Over the past 72 hours, we’ve seen Sarah Palin travel across the country talking up Barack Obama’s past associations and saying the he is “palling around with terrorists…”

I know this is total BS - most smart people in America know this is total BS, but yet she continues to regurgitate the line with ease no real concern for the truth. Not only is she recycling the line over and over, but the press has now picked up on these smears and are reporting them as real news.

Why then isn’t the press covering the fact that Sarah Palin and her husband have close ties to the Alaska Independence Party - a political party in Alaska that wants to succeed from America? Talk about shady associations…

Jed from The Jed Report compiled this video - it’s good and should be spread around. Jed asks:

If Sarah Palin wasn’t a secessionist, then why was she palling around with them?

After the debate ended last night, I got a couple emails and texts from friends and family who wanted to know what I thought about the show. Here are some of my musings on last nights debate.

Gov. Palin went into the debate with a pretty easy task - she couldn’t fall, she couldn’t have another deer-in-headlights moment, she couldn’t trip over words - she simply had to be Sarah Palin. To that end, she accomplished her singular goal. I don’t think she fell, she hit her basic talking points and she didn’t get lost in her words, like we saw in the network interviews.

However, she didn’t answer questions, she evaded policy issues, she brought everything back to the topics she wanted to discuss and personally, I found her folksy “Joe six-pack” lingo and overall presentation to be absolutely nauseating.

Seriously folks, we tried the slow-talking, colloquial, down home politician thing - his name was George W. Bush. How well did that work out?

Sarah Palin is out of her league, not because she is a woman, but because she’s not up to the task of running America. She regurgitated a stump speech last night and showed no mastery or command of issues. The mere thought of he serving as Vice President of the United States literally scares me. She’s not ready for prime time, she’s not ready to lead America.

For his part, Biden was good. I expected Biden to be good, he’s been at this for many years. He showed a command of policy, a leadership on important issues and even showed an emotional side when he spoke of his family and the loss of his first wife in a tragic car accident when he was 29 years old.

Last night’s debate didn’t move voters. It may have stopped the Palin slide that we’ve seen over the past couple weeks, but I don’t think anyone changed their mind based on the performance of either of these candidates. At the end of the day, I urge Americans to think past the novelty of Sarah Palin and remember that Bush is our living, breathing example that hiring someone into the executive merely on style is a mistake. Listen to what these people are saying, not just how they are saying it. This time around, I have confidence in the American people to do the right thing.

If you missed the debate, here’s the full broadcast courtesy of our friends at MSNBC.

Gov. Palin has been on the national stage for just about a months time. Is she ready to serve as Vice President, or even President, should something happen to 72 year old John McCain? Well, you decide.

Posted without comment…

I’m not being sexist or a misogynist when I say that this governor/mother/daughter/American/person/earthling/wife/hunter, etc. is NOT ready to be President of the United States of America. The evidence is right here.

Watch CBS Videos Online

A man of few words…dude…

Nice work, TPM.

The email below was just forwarded to me. It’s poses some very good questions. If you’re so inclined, please copy and paste the text and get this email out to your address book today.

—–Original Message—–
From: SENDER
Sent: Tue 9/17/2008
To: RECIPIENT
Subject: Obama Confusion…

* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you’re
‘exotic, different.’

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, yours is a quintessential
American story.

* If your name is Barack you’re a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow,Trig and Track, you’re a maverick.

* Graduate from Columbia University and Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you’re well
grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years
as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of
the state Senate’s Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years
in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people
while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs,
Environment and Public Works and Veteran’s Affairs committees, you
don’t have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000
people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people,
then you’re qualified to become the country’s second highest ranking
executive and next in line behind a man in his eighth decade.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while
raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you’re
not a real Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left
your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you’re a
true Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state’s school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you’re very responsible.

* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family’s values
don’t represent America ’s.

* If you’re husband is nicknamed ‘First Dude’, with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn’t register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession
of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.

via Politico.

• $400,000: Alaska Invasive Species Program: Continues to comprehensively prevent, identify, and respond to the threat of invasive species on the Alaska environment.

• $494,900: Assessment of Recreational Halibut Harvest in Alaska: This is an ongoing effort to collect data on the recreational halibut fishery that is conducted by federal agencies though relying on the state for data.

• $2 million: Bering Sea Crab Research and Management: Researches Bering Sea crab productivity and sustainability as necessary to restore crab stocks.

• $3.2 million: Seal and Steller Sea Lion Biological Research: Funds monitoring of ice seal populations in Native villages, research on the species delineation and genetics of harbor seals to understand the declines in population and provide for population restoration, and continues research into Steller Sea Lion population decline.

As much as John McCain is clearly still supporting President Bush when it comes to every single policy position, it’s actually Sarah Palin who is shaping up to be much more like W. when it comes to disposition and “governing” style. Check out the court warnings against Palin for disparaging her sister’s ex-husband:

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers’ union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were “not job-related,” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives."

Attacking and disparaging someone’s character when you don’t agree with them? Sounds familiar.