And I believe their is a mistake in the original premise in the post. You stated a governors cannot earmark. While this is correct and factually true, the article did not state she earmarked anything. It stated she “sought earmarks or special interest spending.”

So, if semantics are important, which I will definitely conceed is true, than work on the premise. The McCain campiagn, as quoted in the article sure thinks a governor can request or seek earmarks because they deny she did.

I thought our debate was whether Palin’s comments about the Bridge to Nowhere were correct and consitstent.

No, this thread is about whether the idea launched by the WSJ article i.e. “Palin requested earmarks” is anywhere close to valid.

Whether she is “consistent” or not on the entire issue of federal funding is another debate.

But she still took the money. Whether it was an earmark or federal request, I don’t think any would argue she was implying she was going to give the money for “that” project back to congress, which she did not do. That to me is a lie.

Sorry, this is not clear. Do you mean Palin lied when she said no thanks to the bridge or that her critics lied when they said she did not?

Why do we get into these smenatal arguments?

Because the difference between funding request and “earmark” is the same as the difference between a person who receives a paycheck and a person who embezzles.

Do you wish to argue that a wage earner and an embezzler are equivalent? Do you think someone who opposes embezzling is a hypocrite because they take their paycheck?

This is the distinction we are talking about. Earmarks are not illegal but only because congress writes the law. A similar practice in the business arena would get people thrown in jail. Funding request made openly and debated openly are like a paycheck. You get them because you follow the rules. Earmarks are like embezzlement. Congressmen take advantage of arcane rules to get something they want in secret.

It’s not semantics. There are two entirely separate phenomena.

In this thread, we’re arguing about whether federal funding should come through a secretive, non-competitive process (earmarks) or an open, competitive process (not-earmarks), and whether someone can be consistent by opposing the first while supporting the second. I think Palin is completely consistent in her going against earmarks while not having a problem with federal funding in general (though she was inconsistent in her earlier requests for earmarks as Wasilla’s mayor — if they were actual earmarks.)

Agian, we are distracted from the main point. I am sure if Obama and Biden did not vote for the “Bridge to Nowhere” those on the right would (and probably McCain would run an ad) say he voted to not fund the troops.

Yes, earmarks are a problem. (And the Republicans in Congress largely voted against ethics reforms.) But again, this is a digression on the original post. Palin wanted to bring money into the state she was goven or to improve the lives of her constituents (in the form of grants or earmarks, or whatever terminology you want to use) and now she is syaing the opposite when it is politically expedient. Lets just call a spade a spade. Can we do that?

Earmarks and federal funds are not the same thing. Earmarks are ways to sneak funding into a bill without having it go through debate, without having your project compete with other projects, etc. They’re a way to procure funding for projects that don’t deserve to be funded. IMO, if you get rid of that and make projects actually compete for funding on their own merits, you clean up one serious problem with our government.

“Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens is aggravated about what he sees as Gov. Sarah Palin’s antagonism toward the earmarks he uses to steer federal money to the state.”

http://www.adn.com/front/story/343508.html

Dear Shannon Love: First, is it Mr. or Ms. Love?

What it is is irrelevant. It’s tedious to try to get everyone on the internet to get it right so I just stopped. Besides, it fun to watch people guess.

As to the gist of your argument. Nothing you list in either Palin’s or McCain’s history deal with earmarks. As the previous two post covered, an earmark is defined by the secret way it gets inserted into law. I to believe that McCain’s idea is a bad one (even if I understand the problem it seeks to solve) but that does not mean that McCain has gone about securing that funding in a secret and unaccountable way.

You’ve fallen for the trap laid by those who love earmarks. They’ve convinced you that an earmarks is any government spending. It’s not. Palin requested funds from the federal government (far less than her predecessor) but she had no input on how congress chose to approve those request.

A governor cannot request an earmark, period. Only an elected member of the federal congress can do so.

The process is the thing. What matters is whether the procurements were made in the sunlight (as it were) or not. There is nothing wrong with “petition(ing) the Government for a redress of grievances” and the Constitution forbids we attempt to stop any citizen toward that end. Again, what matters is the manner in which the dole is dispensed.

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Dear Shannon Love: First, is it Mr. or Ms. Love?

We’re so proud of you, explaining earmarks so clearly to us dummies, using the legal word games in a manner that not only would get you an “A” at any law school, but an invite to join the faculty. Such talent for hair-splitting will carry you far.

But: consider this gem from McC, as reported by ABC News, 3 February 08, here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=4235640

The relevant portion:

“Requiring governors of border states to certify that the flow of illegal immigrants has been halted is central to John McCain’s immigration plan. The Republican frontrunner says he will not move forward with earned legalization until certification is complete. Appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s program in August, McCain pointed to the Democratic governor of his home state of Arizona as key to his proposal. “If the governor of my state, who happens to be a Democrat, would be forced she would certify that the border is secure it would be secure,” said McCain. “And that would give credibility.” “You’d have to have all the border state governors certify it,” he added. “I think that would give credibility to our claim in Washington.” ”

So: if McC can persuade Congress to write this notion into law, he’s handed the keys to the treasury to the state governors. All any border state gov has to do is sit on the certification until the Feds come through. To be sure, this can be overdone, and McC may lose patience and start sticking his finger into gubernatorial eyes, but McC has been beaten for his notions of moving the federal capital to Mexico City, and is willing to pay a high price. All legal, likely even constitutional (I’m sure we can find some of your fellow law school deans to trick up some argument that will fool the suckers, and even the Krytocracy.)

There. Disingenuousness has been met with disingenuousness. Perhaps we can move past this to an honesty that doesn’t require so much hair-splitting and thimblerigging. Sarah Palin’s record on the practice of earmarking is mixed. Hiring lobbyists in an attempt to grab a chunk of the loot, as she did as Wasilla’s mayor is dismaying. But not too dismaying. Small town mayors and even governors of petro-states have a much tougher fiscal road to travel than the Feds do. I can’t be excessively harsh toward sharp state and local elbows at the federal trough. As you rightly point out, earmarking is bad because there’s precious little sunlight involved. If a project is worth doing, it is worth doing in the open, following the same rules as all other projects.

Palin has improved greatly on her pronuncimentoes on earmarks. She sings the old sweet song beautifully. The question is, Does she really mean it? I think there’s room for hope here. Certainly compared to The One and his sordid record on earmarks, enirching his household in remarkably dubious ways, she looks 18 karat at least.

What’s your next prestidigitation? Something like this?:

Major premise: A United States Senator is a Federal official
Minor Premise: The Daley Machine in Chicago is a local creation
Conclusion: Barack Obama can have no formal relation to the Daley Machine, and hence is pure as the driven slush.

You’re amusing, though I must confess such laughter dies out quickly, leaving irritation and boredom at the constant bombardment of bilge and disingenousness. The world is difficult enough to understand without adding a bucket of bilge per post.

A much more telling question for Palin would be something like this:

“Governor, your state floats on oil. Sooner or later, it will run out. When it does, 65%[a guess---GK] of Alaska’s state revenues will dry up. What have you done as Governor to prepare Alaska for the day when the citizenry has to cough up $3200 bucks per head—or more—instead of getting $3200, courtesy of the Triceratops mob of the Cretaceous era?

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

Of course they can’t and The Wall Street Journal article didn’t say she could.

By tying her record or request to her stance on earmarks they strongly insinuated that she was getting earmarks. A large number of people took it that way e.g. the first comment on this thread.

Governors can sure request Federal grants, though, and that’s what the article said she had done.

From the parent: Trying to tie Palin to earmarks requires constructing a straw-man representation of her and McCain’s arguments in which they argue that the government should never spend federal money on specific state projects. Since they haven’t done so but, rather, merely argued for reforming the parliamentary procedure of the federal Congress, to make it more accountable, this article provides no new insight into Palin.

In short, there is no reason to even mention earmarks in this article except to prejudice the reader into believing that Palin uses earmarks.

Are you suggesting she didn’t request any Federal earmarks even though her state’s Senator was the biggest porker in the Senate was Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee?

As governor, she has absolutely no control over how the federal congress conducts it business.

A better question: Do you have any evidence that any of her request for federal dollars where granted via earmark?

Of course they can’t and The Wall Street Journal article didn’t say she could.

Governors can sure request Federal grants, though, and that’s what the article said she had done.

Are you suggesting she didn’t request any Federal earmarks even though her state’s Senator was the biggest porker in the Senate was Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee?

You are trying to skirt reality with a technical argument, no?

I cannot muster that degree of charity.

It’s not charity but enlightened self-interest. He makes my last point for me. Imagine some moderate fence sitter who wanders in and reads my post. Then he reads the first comment. What’s he going to think every time he hears someone on the left make that incoherent argument.

I think it does a lot good for people to see this kind of hateful hysteria. It reminds them what the left really is.

*Sorry if I’ve gone a bit off topic. Oh, yeah, earmarks. Nice to know small government conservatism is making inroads into the left, considering all the interest in Palin’s Alaska budget and in tax-cutting and earmarks…..