Pork-Barrel Palin, The Earmark Champ

Now John McCain learns, as we do, that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) sent a 70-page memo to Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in February seeking $200 million for new Alaska earmarks, and as mayor of the village of Wasilla she lobbied hard for and won more than $26 million of earmarks.

If you believe Sarah Palin is a reformer, you will believe that the College of Cardinals will summon me to Rome as successor to the pope. Palin long ago hired the prime pork lobbying firm in Alaska, which features Ted Stevens’s son, and Ted Stevens’s former chief of staff, who serviced her pork lobbying account.

The regular junkets of Palin and her staff to Washington, hustling earmark dough, are legendary in Alaska. Someone will soon add up the airfare, hotel and fine dining tabs to push for the pork, plus the lobbying fees, all at taxpayer expense, starting with Wasilla, continuing as governor.

It’s good Palin was only the mayor of the small village of Wasilla with only 6,700 people. Just think what bacon “pork-barrel Palin” would have brought home as mayor of a real city with hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people. Do the math. Give her credit — a town of 6,700 people, more than $26 million pieces of pork. When feeding time at the trough arrives, Palin is the real barracuda!!!

This is what happens when an impulsive presidential candidate picks a person he literally does not know, did not vet, and plays roulette with the future of America.

Who knows what we will learn next? For now I dub her “pork-barrel Palin,” the Super Bowl champ of the earmarks, the Olympic gold medal winner for pork, the World Series star of hiring insider lobbying firms, now part of one of the great false advertising campaigns in presidential campaign history.

Who knows what the 10 McCain vetters who are now beginning their work will find out next?