Talking Turkey: Less Gobble, More Meat, Please.

[Blue_In_AK]

From Andrew Halcro's blog http://www.andrewhalcro.com/talking_turkey_less_gobble_more_meat_please

The most troubling part of Governor Palin's combo turkey pardon and slaughter press conference last week, was how yet again public relations seemed to overshadow the fact that this governor cannot speak in coherent sentences when it comes to explaining the State of the State.

While You Tube and several cable news stations were running a video of Governor Palin talking to the media while a poultry farm employee was feeding a turkey into a wood chipper type machine in the background, very few actually paid attention to what she said.

Or what has become the norm for Palin; what she said that nobody can understand.

When asked by a reporter about plans to address the challenges that are ahead for the state, Palin responded:

"Plans just include gettin through the budget process that were going through right now. Building the state's budget based on the price of oil that has plummeted so greatly and reigning in the growth of government and plans like that, that have to do with governing this state and building this team that is continually being built to provide good services to Alaskans, so in my role as governor that's what my plans are all around."

Plans just include gettin' through the budget process that were going through right now? Building this team that is continually being built?

What in the world do these sentences mean?

Apparently, not only can the governor speak in mangled syntaxes but she also rewrites history with them.

When another reporter asked, "Due to declining oil prices, are you concerned with any state programs being on the chopping block?", Palin seemed to forget her less than fiscally conservative ways last year.

"Yea now, thankfully we're in a good position still, fiscally speaking. But it made no sense that at $140 barrel oil, some lawmakers wanted to spend, spend, spend and we were warning them then that we needed to prepare for the day that the price of oil would plummet which of course it has done. We had prepared then, reigned in the growth of government then, and we will now that comes into play now at this point, where those savings we had set aside and forward funding, anticipating a drop in oil, accounting for that, all of that comes into play now at $50 per barrel oil" Palin answered.

Excuse me but it was the governor who proposed a budget last year that the Legislative Finance Division called a 15% increase when she claimed it was a 4% increase and it was the governor who advocated spending an additional $760 million to be sent out to Alaskans due to state coffers over flowing with $140 per barrel oil.

In defense of lawmakers, I never once heard Palin worry about $50 per barrel oil or reigning in state spending when she was pushing to spend $760 million for an energy rebate or advocating to give TransCanada $500 million to push a pipeline plan to nowhere.

But what is most alarming is after the economic and public news of the last week, Governor Palin had nothing intelligent to say about anything. In fact, since she has been back from the campaign trail, she has spent more time talking about herself than about the State of the State.

A Bad Two Weeks

Meanwhile, what has Palin been working on?

The governor has been doing interviews with Greta Van Susteren, Matt Lauer, Larry King, Wolf Blitzer and many others she expressed disdain for on the campaign trail as the elite liberal media. It seems the governor's appetite for the people she formerly referred to as the gotcha media has grown dramatically now that she wants to muse about her plans for 2012.

“Tomorrow, Governor Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet,” said her spokesman, Bill McAllister. "Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That’s the level we are at here.”

But after two months away from her real job, shouldn't Palin be talking to the people who matter the most; her constituents?

Shouldn't she piece together a few coherent sentences on Alaska's economy and how she plans to lead us through some rough times that are appearing on the horizon?

Shouldn't Alaska's local chambers of commerce be the level that Palin is at?

Over the last two weeks, the laundry list of bad news has been long and wide. But yet Governor Palin seems unattached, unaware and to a large degree uninterested in relating that she has any clue about what Alaska is facing.

* Oil has dropped to $45 per barrel down from $144 in July, while state spending is based on an average of $83 per barrel. The problem is that demands are increasing including from communities that are asking for more help for everything from cost shifts from rural Alaska to a greater subsidy for energy costs.

* Alaska's unemployment rate jumped to 7.4% compared to 6.2% at the same time last year, prompting the Alaska Department of Labor to say ""The rate increase raises questions about the state's economic health."

* At the annual Resource Development Conference, many firms said they have put off capital investments due to increasing costs, higher state taxes and the lower price of oil.

* With the national economy in a nose dive, University of Alaska economists predicted that both mining and tourism could be in for soft years.

* The ninth circuit court of appeals shut down Shell's plan to drill for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea.

* A recent national study shows Alaska's drop out rate is twice the national average.

* A recent Federal report says the Alaska Office of Child Services is failing in key areas.

* The Alaska Department of Natural Resources rejected Exxon's permit application to build an ice road to Point Thomson that would have allowed them to finally drill baby drill.

* A New York Times article this past week quoted former Governor Knowles and Murkowski pipeline consultant Pedro Van Meurs as saying "Current economic conditions are not good for the Alaska Gas Line, and I expect considerable delays."

All in all, not great news for a governor who told America she had reformed Alaska's government, was building a $40 billion gas pipeline and had reigned in government spending.

More importantly for Alaskans, it again begs the question; what is Governor Palin doing about these issues and what is her vision for leading Alaska forward and protecting the state's economy in what appears to be a deepening global recession?

Enough gobbling governor.

How about putting some meat on the table?

[Witchy_Dem]

1. *snort* I have to admit that when I watched the vid I had the speakers OFF.

I was horrified enough with the scenery that I totally lunched on actually listening to her ramble. I guess I just took it for granted that I'd be auditorily as well as visually assaulted....

[northofdenali]

2. I generally don't read Halcro, although I do sometimes like him.

Thanks for the post, Blue - AND HOW ABOUT THAT BEGICH!!!!!

Caught you (and gave a rec) in the Palin blog in ADN today. I haven't been around much, fighting depression and pain, job hunting (in Fairbanks, in this economic climate.....) but I'm still trying to hang in there politically!

:hug:

[Blue_In_AK]

3. I was so relieved that Mark won.

Oh, yeah, I got a lot of recs on that post. There seems to be a decidedly negative attitude toward the dear guv lately, don't you think? What a disappointment she's turned out to be -- I can't believe I actually thought she was doing okay for a couple of years. I feel hoodwinked.

As for Halcro, I don't always agree with him, but I always like to read his take on things from that more conservative point of view. And I give him credit -- he had Sarah pegged all along.