Just the facts ma’am, just the facts

Yes, it’s Thursday and the Thursday 13 meme that you’re all here looking for is coming up soon, I promise. I just really had to say some things after watching Governor Palin’s speech last night.

When I turned off her speech my overwhelming impression was one of petulant snarkism. Now I’m not one to discount the snark, but I really think that substance and policy would have served her better. I’d also like to see her speak without the stink face. For much of her speech she had a look like she smelled something bad, it was really distracting. On the other hand maybe that’s just her face and I’m certainly not one to criticize someone’s looks.

Where her speech refrained from stretching the truth or outright lies it was actually good. I can see the appeal she has for the republican party, I don’t agree with it, but I can see it. Politics is all about stretching the truth and making people believe what you say. Palin did a good job of stretching on Wednesday night, I’m just hopeful that people look for the facts.

From Yahoo News and thanks to my friend Jen for pointing me to that link:

PALIN: “I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending … and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress ‘thanks but no thanks’ for that Bridge to Nowhere.”

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a “bridge to nowhere.”

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: “The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars.”

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain’s plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

I caught the last half or so of Rudy Guiliani’s speech. If I agreed with the republican platform and thought that McCain & Palin were the ticket for me there was a moment in Guiliani’s speech that would have turned me off completely. The chants of “drill baby drill” disgusted me. Drilling is not the answer to our energy problems, but I’m not surprised that the republicans missed that point. This is not the post to discuss our energy problems and their potential solutions, but I just wanted to point out how disgusted that comment made me feel and how out of touch the republicans really are.