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Yes, there has been much ado about Sarah Palin, and there is no doubt that she has energised the Republican base. But what about her sincerity as a reformer.
Let’s take the polar bear situation, for example. While Sarah Palin was governor, she received a report from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game that she claimed disputed the polar bears’ designation as “endangered” by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to Governor Palin, the report raised questions about the polar bears designation as endangered, and she sued to have the bears taken off the list. No big deal, right? Except it wasn’t true. The report had stated quite the opposite, and Ms Palin knew it. In addition, Palin refused to relaese the report that she was using to assert her claims, a report that scientists later obtained through the Freedon of Information Act. The suit to remove the polar bears from the endangered species list has cost taxpayers $462,000, even though the bears are still endangered. Governor Palin’s desire to remove the bears from the endangered list revolves around her desire to use lands inhabited by the bears to drill for oil. If the bears maintain their designation, then oil drilling can not take place in their habitats. According to Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, “Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear.” For this reason as well, as her arguments questioning the effects attributed to global warming, she has been awarded the Center’s “Rubber Dodo Award”. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this, however, goes far beyond polar bears and oil. Sarah Palin claims that she is a reformer. She also claimed in her interview with Charlie Gibson that her personal views do not interfere with her public role, a claim that would seem to be unfounded since she apparently used her personal view (that oil trumps bears) to interfere with the proper designation of the bears and to misrepresent the findings of the report. What’s more alarming is that when she made the claim, she was speaking specifically about her views on abortion, which are in goose step with the far right wing of her party. Ms. Palin believes abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. So in a nutshell, here’s what we have: a woman who claims to be a reformer, but has been less than honest and has used her office to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to further her own personal and political agenda. Will she, if elected to the vice presidency, do more of the same?
The copyright of the article Palin, Polar Bears, and Oil in US Elections is owned by Walter Edwards. Permission to republish Palin, Polar Bears, and Oil in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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