name of the candidate.

Miller and his legions insisted that the statute meant that UNLESS the write in voter wrote down the candidate’s name as it EXACTLY appeared on the write-in declaration, then the vote was invalid.  Why not?  However, the court notes that even in Mr. Miller’s own pleadings, his arguments are inconsistent.  On the one hand, Miller concedes that a vote for “Lisa Murkowski” would be sufficient, but Ms. Murkowski’s name “appears” on the write-in declaration of candidacy as “Murkowski, Lisa.”  The substance of Miller’s contention, though, is that the DOE should not be able to use any discretion in regard to permutation of misspellings of “Murkowski.” 

I'm using my particularly impressive Ava Gardner shots for the especially dull parts of the note.

Forget it, is Judge Carey’s ruling--not surprisingly.  To adopt Miller’s position, the court would have to do two things.  First, the statute does not use the word “exactly,” denying any discretion by the DOE to divine voter intent.  The court (correctly) declined to re-write the statute to fit Miller’s desires.  Second, under Millers interpretation, a significant percentage of Alaskans would be denied their vote.  The history of statutory interpretation in Alaska (as everywhere else) holds that statutes are should not be interpreted such that the law disenfranchises large numbers of people.

In conclusion, the court held the eight thousand votes Miller’s people disputed in fact do count as votes for Ms. Murkowski, meaning Miller did lose by an ass whooping, as opposed to a simple butt kicking.

But What IF Miller Won on his Complaint about the 8,000?  Wouldn’t He Still Have Lost?

Well—yeah.  And the court noted as much, saying “Murkowski has won the election by over 2,000 unchallenged votes … No matter what interpretation this court makes, and even if the court finds that Miler (sic) is correct and only correctly spelled ballots for Murkowski are to be counted, Miller would not be entitled to relief because the outcome does not change.”

Technically, courts do not issue an opinion if there is no case and controversy.  Where a claim is “moot” (i.e. filed by an idiot), courts will decline to rule.  Nevertheless, Judge Carey did reach a decision on the eight thousand votes disputed by Miller, because of the strong “public interest” involved.  Miller originally filed his claim in federal court.  The federal court then remanded the case to state court, in part to get the state court’s interpretation of the state’s own statute.  In general, federal courts defer to state court’s interpretation of that state’s statutes (which the most notable, bullshit exception is Bush v. Gore).  So, Judge Carey does the heavy lifting on this case, and decides the issue.

Ava Gardner. AS IF you could ever have too many pictures of her.

And yet—had the court agreed with Miller, where was Miller going to find another two thousand votes?  How about:

A.  “My People Were All Really Stupid, So They Missed Two Thousand Otherwise Invalid Votes”

I’m not making that up; that was one of Miller’s arguments.  It takes a special breed of weasel to throw all your people under the bus, wholesale, like that.  Specifically, Miller claimed that when the DOE started counting the write in ballots on November 20, the DOE had “moved the date up by a number of days and that the preparation, training, and coordination of his observer team were thereby impaired.”  Opinion, n.3.  Not even a nice try, Joe: “This court finds no prejudice to Miller has been demonstrated or can be inferred by the timing of the count.”  

B.  It Was the Machines, Damn It!  THE MACHINES!

So much for a “Constitutional conservative” who opposes “activist judges,” Miller insists there is an issue of “fundamental fairness” in that write in ballots get a hand count, but non-write ins are machine counted.  The machines could be way off.  Maybe.  The court gives three responses to this argument.  First, the Alaska legislature has written different statutes governing how “write in ballots” and “machine ballots” are to be counted.  The role of the court is to interpret those statutes—not write them. 

Second, if Mr. Miller is unhappy with the way the Diebold machines work (and, as the court notes in n.43, many people ARE unhappy), Miller’s remedy is to go to the legislature—not ask the courts to wholly redraft Alaska’s voting statutes. 

Finally, Alaska responded to this “fairness” argument by explaining in the event of a ballot being rejected by the machine for being an “overvote” or an “undervote,” a poll person personally reviews that ballot to see if voter intent can be determined.  So, there is no question of “fundamental unfairness.”

C. A Really Stupid Argument about Alaska’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA) that Doesn’t Bear Repeating (trust me on this).

D.  VOTER FRAUD!

Miller tries to insist that his claim should not be dismissed, because he hasn’t had time to get all the dirt.  APPARENTLY, at some precincts, the polling people did NOT check the little box next to where the voter signs the voter’s name, affirming voter identification: “[D]iscovery is necessary to ascertain why election officials at certain precincts neglected to check the box” because “there are various reasons why election officials … may have checked an identification option … for most voters, but declined to do so for certain voters.”  J’ACCUSE!

I was trying to find a picture of Ava Gardner, illustrating the "sarcasm expressed by DOE workers" that Miller complained about. This was the best I could do.

The court notes that Miller “received notice of fraud allegations” by his observers on November 17.  From November 17 to December 2, Miller had time to secure evidence to show that election officials not only acted illegally, but also engaged in malconduct.  Instead, “Miller’s affidavits do not provide any facts of wrongful conduct at polling stations and not even circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing … Nowhere does Miller provide facts showing a genuine issue of fraud or election misfeasance.  Instead, the majority of the problematic statements included in the affidavits are inadmissible hearsay, speculation, and occasional complaints of sarcasm expressed by DOE workers” Opinion, p.32.

But was Miller’s Argument on Statutory Interpretation Really THAT Stupid?

Yes: “The only support Miller provides for his interpretation is based on the nature of Murkowski’s campaign.  Miller argues that Murkowski went to great lengths to advise voters of the spelling of her name and to make it easy as possible for voters to get her name right.”  Opinion, p. 16.

Was there Anything Extra Stupid about Miller’s lawsuit?

Ava Gardner. While she is not in Alaska, she IS eating ice cream. That counts.

As a matter of fact, yes…..Alaska is a “big” state in terms of size, but tiny in terms of population: 47th out of 50.  The whole state is smaller than the city of San Francisco.  The vote differential we’re talking here seems close: two, eight, or even ten thousand votes.  But that’s out of a total of roughly 253,000 votes.  In Washington State, where Patty Murray handed Dino Rossi his third beatdown, over 2,251,000 people voted for senator.  In my state of Oregon, 534,000 people voted for a sad sack Republican for Senator—and that was less than 40% of the vote.  In the 2004 Washington State gubernatorial election, where they really WERE scratching for individual votes, out of a total of over 2,750,000 votes cast, Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes.  Unless there is something grotesquely stupid going on, or you’re in Florida, Illinois, or Ohio (there’s some overlap between those two groups), you’re not going to flip a roughly six percent loss.  Or show that over ten percent of the people who voted for the winner were somehow “wrong.”

But What if Miller IS Crazy—Crazy Like a Fox!

Could there be some other, nefarious reason for Mr. Miller to delay Ms. Murkowski’s retaking her senate seat?  MAYBE………!

Ava Gardner. Because of all the money Ms. Murkowski got from the Alaska Natives corporations, Ms. Gardner reenacts the poor Miller people, painting their own signs!

In the December 3 edition of the Moonie-Owned, Arch-Conservative Washington Times (a brand name), Joe Miller published a bizarre editorial, Writing in Corruption.  In it, Miller attacked Ms. Murkowski for “learn[ing] nothing from the message of the midterm elections.”  What did Ms. Murkowski not learn?  Millerfingers (sic) the Alaska Native Regional Corporations, whom he calls “multibillion-dollar (sic) corporations, formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.”  Those bandits are “repeatedly protected from shareholder oversight by legislation shepherded by the Murkowski-Stevens-Young delegation.”  Those self-same corporations “poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the tiny Alaska media market in a slimy, no-holds-barred effort to keep Ms. Murkowski in office.”

Miller’s not done yet: “Alaska Native 8(a) corporations … are no-bid federal contractors.  They get billions in federal taxpayer dollars to undertake building and other projects not just throughout the state of Alaska, but across the country and overseas. … I argued during the campaign that this 8(a) program demanded reform, in large part because it was ripping off the American taxpayer.  But I also argued that while the native corporations made dizzying profits using their 'disadvantaged' status to gain federal work, in practice they did very little to lift the lives of most Alaskan natives.”  Damn those brown people!  There they go, ripping off the white folks—and then they’re too dumb to even hang on to all that money.

Ava Gardner, portraying one of those rich Murkowski-Stevens-Young-Alaska Native corporation Democrats.

It gets worse: “There is something odious to the American political experiment in having corporations dependent upon taxpayer money for their very existence turn around and use that money to hire workers to teach people how to vote for one candidate over another.”  Well, I certainly think so—that’s why I’m so furious about Citizens’ United v. Federal Elections Commission: defense contractors, oil companies, the banking industry, the insurance industry, the chemical companies…all of them are “dependent upon taxpayer money for their very existence,” and pour truckloads of cash into elections.  But I don’t think that’s what Joe Miller is complaining about.

“The native population apparently got the message.  Supermajorities of numerous villages that had gone strongly Democratic in previous elections voted for Mrs. Murkowski last month.”  Damn those Murkowski-Stevens-Young Democrats!

You think I’m taking this quotes out of context?  “If Mrs. Murkowski survives the inevitable recount of ballots (ballots that were transported and ‘secured’ by an Alaska Native corporation) …”  Gee Joe—are you suggesting those brown people stuffed the ballot box, just to fix your wagon?  Don’t be so subtle.

Now here’s where we’re at: here’s a guy who insists he’s an Alaskan politician, who hates the Alaska Natives corporations, Lisa Murkowski (and family), Ted Stevens, and Don Young.  He then accuses all of them of ripping off “the American taxpayer” for the benefit of Alaska—and being “Democrats.”  While I think Joe’s got a point (except for that “Democrat” thing), I live in Oregon, and believe that what’s bad for Alaska is good for me.  But if I lived in Alaska, I’m throwing my gloves and stick to the ice and pulling his shirt up over his head.  It’s ON, big daddy!

Could Miller be pissing in his own nest, at the bidding of some nefarious Dr. Evil?

Enter Dr. Evil

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Currently, there’s a struggle for the heart of the Grand Old Party (the soul was brokered away to the devil, forthe Willie Horton campaign for George HW Bush).  On the one side, there are the totally disgusting, lying hypocritical sleazeball opportunists, led by Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell.  The challengers are the batshit crazy wing, led by South Carolina’s Jim DeMint.  Say what you want about Senator DeMint: the man’s not just merely stupid, he’s positively, truly & sincerely stupid.  McConnell’s the kind of guy who’d sell his own mother into white slavery—if only his father hadn’t beat him to it—but will have some private reservations that MAYBE that’s not the best idea.  He’s still doing it, mind you; but he knows he’s going to have to put some spin on that.  DeMint, on the other hand, sells his mom and is damn proud of it, because he heard somewhere that it was a good idea to do so.  Spin hell—he’s got it on his resume!

Not a RINO.

For reasons known only to people who think like Senator DeMint, Senator Murkowski is a RINO (Republican in Name Only—I guess sort of like Rudolph Hess was a NINO), so she and good ol’ Ted Stevens were tight with the Mitch McConnell people.  Having lost Delaware’s O’Donnell, Nevada’s Angle, Washington State’s Rossi, California’s Fiorina (but he did win a few places—like Wisconsin.  Bastard), DeMint is struggling, getting his ducks in a row.  If DeMint is going to step up and be the kingmaker he wants to be, he'll need his people in as many positions of power as he can get. 

So, if the certification of Senator Murkowski’s election can be put off long enough, could it be possible that she’ll lose her share of choice committee assignments?

Senator DeMint is raising money for Joe Miller, and standing behind him—unlike a certain former governor of Alaska who’s long forgotten who Miller is.  Could Miller be playing the good soldier, crapping all over his soon to be former home state, damaging Senator Murkowski’s committee assignments, all in an effort to ingratiate himself to Senator DeMint and the Republican National Committee?  Is Joe Miller the Manchuria Alaskan Candidate?  Will Joe Miller fulfill his lifelong ambition, and become an apparatchik stooge for the RNC?

Conclusion

No.  Joe Miller’s just stoopid.

Ava Gardner. Miller was going to use this snap on his campaign literature--but remembered in time to ask who "Stevenson" is.

You Won't Have Sarah Palin's Higher Power to Kick Around Anymore

Ms. Jayne Mansfield. Again, when you're
going to throw a hissy fit and go into
great detail about financing residential
construction, you really have to start 
strong.

This is going to be a very angry note, written by a very cranky guy. When I find myself getting cranky-angry, what helps is to think on people who are gentle cats; the kind of people we (here, I really mean “me”) should try harder to emulate. Lucky for me, my friend Bob is exactly one of those people: he is, by any measure, a good guy. Thinking on Bob helps me to be less angry. 

Now that I am also less cranky, I will say that when the final roll is called up yonder, I will do my level best to ensure my friend Bob (among other accomplishments) is also known for two things. First, “Chicken Bob” which is a delicious way to prepare barbeque chicken (see infra), and “The Bob Rule.” 

I first met Bob when I was a low level flunky at the State Legislature, and Bob was a medium-high level state employee, doing a bunch of testifying or advising or some such. After one particularly trying day of fighting for Truth, Justice, and The Oregon Way (don’t ask), Bob and I were heading home when he turned to me and said “You know what it takes to be a successful politician? Not brains, talent, ambition, savvy, common sense—none of that. To be a successful politician, you have to have only one thing, and that’s absolutely no sense of self-consciousness or embarrassment.” I stopped dead, and thought about every political person I knew or had read about, and realized that Bob had found the one common denominator they all shared: everyone of them were able to say something completely crazy in all good conscience, even if they knew what they were saying was crazy.

That conversation was over twenty years ago, and nothing that has happened since then to put even a dent in The Bob Rule. I am telling you the story of Bob, because the latest twist and shake of the Sarah Palin saga has brought The Bob Rule back to the fore.

By now, certainly everyone reading this is well aware that Alaska’s own Sarah Palin has seen fit to resign as Governor. 

Princess Grace. Say what you want 
about The Princess, but all her public
statements had good grammar and 
correct punctuation.

You are also probably aware of the contradictory and nonsensical nature of her statement “explaining” why she was resigning. If you have not read it, here it is. I urge all of you to read it. At another time, I will go into how appalled I am at the poor punctuation and grammar of seemingly everyone in the Alaska Governor’s office (What--no one owns a copy of Strunk & White?), but suffice to say, this statement raises many more questions than it answers.

So, intrepid people that we are, legions (we are called “Legion,” for we are many) have leaped forward to suggest reasons as to why Governor Palin resigned. For example, my niece the notorious troublemaker suggested that Governor Palin resigned, because Governor Palin felt bad after reading all the terrible things I wrote about her. I wish. 

But apparently, some Bloggers (not me) have really hurt Governor Palin’s feelings. On July 4 2009, Mr. Thomas Van Flein, an attorney representing Sarah Palin, released a statement, threatening legal action against said Bloggers (again, not me. Damn it!). I cannot find the actual statement, so if you have the link, let me know and I will include it. Here is the Associated Press article where I took this quote from Mr. Van Flein’s statement:

"To the extent several websites, most notably liberal Alaska blogger Shannyn Moore, are now claiming as 'fact' that Governor Palin resigned because she is 'under federal investigation' for embezzlement or other criminal wrongdoing, we will be exploring legal options this week to address such defamation . . . This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."

Ms. Ava Gardner. After you've been
married to Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw,
Howard Hughes, AND Frank Sinatra,
people know better than to threaten 
you.

Well, shut my mouth. I have no idea whoShannyn Moore is (besides the fact she seems to be from Homer, AK), but I have seen the allegations that Mr. Van Flein is talking about. I am going to repeat them RIGHT HERE, courtesy of Facebook and Samsara Samizdat. Why? Because manuscripts don’t burn, as they say where I (kind of) come from.

What is it with politicians in Alaska? The Mrs. and Uncle Ted Stevens were able to “remodel” a mountain cabin, by getting $410,000. of work, with only having to pay $160,000. I guess the secret is hiring the right building contractor, which in Senator Stevens’s case was the chief executive of an oil services company that (back in the day) did a whole bunch of government work. If you want to know more about The Ted Stevens Story, you can go here.

But what are the rumours of “embezzlement” and “other criminal wrong doing” targeted at poor Sarah Palin? Well, it involves the family homestead. From the Daily Kos, here is a picture of the two story, four bedroom, four bath, 3,450 sq. foot lakeside shack that the Palins call home, valued at $552,000. All well and good. What’s not so good is that some people are asking where did the house come from. The Official Story is husband Todd Palin built the house with “a few friends [unspecified] who were contractors.” 

The Palin Plaza. Just a little something Todd & the boys threw together one afternoon. Kind of.

What’s getting “re-published” is that at the same time that La Casa Palin was built, just down the road the Wasilla Sports Complex, a $12.5 million public works project, was built by Howdie Inc., a primarily residential contractor owned by one Mr. Howard Nugent. Who is Howard Nugent? Among other things, he’s a financial contributor to Sarah Palin. Many of the army of subcontractors building the Wasilla Sports Complex were also Palin contributors. If you want to see the whole laundry list, here is a link.

One of the bigger subcontractors for the Sports Complex was Spenard Builders Supply (SBS). To be fair, SBS is described as Alaska’s leading supplier of wood, floor, roof, and other building materials. However, SBS is also a sponsor of Todd Palin’s snowmobile racing team, and hired Sarah to act in a statewide television commercial in 2004. In 2002, SBS supplied the materials for both the Sports Complex, and the Palin home.

Ms. Hedy Lamarr. She has nothing to do
with this note. I needed to include her
in my hissy fits on same-sex 
marriages, because she had a boatload
of Reno divorces.

So, what’s the story?

Here’s what gets the Palins (and their attorneys) all excited: the story circulating the “liberal blogosphere” (as opposed to the usual suspects that make up the Unrepresentative Eastern Liberal Media Establishment (the UELME)) is (part one) SBS and the contractors who built the Wasilla Sports Complex are the “buddies” who “helped” Todd Palin build the Palin home, (part two) they built the Palin house in exchange for then Mayor Sarah’s awarding of contracts for building the Wasilla Sports Complex. And (part three) Sarah Palin suddenly decided to resign as Governor not because everything is going great in Alaska (it’s not); nor because Alaska is projecting a $1.3 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2010 (which is 30% of the state’s total budget), and Sarah Palin is not up to the demands of dealing with the fiscal crisis (she’s not); but because she is trying to head off an investigation into who gave the Palins’ their home, and what benefits they received in exchange for the largess. 

The Palin camp’s self-righteous chest thumping centers around allegations that there is a pending “criminal” investigation or a “federal” investigation. For example, in a July 4 2009 article, the Anchorage Daily News quotes Van Flein saying “I can say definitively I am aware of no criminal investigation whatsoever involving Sarah Palin. Zero.” What does that mean? Well, it could mean there is an ethical investigation, which is civil as opposed to criminal. Or it could mean there is an investigation involving the Palin home, as opposed to investigating Sarah Palin personally. Or it could mean there are boatloads of investigations of Sarah Palin—only Van Flein is “not aware” of them. But does Mr. Van Flein’s statement mean that SBS and Howard Nugent did not build and pay for the Palins’ home? Not even vaguely.

Still, the same Anchorage Daily News article goes on to quote Mr. Van Flein saying “[t]he Palins used a combination of personal savings, equity from the sale of their private home, and conventional bank financing to build the house, like millions of American families.” Okay----but did the Palins get a deal, like Uncle Ted, in that they paid in the neighborhood of thirty cents on a dollar for work and materials? Proving that would be easy enough, but apparently Mr. Van Flein’s statement failed to include particulars.

So, ‘splain it to me, Ricky: why is the blogosphere in an uproar?

Ms. Jane Russell. I have to start spicing
it up, because my note is really starting
to lag here.

First, we have Ted Stevens failing to disclose on his ethics statements that he received $410,000. of cabin renovation, but paid only $160,000. Did the Palins receive such a deal? When I bought my fixer-upper house, it needed re-wiring, re-plumbing, a new roof, replacing roughly a third of the sill, and gutting the bathroom. Now, let’s say some conservative gadfly claimed that rumour has it the Democratic National Committee, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU, and the First Church of Satan (Reformed) together pooled their funds to rebuild my house—all in an effort to secretly support Samsara Samizdat. Unfortunately, I can show that the roofers, plumbers, electrician, and carpenter were all paid one hundred cents on the dollar by me, and (despite my best efforts) they did not give a rat’s ass about my opinions on anything. There is no reason why the Palins could not do the same.

Second, people not from Alaska may ask why not just go look at the building permits, and see who were the Palins’ contractors? Here’s why not: as Mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits, so there is no public record of just who the elves were who built the Palin home.

Not the contractors who helped Todd
Palin build the family homestead.

Next, despite the wide ranging accomplishments and skills attributed to Todd Palin in GOP hagiography, Todd Palin is still a fisherman and a part-time oil worker. While Mr. Palin may truly be “no stranger to construction,” as Mr. Van Flein claims, that’s a far cry from being able to build two story, 3,500 square foot home. Maybe Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were able to throw together Broadway caliber shows in an Uncle’s barn with costumes left over from the school play—but that was in the movies. A handyman (no matter how handy) cannot build a two story home with the help of “a few buddies.”

Fourth, why is Governor Palin suddenly resigning now? On its face, her statement makes no sense at all. The timing is also strange: the Friday of a three day weekend? Either Sarah Palin truly is erratic and irresponsible, or there is some other reason she is rushing out the door. The sloppy nature of her statement also suggests the timing was rushed, despite Governor Palin’s insistence that “this decision has been in the works for awhile.” Additionally, the statement is especially bitter about what Governor Palin feels are frivolous ethics complaints, strongly implying that those complaints have driven her from office.

Ms. Mamie Van Doren. It only looks like she's playing in the sand. She's actually working on the foundation for a new Governor's mansion. Honest.

Finally, as the article in the Anchorage Daily News reports, rumours about how the Palins' house was built have been around since the house built in 2002. As I said, proving that the Palins did not receive any special “deals” on labour or materials would be easy enough. Why haven’t they done so? Because it is none of our business how they built their house and who paid for it? Sorry--but no. If you hold public office, it most certainly is my business who all is giving you free stuff—whether or not there are any “federal” or “criminal” investigations pending that you are “aware of.”

But getting back to The Bob Rule, that the single most important quality of a successful politician is to have absolutely no sense of self-consciousness or embarrassment, could you hope for a better example that this quote from Governor Palin’s “explanation” for her resignation: 

[I]t may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”. (All punctuation and grammar in original).

Is it so hard to believe that like Senator Stevens, Sarah Palin honestly feels her public service entitles her to a free house, and that she should be excused from having to admit that she has received such a blessing? I'm just asking here.

In the meantime, New York Times v. Sullivan is still good law, and I fully intend to “re-publish” everything I see fit, regardless if in Mr. Van Flein’s view it is “defamatory,” and I will certainly do my part to “propagate defamatory material.” As for “answering to this in a court of law,” as they say in the mystery stories: Bring it. And don’t stop to pick any flowers.

Ms. Corrine Calvert. You will have to
makeup your own snarky comment 
about Governor Palin for this photo.
I've run out. Sorry.

Chicken Bob

This recipe is simplicity itself. First, make a marinade as follows. I can never remember the exact ratios, but it’s something like this: two part soy sauce and one part vegetable oil, add like half a teaspoon powdered ginger (more if you like it real gingery, less if you don’t want it so gingery). Put the chicken inside a ziplock plastic bag, to maximize marinade contact with chicken.

Now, Bob lets the chicken marinate between 45 minutes to an hour. I like chicken with lots of soy and lots of ginger, so I let it sit overnight. However you do it, discard the marinade, and barbeque the chicken over a medium fire, being careful not to overcook it (unless you like it that way).

Chicken Bob goes especially well with corn on the cob, and pretty much everything else.