Real news coverage on Palin

Today the Times has an in-depth article about Sarah Palin's days as a mayor and governor in Alaska, and it sure doesn't look good. This is a big deal because, as you know, they've been trumpeting her terms as mayor and governor as an example of the managerial experience that Obama and Biden lack. Or, as McBush's speech writers put it in Palin's speech, the difference between being a mayor and a community organizer is that when you're a mayor you have to get things done.

Things like:
Trying to censor library books when she was a member of the city council;
Firing the city attorney when he was interfering with a developer and longtime Palin crony;
Firing the director of the town museum and forcing out the remaining three employees;
Firing the director of the town library after she refused Palin's suggestion about censoring materials;
Making political campaign calls from her city office.

Of course, her record of accomplishment doesn't stop there. As governor she:
Installed a high school classmate and former real estate agent as agriculture commissioner, with the qualification that when she was a child she liked cows;
Stonewalled a professor seeking state government studies supporting her claim that polar bears were not endangered (hint--when he got them from the federal government it turns out they said the opposite of what she claimed);
Fired the attorney general and installed a solo practitioner to run the 500-person office;
Installed two other unqualified high school friends as her legislative director and director of economic director (actually, if running a Mailboxes, Etc. franchise qualifies you to be the economic development director for the whole state, maybe he was qualified);
Used her personal e-mail account for state business in order to block public access.

Now that I think about it, she pretty much has all the qualifications needed for a Bush, and consequently McCain, administration: a fanatical commitment to secrecy; loyalty to old friends and cronies as a paramount value; and a determination to exact revenge on anyone who dares to oppose her.

Read the whole article.