Sarah Palin’s Record as Mayor: Teeny Tiny Bush Administration

This is a truly startling little read, from one of Sarah Palin’s old constituents as Alaskan Mayor.

If she’s to be believed then Palin’s mayoral reign over the tiny town of Wasilla should sound startlingly familiar to anyone who’s watched the last 8 years of the Bush Administration deeply politicized mismanagement.

She fired experienced public servants because they won’t bow to bizarre ideology: including a librarian who refused to ban books Palin didn’t like. She sliced progressive taxes on the rich, raising regressive ones on the poor, and then spent lavishly: leaving the town in newfound debt. She hired a lobbyist who scored the tiny town almost 27million in federal pork. And in the face of management squabbles, she seems to have handed off the actual day to day administration to another person.

Pile this record on top of her support for ignorance-only sex education, creationist-seasoned science-classes, and a hearty round of theocratized historical ignorance and Christianist knee slappers and she sounds like the second coming of the Mayberry Machiavellis.

I’ve had a hard time getting too worked up about the thought of a McCain administration, but the idea of a Sarah Palin taking over wherever he finally leaves off is sounding less and less encouraging. Bush has gotten a worse rap than he deserves. Even still, I’m not eager to spend the next four to eight years sapping my forehead in everything from wearied exasperation to shock.

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Palin the Coy Creationist?

Via PZ Myers, it looks like Republican VP pick Sarah Palin is the sort of Republican ruler who thinks it’s ok to be in charge of the science education without actually knowing much about how science works. She apparently agreed in a debate that “creationism” should be taught alongside science… but then backed off the stance a bit when it came to specifics, falling back on the ultimately evasive ‘discussion of alternatives’ rhetoric.

“My dad did talk a lot about his theories of evolution,” she said. “He would show us fossils and say, ‘How old do you think these are?’ “

“His” theories of evolution? The always ready and reliable dating method of “ask children how old things look to them?” I’d like to hear a little more about exactly what her father taught, because while hardly indicative of anything, this little statement sets off a few red flags.

Of course, maybe this is a reason to vote for McCain: the VP slot has about as little influence on education policy as any major political position, which is a win-win for students in Alaska.

In any case, the platform of Palin’s own party is solidly, undeniably creationist.

The Republican Party of Alaska platform says, in its section on education: “We support giving Creation Science equal representation with other theories of the origin of life. If evolution is taught, it should be presented as only a theory.”

Palin said at the time (when running to, in part, hold sway over the state’s education policy) that she hadn’t really given much thought to the issue. I wonder if that’s changed?