The gift that keeps on giving

Thank God for Sarah Palin: we needed some comic relief:
1. Her daughter gets a choice; no one else should.
2. She helped run a “527” for Ted Stevens, the corrupt politician she supposedly “took on.” (He supported her campaign for governor in 2006.)
3. Thinks the Founders wrote the Pledge.
4. Getting creamed by Biden in a “poll” on the RNC website.

1. The McCain campaign announces that Bristol Palin, pregnant and unmarried at 17, chose to carry the pregnancy to term. No mention of the fact that if John McCain and Sarah Palin’s preferred policies were in place, that choice would not have been hers to make.

[As to the impulse to use the pregnancy to attack “abstinence-only” or to cast aspersions on Sarah Palin’s mothering skills, what Hilzoy said and what Megan said. Let’s try to keep some of our morals, folks.]

2. Remember how Sarah Palin was a “reformer” and “took on Ted Stevens,” proving that she’s tough enough to take on Putin? Not so much; turns out that not only did Palin accept Stevens’s support when she ran for Governor in 2006 she was an official of Stevens’s 527 group. Bonus fun fact: McCain considers 527s “clearly illegal.”

3. From a 2006 Eagle Forum candidate questionnaire (Q11):

Q. Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

Sarah Palin: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

The Pledge was written in 1892 and officially adopted by Congress in 1942. “Under God” wasn’t added until 1954.

(File this under “If God had intended us to fly, He never would have given us railroads.”)

Update MS-NBC reports that Palin is lawyering up for the Troopergate investigation. Andrea Mitchell reports that Republican lawyers are now headed to Alaska to do a more thorough vetting job; McCain apparently picked Palin only after it was made clear to him that he couldn’t have his first choice, Lieberman.

Second update Jon Stewart is rude:

Author: Mark Kleiman

Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out. Books: Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken) When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993) Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989) UCLA Homepage Curriculum Vitae Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com