“Dur, Alaska is Close to Russia” (and other discredited liberal taunts)

Liberals have been mocking the McCain campaign’s references to Governor Sarah Palin’s role in relations with Russia by pointing out their proximity. Well, it turns out that Governor Palin has been involved in trade and cooperative environmental/resource-gathering with Russia (source).

In addition to negotiating trade and cooperation with Russia, Governor Palin has been involved with negotiations with Japan, Korea, China, Canada and Germany (and those are just the top five! [source]).

I found these results by googling “alaska trade”. I didn’t have to log in to anything and required only an internet browser and Adobe Acorbat Reader (which is free), so I can certainly see why the media has been as yet unable to discover these obscure facts.

2012: President Palin?

We’ve all been thinking about it. With Sarah Palin as the Vice Presidential nominee and (hopefully) the Vice President of the United States in 2008, it would only be a matter of time before Governor Palin herself was on the top of the ticket.

“Palin for President 2012″ is a blog that says it is starting a movement to elect Sarah Palin the President in 2012. There’s not much on the website or blog yet but I will be closely monitoring the site. Any friend of Sarah Palin’s is a friend of ours. Sign me up!

You can find their blog here, and if you know any other websites/groups/blogs that want to elect Palin the President in 2012, leave a comment and I’ll add them to the blogroll at right on the page P4A: Palin 2012.

ABC Offered First Palin Interview

According to the Associated Press, Sarah Palin has offered her first televised interview to ABC. According to the story, the interview will take place later this week after Governor Palin returns to Alaska off the campaign trail. 

Stay tuned for details!

Oprah Won’t Interview Palin

After using her show and her massive podium to promote the presidential ambitions of Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey has finally discovered the idea of neutrality. She will not have Sarah Palin, the first woman to be nominated on a national ticket in nearly a quarter century, and the first woman to be nominated in a Republican ticket, on her daytime talk show that caters to women.

Why Oprah would consider Sarah Palin of no interest to her television audience is beyond me. Oprah has made no secret of her support for Barack Obama. She is a Chicago-style maven. Barack Obama is a Chicago-style politician. It’s not rocket science.

The problem as I see it is that Oprah is saying that she doesn’t want to use her show as a “platform” for any of the candidates. After months of using her massive power and appeal to promote Barack Obama, she’s decided that it’s a bad thing to provide a venue for discussion about any other candidate.

I think Oprah is passing up an opportunity here, but ultimately it’s smart. She could have Governor Palin on the show and grill her on the issues, but that would risk her looking like a rabid partisan, something that her audience would not approve of. Or she could have Governor Palin on the show and chit-chat about her experience as a working mother, and risk allowing the governor to set the record straight on some of the more outrageous scandals that have been circulating around her, and Oprah wouldn’t want that.

It would be refreshing if Oprah would be honest with us instead of giving us some nonsense about not using her show to support a candidate. But what do you expect from a Chicago-style media mogul?