Things I learned from Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin (Part Two)

Earmarks are bad. They are an embarrassment. Except when they're in Ms. Palin's state or community. It's not bad to try to get money for your region! And not everybody in Alaska supported that bridge, anyway. It was much too expensive. Thank goodness the money didn't have to leave Alaska!

It's not flip-flopping when you pull your support for a project after you find out that you can't get federal funding for it. What good would it do to support it then? Just lie to the public: Say you killed the project and move on with the money.

Government spending should be done in the light of day, not behind closed doors. That's why lobbyists are very, very bad. Except when they're working for Wasilla. Then it's just reasonable to hire them instead of constantly flying to Washington to lobby Congress directly. (WTF?)

She does not have allegiances to lobbyists. Only the ones she paid.

Senator Obama has voted for tax increases or against tax cuts 94 times. I want to say something about this. A year or so ago, I watched a TV interview with my favourite American politician, John McCain. You may remember him as the person I wanted to be president. (That's how I choose to remember him, anyway.) He was railing against a television ad that was accusing some politician of voting against something. I don't remember the details, but what he said really stuck with me. He said that all of these attacks on politicians about voting records are suspect. He pointed out that bills in the Senate can have any number of unrelated things attached to them. So a vote for military spending can also be a vote for something that sounds ridiculous, like seaweed control. And a vote against a tax break can also be a vote against something nobody wants, like allowing untreated pedophiles to open daycares. He said that he could personally be accused of voting against any number of bills that would have done something he really wanted, but were also loaded down with pork. The point was that we should never make a voting decision based on a snappy quote about what the person had voted for or against. I think about that interview whenever I see an ad about a politician's voting record. I think about it a lot these days.