One Choice: Obama

   Here are some details why we shudder at the thought of Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the White House…

• When asked about her foreign experience, she said she’d visited Kuwait, Germany and Ireland during one trip abroad to visit Alaska National Guard troops. Problem is, including Ireland is a bit ludicrous because her plane just stopped at Shannon Airport to refuel. Trust me, been there, Shannon is a pastoral airport that offers a tiny taste of that grand nation. Her opponent, Sen. Joe Biden chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Advantage, Obama/Biden!
  
• A friend works with a man who grew up in Wasilla and his siblings went to school with Palin. He said she belonged to an Assembly of God congregation that believed the second coming of Jesus would occur before the millennium. They saw Alaska as a refuge for the end times, he said. Palin left the church, he says, the same year her husband left the Alaska Independent Party secessionist group. Wacky, scary shite!
  
• In December 1996, according to Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny, Mayor Palin asked the city librarian Mary Ellen Emmons three times “What would be your response if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?” According to Kilkenny, Emmons replied “The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.” There is no record of Palin being successful, but the fact that she wanted to see how far her mayoral powers would take her on the issue is frightening. And there is a coda to this story. According to the Anchorage Daily News, “A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go.” Unfortunately for Palin, Emmons was very well liked and Palin was “forced to relent and let her keep her job,” ADN reports. Emmons did resign from her post three years later. This smacks of Gonzales or Rove or Beelzebub himself — Dick Cheney!
  
• “And that luxury jet that came with the office, I put it on eBay…” And that quote, according to the Associated Press, “what Palin never adds is that the jet didn’t sell on eBay despite numerous attempts. The state eventually hired an aircraft broker to unload it.” Those six different colleges attended to earn that BA (make that BS) in Journalism sure taught her the skill of artful self-editing! 

Surely there will be more to come… Sit tight, kids!