The real trouble with Sarah Palin is the $27 million in Federal earmarked funds she secured for her hometown, Wasilla, in the most recent Federal budget (source: story in Houston Chronicle, http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5978373.html, "Palin secured $27 million in town earmarks", September 1, 2008). A story in the Houston Chronicle states that "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents while she was its mayor, according to an analysis by an independent government watchdog."

There are a couple of difficulties here:

1. John McCain is supposed to be *against* earmarks. In the same story referred to above, McCain is quoted as saying that "earmarks are wasteful and are often inserted into bills with little oversight, sometimes by a single powerful member of Congress."

2. The town of Wasilla has 6,700 residents, according to the news story referenced above. Small towns are notoriously chummy, and usually all of the major players (and the minor players, too) know each other and have done so for a long time. I haven't seen any analysis of possible conflicts of interest (or perhaps worse) that might arise with the way the money was parceled out. I'll bet that that analysis is getting done right about now, and will come out about the time that the pregnant daughter becomes old news.

At first I thought this was a brilliant choice, but with the revelations of the past four days, and just the last four days, I think this is going to turn into a disaster. The lack of vetting shows a singular lack of judgment. At this point, I can't support a McCain candidacy.

the events at the Minneapolis convention, including the pre-emptive raids without probable cause on journalists whose equipment was seized and who were thus rendered unable to report, and the actions taken against innocent protestors and journalists at the convention (including Amy Goodman and her crew, numerous AP reporters and photograhers, and at least one reporter from the New York Post who cried out that fact as he was being arrested and stated that the Post was a Republican newspaper...) prejudice me against McCain as well, but the thing which tipped the balance was the earmarks.

I remember the questionnaire I filled out in order to become a member of the Bar in order to practice law, and that questionnaire was every bit as detailed as this one. There are moral character questions on both. The Obama Administration will be making tough decisions, decisions which will affect the lives of many people, and people and corporations with lots of money. Some of these effects may not be pleasant.

In the past, we've seen that strategically revealed scandals can be used to derail or change policy. Damaging information can be used for blackmail, to influence policymakers to adopt, or not to adopt, certain courses of action. The press is fully complicit in this, because, after all, scandal sells newspapers (or increases hits on websites).

People who are concerned about their Second Amendment rights are much alarmed about the question in the "Miscellaneous" section which asks whether the applicant owns any guns, any relevant ownership or registration information, and whether there have been any events out of the ordinary which have transpired because of the presence of the gun(s). I believe that this does not translate into a latent bias against gun owners, nor is it an attack on the Second Amendment.

It's just a set of questions which need to be asked, in a place where the "politics of personal destruction" have played such a prominent role in the past. The entire questionnaire is in a similar vein. While I can understand people's trepidation at revealing this quantity of information, I can fully understand why the Obama Administration is asking for it. Moreover, it would be to the benefit of potential appointees to make a complete answer so as to avoid any embarrassing and potentially career-ending revelations. One only needs to recall the suicide of Vince Foster in this regard.