Saturday, November 21, 2009

As usual, some juicy tidbits are to be found...

...in the letters to the editor in this morning's Chron:

Palin once stayed with her daughter at a luxury hotel for five days, which brought her grand total for travel (including air fare) to more than $3,000! It is clear that Palin is not ready for the White House after all. She is going to have to learn how to squander taxpayer money in a much bigger way if she aspires to the pinnacle of politics. When our president jets off to New York for a few hours to go on a date with the first lady for a price tag of several hundred thousand dollars on the taxpayers' tab, that is presented as presidential good taste that Americans should appreciate.

Yep. Who says American news media don't have one set of standards for Democratic politicians and another for Republican?
I am reminded, though, of something I heard not long ago, in regards to Palin's book; a Palin fan was dissatisfied with Palin's not calling the McCain people out earlier, saying that "evidently she did not have the spirit to rock the boat" then. While I can understand that opinion somewhat, I don't necessarily think it was bad that she stayed silent then. I am absolutely certain that had she rocked the boat back then it would have been a lot worse for the Republicans, because the Democrats and their PR firms (aka the American news media) would have taken full advantage of that. It might have been a bit late, but I think it was better she call those apparatchiks out a bit late than not at all. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Despite the relatively close margin by which McCain lost last November, he was still arguably the second-worst candidate (after NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani) that the Republicans could have chosen to be their standard bearer and had he picked almost anyone other than Sarah Palin to be his running mate, Obama's margin of victory would have been much larger than it was. Palin deserved so much better, and so did the rest of us.