How Sarah Palin Exercised Her Responsibilities

Sarah Palin’s most famous quote is “Being a small town mayor is… a little like being a community organizer… except with actual responsibilities!” Let’s look at how she used her responsibility as The Wall Street Journal looks at the biggest project she undertook:

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.

The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin’s legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.

“It’s too bad that the city of Wasilla didn’t do their homework and secure the land before they began construction,” said Kathy Wells, a longtime activist here. “She was not your ceremonial mayor; she was in charge of running the city. So it was her job to make sure things were done correctly.”

Ms. Palin, now Alaska’s governor and Republican Sen. John McCain’s running mate, has pointed to her two terms as Wasilla’s mayor, from 1996 to 2002, as evidence that she has enough executive experience to take on the presidency, should the need arise — more than Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who touts his own background as a community organizer in Chicago.

John McCain also failed in his responsibilities by failing to properly vet his vice presidential choice. American cannot risk voting for someone who shows so little concern for the fate of his country that he makes such a politically motivated decision without regards for the consequences.

Obama and McCain Tie In TV Audience for Acceptance Speeches

Now that the PBS numbers have been included in the ratings it looks like a tie between the audiences watching the acceptance speeches by Barack Obama and John McCain with each estimated at having 42.4 million viewers. There is no count for C-SPAN. Obama’s speech was also given at the start of a holiday weekend, possibly reducing his audience. (I watched with a small group in our suite at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island as we knocked off a bottle of Bailey’s. Thanks to picking up a Slingbox bofore leaving on vacation I also managed to catch other parts of the convention on line over my Palm while out of the room.)

Fox had the highest ratings for the Republican convention while CNN had the highest ratings for the Democratic convention. Bill O’Reilly received his second highest ratings ever for the first night of his interview with Obama.

Interest of this magnitude in the race is encouraging, suggesting large numbers will also follow the campaign through the fall. Hopefully they will also watch critically, noticing that John McCain’s new slogan might be “American First, Truth Second.” Factcheck.org has exposed many of the untrue statements in McCain’s acceptance speech. McCain has distorted the truth so badly about Obama’s proposals that even Fox News has pointed out McCain’s dishonesty on two occasions that I’m aware of.