Saradise Lost - Book 2 - Chapter 76 - Which Lie Unveiled This Week is Biggest? - Updated

The only thing this past week in Alaska politics more sickening than watching the Anchorage Daily News run a fundraiser for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on the newspaper's front page, was watching the governor herself being shredded by the harsh glare of the truth.

In a radio broadcast, shortly after the Soviet Union joined Nazi Germany in their joint attack upon Poland, Winston Churchill described Russia: "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

After going through just one week of Sarah Palin's lies, it seems she is a falsehood, wrapped in a fabrication, protecting a distortion, cloaking a misrepresentation, encircling an invention, veiling a fiction, shrouding a whopper. And on and on.....

There are more layers to the tearful bullshit put out by this person than in a big, fat onion.

Lie Number One:

Gov. Palin, in a press release that announced the State's rejection of an Andree McLeod request for clarification of executive ethics statutes, the governor stated, "In the past two years, the state of Alaska has spent millions of dollars processing ethics complaints, public records requests, and related lawsuits."

Yesterday, Sean Cockerham at the ADN wrote, announcing figures released by the state, "Ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin and top members of her administration have cost the state personnel board nearly $300,000 over the past year, almost two-thirds of which appear to be from the Troopergate investigation of the governor."

Perhaps the "millions of dollars" claim will turn out to be more-or-less accurate. I doubt it, though. As I wrote at the time she made the claim, "I suspect that statement is complete bullshit. Millions of dollars means from $2,000,000.00 on up, if I am correct."

Lie Number Two:

Last Saturday, Palin twittered from Kosovo, "half of the people in Emmonak have met subsistence needs and the other half believe they can do the same."

She may have been misinformed by her rural affairs coordinator, John Moller. We won't know his role in this until he comes back from fulfilling his "needs," fishing, though. But the word coming out of the lower Yukon is that Palin and her administration lied. Palin spokesperson Sharon Leighhow emailed the ADN's Kyle Hopkins, "The good news – At the Federal Subsistence meeting in Emmonak last week, Nick Tucker reported that 50 percent of the residents have met subsistence needs and other 50 percent are confident they will meet their needs."

The eloquent Nick Tucker, being told of the Palin administration's us of his iconic voice on their behalf, put it this way:

“I want them to take it back! I’ve never said that. Ten times over, I’ve never said that. It was from one fisherman in Alakanuk. I do not believe that we in Emmonak – Emmonak never said that.”

Lie Number Three:

As a result of the Runner's World story that came out this week, here's The Mudflats' coverage of Lie Number Three:

But then there came a part about her swearing the Secret Service to silence so the story would never get out…and that they’ve kept her secret to this day, bless their hearts.

RW: I don’t remember news reports about it.

SP: Heck no! I made those guys swear to secrecy. And I probably should have gotten a couple stitches. But I was insisting with these guys, “Absolutely not, let’s just wash it out.” I appreciated how much care they took to help me out. So anyway, I have a little scar on my hand, and I’ve seen a couple of pictures from the debate or of me waving to someone on the campaign trail with that Band-Aid and I think, nobody else knows about it.

Huh?

First of all, why try to keep this a secret?

Second, remember the day when she showed up with a ginormous bandage on her hand, and it was all over the media that she’d taken a spill at the McCain ranch?

I did. Well, so did this diarist on Daily Kos, and anyone who read or watched the news during the debate period.

Here’s the photo.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin waves with a bandaged hand as a result of falling while jogging, as she and her husband Todd Palin board her campaign plane at the Flagstaff, Arizona airport for the trip to St Louis, Missouri. Palin will face-off with her Democratic counterpart Joe Biden in the Vice-Presidential debate later on October 2, 2008

Guess those Secret Service guys are going to be in big big trouble.

Lie Number Four:

In a multiple document email exchange with McCain campaign staffer, Steve Schmidt, about todd Palin's membership in the Alaska Independence Party (Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert interviewed multiple people in the Mat-Su Valley last fall, about Todd's involvement in the AIP), Palin, not satisfied with one lie, dug herself into a situation of having to tell a series of them. Here's part of the first email:

Pls get in front of that ridiculous issue that’s cropped up all day today - two reporters, a protestor’s sign, and many shout-outs all claiming Todd’s involvement in an anti-American political party. It’s bull, and I don’t want to have to keep reacting to it … Pls have statement given on this so it’s put to bed.

And from a followup email:

That’s not part of their platform and he was only a ‘member’ bc independent alaskans too often check that ‘Alaska Independent’ box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan,” Palin wrote. “He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed.

AK Muckraker at The Mudflats deals nicely with this particular falsehood.

That's just four of the lies this week. Thee must be more, but I've got work to do today. If you can think of others from this past week, please note them in the comments.

Update:

1. New lies coming into the comment section. I'm only looking for lies either told or brought to light since last Friday (June 26th)

2. David Neiwert has a post up at Crooks & Liars, about the AIP and other stuff he was abl to dig up while staying with us in Wasilla last year.