Palin: Much worse than a faceplant into cement at high velocity

I've maintained since the nomination of Sarah Palin that America hasn't reached the astounding level of political cynicism and superficiality necessary to elect a woman this abhorrently unqualified. The bad thing about voicing these predictive political theories, however, is that I can brag about being right in November if she loses, but I'll have no choice but to throw myself off a building if I'm wrong. Indeed, every time I read a story about Palin's political history or core belief system, that tall building gets a little bit higher:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Los Angeles Times) -- Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, a local music teacher said, she startled him during a casual conversation by insisting that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth only 6,000 years old -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct.

After conducting a college band and watching Palin deliver a commencement address to a small group of home-schooled students, Wasilla resident Philip Munger said he questioned the young mayor about her religious beliefs during a June 1997 encounter.

Munger said Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time." When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska inAnchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on a liberal political blog.

Although in her race for governor she clamored for faith-based "intelligent design" to counter the teaching of evolution in Alaska's classrooms, Gov. Palin has not sought to require it in state schools, Alaska educators say.

As governor and in her formative role as mayor of Wasilla, Palin has tread carefully between her evangelical faith and public policy.

In issues ranging from abortion to library books, she has pressed the envelope as far as Alaska's live-and-let-live culture will allow. But she has not always bolstered her strongly held beliefs with government action and has at times retreated when her moves sparked controversy or proved politically impractical.

She has harnessed the political muscle of social conservatives and antiabortion groups, yet did not push hard for a special legislative session on abortion and reluctantly did not challenge a court ruling that allowed health insurance for same-sex partners of state workers.

Palin has repeatedly attended prayer sessions with Christian pastors and has quietly sought their guidance -- but she is often mum on matters of faith in high-profile public forums.

Her aides say Palin's caution at the intersection of religion and governance is a studied effort to share her beliefs without imposing them on Alaska's fiercely independent political culture.

"She's obviously an intensively religious person," said Bill McAllister, Palin's chief spokesman as governor. "She understands that she's the governor and not preacher-in-chief. Religion informs her decisions, but she is not out to impose her views on Alaska."

McAllister said he has never heard Palin reprise those 1997 remarks about dinosaurs and that Palin has preferred not to discuss her views on evolution publicly -- though a former campaign aide said that Palin privately made a similar reference during her 2006 race for Alaska governor. "I've never had a conversation like that with her or been apprised of anything like that," he said. McAllister added that "the only bigotry that's still safe is against Christians who believe in their faith." The thought that dinosaurs and men coexisted early on in a world newly created by God is a popular strain in creationist belief.

Critics say she holds back from trying to codify her fervent faith-based views when she senses that she'll have a political price to pay.

"She's got a fine-tuned sense of how far to push," said John Stein, who was toppled as mayor of Wasilla by Palin after he guided her into her political career.
Stein said Palin displayed only vague hints of her fundamentalist Assembly of God upbringing when he first backed her for a nonpartisan run for Wasilla City Council in the early 1990s. But in 1996, when Palin ousted Stein with the aid of pink-colored antiabortion mailers and busloads of Christian grass-roots activists, she grew more overt about her plans, he said.

She combined her staff meetings with prayer sessions, Stein said, and upset the town's chief librarian by asking about how to ban books that she considered offensive. The move was never carried out, Stein said, only because "the library director was horrified and stood up to her."

"Sarah brought it up because she knew there was a moral majority in Wasilla who needed their voices heard," counters Geri McCann, who ran Wasilla's town museum under Palin.

Jesus tits, we've got two more of these things?

We'll all be better off when everybody realizes how much of a farce the presidential debates are in determining anything of substance about a politician. With that said, I learned from the debate that John McCain is a condescending, bitter old man who looks like he's running low on his Alzheimer's pills and skipped his afternoon nap. What does that tell me about his policies?

A better question: In America, who cares?

Jesus loves you

Unless you're black, apparently:

NEWBERG, Ore. (AP) - Officials of a Christian university say a life-size effigy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on the campus.

George Fox University President Robin Baker says a custodian discovered the cardboard cutout of Obama early Tuesday at the Oregon school and removed it.

The effigy was accompanied by a message targeting participants of a minority student scholarship program called Act Six.

It read, "Act Six reject."

Baker says he met with the students in the Act Six program, who receive full scholarships, late Tuesday and plans to address the school's student body Wednesday.

Yet another face-in-palms moment

Sometimes I consider the possibility that Americans are way too stupid to recognize the significance, function and reality of a free press:

BANGOR, Maine — A Maine TV news anchor who bears a resemblance to the Republican vice presidential nominee says she's been getting "hate mail and nasty phone calls" from viewers who think she's trying to copy Sarah Palin's signature style.

Cindy Michaels from WVII-TV has long brown hair that she sometimes wears up in a style similar to Palin's, and she also wears glasses on occasion.

Michaels says viewers recently began accusing her of trying to copy Palin's style or, worse, somehow trying to subliminally sway votes.

While smarting over accusations of bias, Michaels says she's generally flattered by the comparisons to Palin. Michaels describes her as a "beautiful woman."

Palin violates the truth about rape victims

An interesting quote from the McLies campaign today:

"As her record shows, Gov. Palin is committed to supporting victims and bringing violent criminals to justice," Hazelbaker said. "She does not, nor has she ever believed that rape victims should have to pay for an evidence gathering test."

Oh really? Well, what about this:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's hometown required women to pay for their own rape examinations while she was mayor, a practice her police chief fought to keep as late as 2000.

A former Alaskan lawmaker says it seems unlikely that Gov. Sarah Palin was unaware of Wasilla's policy.

A former Alaskan lawmaker says it seems unlikely that Gov. Sarah Palin was unaware of Wasilla's policy.

Former state Rep. Eric Croft, a Democrat, sponsored a state law requiring cities to provide the examinations free of charge to victims. He said the only ongoing resistance he met was from Wasilla, where Palin was mayor from 1996 to 2002.

"It was one of those things everyone could agree on except Wasilla," Croft told CNN. "We couldn't convince the chief of police to stop charging them."

Alaska's Legislature in 2000 banned the practice of charging women for rape exam kits -- which experts said could cost up to $1,000.

Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, often talks about her experience running Wasilla, population approximately 7,000, and that has prompted close scrutiny of her record there. Wasilla's practice of charging victims for their rape exams while she was mayor has gotten wide circulation on the Internet and in the mainstream media.

...

Judy Patrick, who was Palin's deputy mayor and friend, blames the state.

"The bigger picture of what was going on at the time was that the state was trying to cut their own budget, and one of the things that they were doing was passing on costs to cities, and that was one of the many things that they were passing on, the cost to the city," said Patrick, who recalls enormous pressure to keep the city's budget down.

But the state was never responsible for paying the costs of local investigations. Patrick was also a member of Wasilla City Council, and she doesn't recall the issue coming before council members, nor does she remember discussing the issue with Palin.

She does recall Palin going through the budget in detail. She said Palin would review each department's budget line by line and send it back to department heads with her changes.

"Sarah is a fiscal conservative, and so she had seen that the city was heading in a direction of bigger projects, costing taxpayers more money, and she was determined to change that," Patrick said.

So, here's what we know: 1) Gov. Sarah Palin was the mayor of Wasilla; 2) Wasilla forced women to pay for their own rape kits; 3) Gov. Palin was heavily involved in funding activities for the city and even went "line by line" through the city budget. So, basically, either the McCain campaign is lying about her lack lack of support for rape victims, or she was completely clueless about funding in her own city. I question the argument that she didn't know about the rape kits, given that her own police chief was fighting legislative efforts to require city funding:

Tara Henry, a forensic nurse who has been treating rape victims across Alaska for the last 12 years, told CNN that opposition to Croft's bill from Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon was memorable.

So, then, was she unaware of her own police chief's lobbying efforts? Or is she just lying through her teeth? More likely, Palin was taking the insane religious stance that emergency contraception, which is part of a rape kit, is akin to abortion. Awesome.

Palin: Too clueless to debate but, like, soooooo qualified!!!!!!!

Gov. Palin, apparently, is much too stupid to debate Sen. Joe Biden in a traditional setting, so the McCain campaign is simply changing the rules. Interesting. Last week we were hearing all about how nobody should dare question whether Palin is qualified, and now the campaign is acknowledging that she is incapable of even debating another politician. The hypocrisy is nearly as clear as seeing Russia from Alaska:

(NYT) The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

Mr. Obama, shown in Florida on Friday, won an agreement for the first debates to be about foreign policy and national security.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

The wrangling was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which is sponsoring the forums.

Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for unpredictable questioning and challenges between the two vice-presidential candidates. On Wednesday, the commission unanimously rejected a proposal sought by advisers to Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to have the moderator ask questions and the candidates answer, with no time for unfettered exchanges. Advisers to Mr. Biden say they were comfortable with either format.

Both campaigns see the four debates as pivotal moments in a presidential race that is not only extraordinarily close but also drawing intense interest from voters; roughly 40 million viewers watched the major speeches at the two parties’ conventions. The upheaval in the financial markets has recast the race in recent days, moreover, which both sides believe will only heighten attention for the debates.

A commission member said that the new agreement on the vice-presidential debate was reached late Saturday morning. It calls for shorter blocks of candidate statements and open discussion than at the presidential debates.

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin’s debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain’s positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense.

Thanks, AP

Urgent! We have no information! (From the AP wire feed, emphasis mine):

BC-AS--Koreas-Nuclear, 1st Ld-Writethru,0207
URGENT
NKorea: Regime preparing to restart nuke facility

Eds: APNewsNow. UPDATES with White House reaction.

PANMUNJOM, Korea — A North Korean diplomat says the communist regime is undertaking "thorough preparations" to restart its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.
Hyun Hak Bong has told reporters at the border Friday that North Korea stopped disabling the Yongbyon complex as previously agreed because the U.S. has not kept its end of a disarmament-for-aid deal.
He says "we are making thorough preparations to restart" the facility, but did not say when it would be running again.

The White House had no immediate reaction on the North Korean plans.

Hyun spoke before the start of talks at the border village of Panmunjom with South Korean officials on sending energy aid to the impoverished North amid a deadlock in the six-party disarmament talks.

Palin: Too dumb to talk to reporters?

Sarah Palin's voice makes me want to tear my fucking eyeballs out. At least then I could convince myself that I'm not really witnessing the possibility that this dingbat will be our vice president and inadvertently trigger a war with Russia. For your enjoyment, a story about how Gov. Palin's own campaign is hiding her from the media, lest she accidentally shed light on the criminal investigation against her (or simply be exposed as a clueless fraud):

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Asked about her refusal to turn over e-mails to an Alaska investigator, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin looked up, smiled — and then stepped wordlessly into her waiting car.

Four days after leaving Alaska for her first solo campaign trip, Palin's hallmark is a disciplined adherence to a sparse public schedule. Appearances are few, interviews with the news media fewer still, and unscripted moments nonexistent.

She is frequently feisty in front of an audience, including Monday evening when she drew cheers as she laid into "far-East Coast politicians" who don't understand the need for control of coyotes or other predators. Or when her introduction of husband Todd as "first dude" evoked a few wolf whistles at a fundraiser.

But by the campaign's design, the self-described pitbull with lipstick, a history-making vice presidential candidate who has helped reshape the race for the White House, doesn't freelance.

"The American people are going to get to know Gov. Palin very well by the end of the campaign," says Steve Schmidt, the top strategist for presidential candidate John McCain. He said she has appeared in public nearly every day since her introduction as ticketmate more than two weeks ago, had a lengthy interview with ABC and been "delivering the reform and change message apart from John McCain and with John McCain."

In the coming days, he said, there will be more interviews, and Palin will join McCain for their first town hall-style appearance.

Yet some Republicans concede privately that Palin lacks familiarity with the numerous complex issues that she must deal with as the campaign progresses and question her readiness for high public office.

A gaffe could prove devastating to her and the ticket, they add. At the same time, she also must prepare for a nationally televised debate in October with her Democratic counterpart, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.

Several senior campaign officials accompanied Palin to Alaska recently for what amounted to a crash course in running for vice president, and the tutorial continues as she travels around the country.

"The campaign is not being run for the benefit of the press," says Rich Galen, a Republican strategist with extensive political experience. "The campaign is being run for the benefit of the campaign, and when everything is going well, then there is no need to change from what has been working."

Whatever concerns about Palin's readiness, the enthusiasm she has brought to McCain's candidacy is evident.

Polls nationally and in several key states show a swing toward McCain since she was added to the ticket, as conservatives warm to a politician they have long viewed warily. She is also the first woman running mate on a Republican ticket in history, making her a draw for female voters. The organizers of a fundraiser in Ohio where she spoke on Monday said the event raised nearly $1 million.

Yet surprisingly, even some of those who come to hear her speak temper their enthusiasm.

"She might not have the experience but a lot of people don't have experience when they take a job," said Candy Cartaya, a Cuban-American and retired accountant.

Loyal Merrick, a 32-year-old Denverite with his toddler daughter perched on his shoulders, said he has long admired McCain. "I think she's the style to his substance," he says. "She has about as much experience as (Barack) Obama does, so if you want to compare our No. 2 to their No. 1 I'm fine with that."

The governor faces an investigation back home into abuse-of-power allegations in connection with the firing of a state official, and her husband has been subpoenaed to testify in the probe.

Her views on numerous issues remain unknown. Her interview with ABC drew notice when she speculated about a possible war with Russia, and when she seemed to agree with Democratic presidential nominee Obama that U.S. troops should be permitted to cross into Pakistan to track terrorists.

Yet ironically, McCain himself was responsible for one of the ticket's most obvious public stumbles in recent days as he tried to take advantage of Palin's presence on his ticket.

Last week, he erroneously claimed she had never sought federal earmarks as governor, an assertion neither he nor his campaign disavowed. Asked about the issue on Monday, he said Obama had sought more earmarks than Palin. "The important thing is she's vetoed a half a billion dollars in earmark projects — far, far in excess of her predecessor and she's given money back to the taxpayers and she's cut their taxes, so I'm happy with her record," he said.

It's the type of questioning that the campaign has severely limited for Palin.

Since departing Alaska on Saturday for her first solo campaign trip, Palin has spoken before two rallies and appeared at a fundraiser.

After a speech in Carson City, Nev., on Saturday, she flew to Denver and made no public appearances on Sunday. She spoke in Colorado on Monday morning, then held her first solo fundraiser later in the day in Ohio. One scheduled interview was postponed due to storm-related damage. She has refused to answer shouted questions about issues ranging from the economy to the home-state investigation.

Aides keep reporters well away from her when she is campaigning, and also protect her privacy aboard her chartered campaign plane by pulling a curtain across the center aisle to separate the Palins and her top aides from the rest of the passengers.

Even Palin's carefully scripted moments can produce puzzlements.

"Too often, the government gets in the way when innovators take on cancer or Parkinson's or Alzheimer's," she told an audience in Golden, Colo. One aide suggested later that was a reference to federal earmarks that lawmakers sometimes insert into legislation, but the campaign provided no documentation for the claim.

Then, too, Palin seems to relish repeating claims that make selective use of undisputed facts. She told one audience she said "thanks, but no thanks" to the infamous Bridge to Nowhere" that was intended to link a small Alaska village to its airport on a nearby island.

In reality, she welcomed federal funding for the project until it became a national symbol of wasteful spending.

Disgruntled

I wish I could go on the Internet without seeing photos of talentless, anorexic celebrities. I really, really do.

I still hate the pope

Dateline, France: Pope Benedict XVI, aka Cardinal Ratfucker, crawls out from his palace to tell an adoring crowd of dying people that they should quit whining and just wait for God to kill them off. Also, he announced the Vatican would open a full and fair investigation into the plague of child molesters that is penetrating the ranks of the Catholic priesthood.

Quick, which part of that did I make up?

(Link)

I'd say she looks more like a horse

Hey, look, Gov. Sarah Palin is a lying bitch!

ANCHORAGE — When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project.

Stretching more than 1,700 miles, it would deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states and be the largest private-sector infrastructure project on the continent.

“And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence,” said Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. “That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.”

The reality, however, is far more ambiguous than the impression Ms. Palin has left at the convention and on the campaign trail.

Certainly she proved effective in attracting developers to a project that has eluded Alaska governors for three decades. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success.

The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs. (Read the whole story)

Interestingly enough, Palin's puppet-masters have informed us that we should view the good governor's blatant lies "in context":

A spokesman for Ms. Palin, Bill McAllister, denied that her recent statements about the pipeline were misleading. He said they should be viewed within the context of the project’s long and frustrating history, dating back to the Carter administration.

“When the governor signed the legislation giving her administration the authority to grant the gas line license to TransCanada, Alaska came closer than it has ever been to seeing the project actually happen,” Mr. McAllister said. “There is no denying that a major milestone in the project has been reached.”

Oh, context you say? Then certainly this same standard should also apply to Barack Obama when he speaks his mind, like this:

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough," he exclaimed to a standing ovation.

Of course, that's the only part of his comments that the GOP character assassins want you to see. When when you add context, as Palin's own handlers tell us we should, you see his comments a bit differently:

"We've been talking about change when we were up in the polls and when we were down in the polls," Obama said as surveys suggested McCain has overhauled his lead for the November 4 election.

"The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too.' Now think about it, these are the same folks that have been in charge for the last eight years," the Illinois senator told a crowd of 2,400 people in Lebanon, Virginia.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough," he exclaimed to a standing ovation.

Clearly, reading that quote in context would lead to the obvious conclusion that he is referring to McCain/Palin's insane policies, and the pig/lipstick business is just a metaphor for sugar-coating terrible ideas that will ruin the country. The GOP hitmen couldn't possibly accuse him of personal attacks once they see the context, right?

Barack Obama spent much of the day defending himself against charges of sexism after a speech decrying Republican efforts to present themselves as agents of change. “You know, you can put lipstick on a pig,” he said on Tuesday to loud cheers and laughter, “but it’s still a pig.”

John McCain’s campaign said that this was a clear reference to Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential nominee, who told the Republican convention that the only difference between a “hockey mom” such as herself and a pitbull terrier was lipstick.

Huh. Well, so much for the importance of context. I guess Palin is a dirty liar after all, and Obama was literally referring to Palin as a "pig" -- which is, like, totally original, except for all the other people who have used the exact same phrase:

“I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig”
- John McCain, in October 2007, on Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan

“John Kerry tries to put a bunch of fancy, fancy talk . . . but there is nothing you can do to really - to really obscure that record. You can try, though . . . We call it putting lipstick on a pig”
- Lynne Cheney during the 2004 presidential campaign

“Mr President, it's not that easy. This town is full of people very experienced when it comes to putting lipstick on a pig”
- GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Washington in April 2004

That guy who was tortured/Palin '08

Oh boy! New poll numbers!

John McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points.

The only reasonable explanation, of course, is that 50% of likely American voters are straight from the tool factory.

(/shameless Maddox reference)

"This isn't a racial thing, is it?"

Sky: Up? Ocean: Blue? Palin: Racist?

Who knows whether it's true, but it sounds about right for a relentless hick from Alaska (from LA Progressive. More on the link):

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Summer's best comedy

The GOP convention, you ask? I don't think it could have been any more hilarious had the Apatow crew scripted it. It was like a cross between Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder: You had to be high to watch it, and it only had one black guy.

Republican hypocrites: The only evidence you'll ever need

Now if Gov. Palin's 17-year-old daughter had Jon Stewart's baby, I wouldn't be complaining so much:

I still hate Sarah Palin

After spending most my recent years as a cynical political animal with a general suspicion and hatred of most elected officials -- especially evil, smug, two-faced, gun-toting fundamentalists -- I just donated money to a political campaign for the first time.

That's how much I despise Sarah Palin.

I'm running out of ways to describe my hatred for Sarah Palin

Not only is God hard at work punishing the gays and the ACLU, he's also holding out for that $30 billion Alaskan oil pipeline and crossing his fingers that America invades Middle Eastern countries and kills those motherfuckers. Right, Gov. Palin?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ministry students at her former church that the United States sent troops to fight in the Iraq war on a "task that is from God."

In an address last June, the Republican vice presidential candidate also urged ministry students to pray for a plan to build a $30 billion natural gas pipeline in the state, calling it "God's will."

Palin asked the students to pray for the troops in Iraq, and noted that her eldest son, Track, was expected to be deployed there.

"Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she said. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

A video of the speech was posted at the Wasilla Assembly of God's Web site before finding its way on to other sites on the Internet.

Palin told graduating students of the church's School of Ministry, "What I need to do is strike a deal with you guys." As they preached the love of Jesus throughout Alaska, she said, she'd work to implement God's will from the governor's office, including creating jobs by building a pipeline to bring North Slope natural gas to North American markets.

"God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built, so pray for that," she said.

"I can do my job there in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and making sure our public schools are funded," she added. "But really all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God."

Palin attended the evangelical church from the time she was a teenager until 2002, the church said in a statement posted on its Web site. She has continued to attend special conferences and meetings there. Religious conservatives have welcomed her selection as John McCain's running mate.

Rob Boston, a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, lamented Palin's comments.

"I miss the days when pastors delivered sermons and politicians delivered political speeches," he said. "The United States is increasingly diverse religiously. The job of a president is to unify all those different people and bring them together around policy goals, not to act as a kind of national pastor and bring people to God."

The section of the church's Web site where videos of past sermons were posted was shut down Wednesday, and a message was posted saying that the site "was never intended to handle the traffic it has received in the last few days."

Sarah Palin is George W. Bush with a vagina. If elected, she will destroy any last hope of surviving the Republican era. I'm counting the days until she slithers back to her wasteland.

Glad somebody said it