Showing posts with label Alaska Republicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alaska Republicans. Show all posts

Monday, June 27, 2011

Some British Filmmaker Wastes a Bunch of Money Making an Anti-Palin Movie

A left-wing British filmmaker named Nick Broomfield (yeah, I've never heard of him either), has thrown good money after bad by putting together another anti-Palin project, this time in movie form. It's nothing new considering that bashing Sarah Palin (no matter how dishonest) is something of a favorite past-time for the left. They keep trying to justify their hatred and fear, only to come up short every time. There is no doubt in my mind that they won't stop trying however.

During this go around, Mr. Broomfield takes his camera to Alaska to interview people who were allegedly "close" to Governor Palin, and 'promises to deliver the goods by FINALLY revealing the "truth" about Sarah Palin'... Like we haven't heard that one before. To tell you the truth, if I were a PDS afflicted lefty, I would be feeling rather jaded by now with all the empty promises of this woman's demise, via one hit-piece after the other. It hasn't happened yet, and it isn't going to happen now.

The list of people Broomfield interviewed has not been fully disclosed yet. However, I did read an article in the LA Times a couple of weeks ago that claims he spoke to Chuck and Sally Heath. If that is true, Broomfield no doubt approached them under false pretenses. Why would they agree to be interviewed for a hatchet-job movie against their own daughter? They wouldn't. So, that's a pretty good indication that Mr. Broomfield lied to them in some fashion, and used their good nature to hurt Governor Palin... Which makes Nick Broomfield quite a loathsome character indeed.

The Daily Mail reported Sunday, that Mr. Broomfield also interviewed Lyda Green and John Bitney for his film. Those would obviously be people that Broomfield didn't have to lie about his intentions to. I'm sure they gladly played along for the cameras. In fact, let's take a little trip down memory lane to refresh everybody's memories as to just how non-credible both of these people are. Let's start off with Lyda Green.

From a piece I wrote back in January:
Do you remember the name Lyda Green? For those of you who don’t know, Lyda Green was the Republican State Senate President in Alaska during much of Palin’s term as governor. Shortly after McCain picked the governor to join the national Republican ticket in 2008, Green took a public swipe at Governor Palin by saying:
“She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”

Left-wing media publications lapped this quote up. The fact that Lyda Green was the Alaska State Senate President, a Republican, and from Wasilla no less, was all they needed to pounce on this story as a ringing indictment against Governor Palin. There was one little problem with that however. You see, Lyda Green was an old political foe of Governor Palin’s, with ties to the Veco scandal, and the “Corrupt Bastards Club.” In response to Green’s swipe, Greg Pollowitz at National Review Online wrote:
Doesn’t the far left understand that conservatives — the base of the Republican party — do not care what Alaska Republicans think of her? Alaska Republicans symbolize everything that we think is wrong with the Republican party.

For a good example of the type of stunts Lyda Green pulled on Governor Palin, Dennis Zaki (of all people) wrote a piece for the Alaska Report in January of 2008 called, “Lyda Green refuses to support Alaska’s troops.” He wrote:
Alaska Senate president Lyda Green is trying to block governor Sarah Palin from seeing her son graduate basic training Thursday at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Palin sent a letter December 18th asking lawmakers to schedule a joint session of the House and Senate to hear the speech at 6 pm on the first night of the legislative session so Palin could make a 9 pm flight that night to Seattle.

The 6 pm timeslot would allow Palin to catch a flight she had paid for and booked in advance.

Green claims that the traditional time is 7 pm and it should stay that way.

Senate Majority spokesman Green’s lapdog Jeff Turner claimed the reason the speech can’t be at 6 p.m. because the storms over the weekend interfered with many of the flights into Juneau and senators would be coming into town throughout the day Tuesday. Yet, a check with Alaska Airlines showed over 150 available seats Monday, and 125 seats available today from Anchorage. That’s not counting legislators already booked on flights. Turner’s claim is obviously a smokescreen.

A mother supporting her child at boot camp is as real as it gets.

Green has some explaining to do to her constituents in Wasilla with family members in the military.

And support our troops
You can read the full piece here and also catch a vintage report by Adam Brickley as he live-blogged Governor Palin's speech at that joint session of the legislature in 2008.

Moving on to John Bitney, Dan Riehl exposed this former aide to Governor Palin, and former campaign manager to Lisa Murkowski in August of 2010, just as the governor did in Going Rogue. He wrote:
In a surprising, and for some, hilarious bit of irony concerning the Alaska GOP primary, it seems as though if Senator Lisa Murkowski had read and paid attention to Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, she may not have found herself now fighting for her political life.
Roll Call looks back to try to pinpoint why Murkowski is in this mess, but they use an awful lot of anonymous sources to do so. The theories advanced by various unnamed "Alaska insiders" include John Bitney, Murkowski's campaign manager, being "in over his head" and an underwhelming performance by two general consultants Murkowski hired.

News reports, as well as my own sources, suggest it was Bitney's incompetence that may have been the single most significant factor in Murkowski potentially blowing the race. While Palin didn't use his name in the book, only his title, out of courtesy, as I understand it, Bitney was furious at Palin's portrayal of him as an incompetent, often unkempt video game addicted aide who often dropped the ball, leading to many of Palin's early problems as Alaska Governor. Oh, and he seemed to have a real problem keeping his clothing out of his food.

[...]

Hey, Murkowski, who you gonna believe, now - Palin's book, or your own eyes? Or, you know, maybe she tried to warn you, but you opted for GOP establishment cronyism over competence? That doesn't sound like the kind of Senator Alaska needs to me. Some gems regarding Bitney from Going Rogue below, interspersed with more of the story line that hints of a battle royale to come in Alaskan politics, perhaps complicated by the NRSC.

During my 2007 budget powwow, the legislative director should have been at the table with us so that there would be no surprises in the state house come veto time. Occasionally, he would wander in and out, plop down in the chair at the end of the table, nibble cookies, and absently thumb his BlackBerry. Every now and then a tired staffer on a bathroom break would pass behind him, glance down, then mouth over his head, “It’s Brick- Breaker.”

[...]

More below on Murkowski campaign director and former Palin legislative director, John Bitney, who may have once again bitten off more than he can chew. Thank God he has his tie with which to wipe his mouth. Heh!

If these are the people Mr. Broomfield choose to highlight the day before he heads to Los Angeles to "shop" his film, than he's got problems. These aren't objective critics and they were both horrible public servants. Which explains their problems with Palin in the first place. The Greens and the Bitneys of the world are responsible for the current state of our nation's governing bodies. These are the people who are there to serve themselves, and honest reformers like Sarah Palin are their automatic enemies.

As I stated at the beginning, Nick Broomfield wasted his time and money on this project. While I have little doubt that one of Broomfield's fellow traveler's in L.A. will purchase this film and showcase it all over the world at film festivals, America won't buy it. Nobody outside the realm of crazed left-wing ideologues searching for their justification, will buy it. And even few of them would be willing to fork over money to see it given the current state of the economy, thank you Mr. Obama.

The major problem for Mr. Broomfield however, is that his friends in the media already destroyed his prospects to have any relevance. The witch-hunt conducted by the press, which resulted in the release of most of Governor Palin's emails during her tenure, have rendered these sorts of attacks on her useless. The email disclosure proved that Governor Palin wasn't doing anything shady, and only highlighted her great attributes as a leader. If there were anything to uncover, it would have been uncovered there. The "truth" Mr. Broomfield, has already been revealed about Sarah Palin. It's not her fault that those on the left refuse to acknowledge it.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Governor Palin Wont Play the Special Interest Game

Last week, Jonathan Bernstein filled in for Greg Sargent on The Plum Line. Mr. Bernstein wrote a piece during that time about Governor Palin, which was yet another left-serving piece trying to diminish her 'electability.' The article was titled, "Is Sarah Palin toast," after all... His article was filled with what adds up to be nothing more than a lecture on how Governor Palin isn't doing what he (and many members of the political punditry class, apparently) feel she should be doing. He did however, point out something very important in his analysis. He wrote (emphasis mine):
As for proving herself trustworthy to interest group leaders and Republican politicians, well, I haven't seen any reporting that even hinted at that.
He suggests that one must be cozy with "interest group leaders," as in special interest group leaders to survive in politics. Is their any question why so many of our 'public servants' seem to have their priorities mixed up?

Another thing Mr. Bernstein does in his article, is to list Governor Palin's detractors on the so-called right. Those being the members of the establishment that have been taking shots at her lately.

When you couple the two together, you end up with history repeating itself. This is not the first time Governor Palin has refused to ingratiate herself to special interest groups. Nor is it the first time that Republicans have been her detractors, if not outright political enemies.

Do you remember the name Lyda Green? For those of you who don't know, Lyda Green was the Republican State Senate President in Alaska during much of Palin's term as governor. Shortly after McCain picked the governor to join the national Republican ticket in 2008, Green took a public swipe at Governor Palin by saying:
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Left-wing media publications lapped this quote up. The fact that Lyda Green was the Alaska State Senate President, a Republican, and from Wasilla no less, was all they needed to pounce on this story as a ringing indictment against Governor Palin. There was one little problem with that however. You see, Lyda Green was an old political foe of Governor Palin's, with ties to the Veco scandal, and the "Corrupt Bastards Club." In response to Green's swipe, Greg Pollowitz at National Review Online wrote:
Doesn’t the far left understand that conservatives — the base of the Republican party — do not care what Alaska Republicans think of her? Alaska Republicans symbolize everything that we think is wrong with the Republican party.
For a good example of the type of stunts Lyda Green pulled on Governor Palin, Dennis Zaki (of all people) wrote a piece for the Alaska Report in January of 2008 called, "Lyda Green refuses to support Alaska's troops." He wrote:

Alaska Senate president Lyda Green is trying to block governor Sarah Palin from seeing her son graduate basic training Thursday at Fort Benning, Georgia.

Palin sent a letter December 18th asking lawmakers to schedule a joint session of the House and Senate to hear the speech at 6 pm on the first night of the legislative session so Palin could make a 9 pm flight that night to Seattle.

The 6 pm timeslot would allow Palin to catch a flight she had paid for and booked in advance.

Green claims that the traditional time is 7 pm and it should stay that way.

Senate Majority spokesman Green's lapdog Jeff Turner claimed the reason the speech can't be at 6 p.m. because the storms over the weekend interfered with many of the flights into Juneau and senators would be coming into town throughout the day Tuesday. Yet, a check with Alaska Airlines showed over 150 available seats Monday, and 125 seats available today from Anchorage. That's not counting legislators already booked on flights. Turner's claim is obviously a smokescreen.

A mother supporting her child at boot camp is as real as it gets.

Green has some explaining to do to her constituents in Wasilla with family members in the military.

And support our troops
Fellow C4P Contributor Adam Brickley live-blogged the governor's speech at that joint session on his "Draft Sarah Palin for VP" site. He reported some of Green's expressions, which you could see on camera while the governor was delivering her speech:
4:00 PM: Senate Pres. Lyda Green is seated right behind the podium, I'll be watching her face the entire time. It's produced by KTOO Juneau, and there are in fact two commentators for analysis.

4:05 PM: Palin lists the accomplishments of here first year; Green looks very teed off, I just watched her roll her eyes.

[...]

4:11 PM:
New camera angle, can't see Lyda Green's face anymore. Wondering if that is purposeful.

Adam also wrote about the initial dust-up here.

Lyda Green wasn't the only Republican in Alaska who had problems with Governor Palin. There was good reason for this. The Alaska Republican party was corrupt and not only did Governor Palin refuse to play along, she also brought public attention to the shenanigans her own party members were partaking in. This didn't go over very well with the party leaders, but it earned Governor Palin the respect of the public, who later elected her to be their governor.

Just look at the state of politics today and the amount of public trust that has gone by the wayside due to a lack of ethics by our elected representatives. The negative effects of special interest serving politicians and their cronyism in this nation are drastic. Take for example, President Obama's relationship with the unions. How convenient for them that so many pertinent (and enormous) economic decisions he made over the last two years directly benefited them. Why wouldn't this be the case considering how often Obama hosts union bosses at the White House? When it comes to President Obama's policies... Look for the union label.

Then there is the case of my own former governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold's ties to the environmental lobby are so deep, he's even related to them. He wasted a lot of money and time while in office serving this specific interest group. A million pet projects, with the Kennedy family always standing nearby. Of course, all of this came to a head a few days ago when he commuted the sentence of Esteban Nunez, the son of one of his environmental advisers. This decision was a gross miscarriage of justice for the family of the victim. San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith issued a statement after learning about the commutation that said:
"Esteban Nunez -- the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez -- is a criminal who was sentenced by an experienced and well-respected Superior Court judge. Arnold Schwarzenegger reduced the sentence by over half to help his political crony's son. In doing so, he undermined the judicial system and has jeopardized public safety."
This was Schwarzenegger's final appalling act towards the citizens of California, and one he will never live down.


They say "elections have consequences," and they most certainly do. Part of those consequences happen to be the price society pays to tend to the needs and desires of special interest groups and political backscratchers. The American people have had enough of this kind of behavior from our elected officials. Governor Palin not "proving herself trustworthy to interest group leaders" is a good thing! She is not bought & paid for like so many political figures. Governor Palin was not willing to play the games in Alaska and she isn't going to start playing them now. Going along with this unfortunate status quo would make life easier on her no doubt, but at what price?

Shortly after Governor Palin resigned in 2009, Karl Rove and others suggested she rent a place in Washington DC. The reason for that was to bring her in to their own game. So she could rub elbows with the power brokers of the nation's capitol. She didn't take their advice, and remained in her own home with her family in Alaska. When she's not there, she is traveling the country, rubbing elbows and talking with the people she believes should be the real power brokers in this country... The American people.