John McCain the Unmaverick Unmasked on the View

Ok, I promise you I'll be back with an actual well-written, thoroughly researched and sourced diary over the weekend. For your information, I've been putting my good where it will do the most - volunteering with the Obama campaign. My offer still stands - come to the Obama Headquarters at 11184 Lee Highway, Fairfax City, VA 22030 (at Jermantown Road). (703) 383-0259. on Sundays from 3 to 6 p.m. and I'll be there at the front desk. You can say hello, yell at me, or whatever just as long as you also volunteer some time phone banking, entering data (it's easy - I've done it) or canvassing. For canvassing you actually have to get there earlier. Here's the schedule.

It's 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturdays and 12 noon on Sundays.

In addition, I've been helping a few nights a week with setting up the schedule for those volunteering to do data entry. And I have a day job. So if I've been neglecting my blog it's all in a good cause. I've determined that the practical, though sometimes less flashy skills, are probably the most valuable. So, I've been throwing up lots of videos and links to other sites rather than doing original work. My apologies and I promise I'll try to juggle it all. But I'll probably be back to a full writing schedule some time after the elections. I'm long on thoughts but short on time.

Anyway, here's a great video of the ladies of The View, especially Barbara Walters, and their somewhat skeptical reception to John McCain's claim that Sarah Palin will be a reformer and a maverick. H/t to RK for this.




And now the debunking:

On Friday, when McCain introduced her as his running mate, she said she "championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending," the legislative technique used to slip projects into appropriations bills without rigorous congressional review

But under her leadership, the state of Alaska has requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8 million in next year's federal budget, according to the website of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Palin has recently been publicly critical of requests made in past years by Stevens and others for $223 million in federal funds for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska, to Gravina Island, calling it "the Bridge to Nowhere," a derogatory label critics attached to the project.

As a candidate for governor in 2006, she backed funding for the bridge.

After her election, however, she killed the project, saying she would use the federal funds for other purposes.

As mayor of the small city of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin appears to have made use of the system she now decries, hiring a Washington lobbyist, Steven Silver, to represent the town. Years ago, Silver worked as an aide to Stevens.

By now every major newspaper has had a columnist or editorial debunking Palin's claim to be a maverick and reformer. All she really is is an empty suit, although one that could win a bathing suit contest in a beauty pageant. But she's not ready for prime time and you have to question the cynicism and poor judgment of John McCain for plucking her from Alaska and setting her on a national stage.

I'll have more of a round up on McCain and his own faux claims to be a maverick this weekend.