Tfgray’s Weblog

A few years ago, when I lived in Elkton, MD, I got to chatting with a fellow on the road crew fixing my street (after years of potholes, busted water mains, cheap patches, and neighborhood complaints). He asked me what I thought of the Bush Administration. That can be a loaded question in Cecil County, MD, a finger of Appalachia poking into the eye of the Eastern Seaboard, so I answered carefully. “I think the country’s being run by a bunch of whited sepulchers,” I said.

He nodded. “Yep,” he said.

Now for any of you not inclined to Biblical reference, that’s a term Jesus used to describe the Pharisees, then the dominant sect of Judaism. Jesus may have loved everybody, but the Pharisees annoyed the bejazus out of Jesus, and he returned the favor. A sepulcher, you see, is a tomb. People liked their family crypts to look nice, showing respect for the dead and all, so they would whitewash them. The paint, as Jesus pointed out, did not change the fact that there were rotting corpses inside, “filth,” I think he termed it. White sepulchers, all shiny outside and gross within.

I remembered that term when I saw Governor Palin on the news today, claiming that the recent investigation in Alaska had cleared her of any wrongdoing, “legal or ethical.” When the reporter pushed back, pointing out that Finding #1 was that she had violated the state ethics code, Palin again cheerfully asserted that yes, the report had cleared her.

This was the same code of ethics that she used to discredit the head of the Alaska Oil & Natural Gas Commission, on which she served, which is the linchpin of her reputation as a maverick. Let’s add in a few other emerging facts:

• Palin was associated with Wasilla residents Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll, members of the Alaska Independence Party, which has connections to theocratic movements and other secessionist parties, particularly neo-confederates in the South. When preparing to run for governor, they advised her to register as a Republican. Since then AIP vice chairman Dexter Clark has bragged about his success in “infiltrating” the Republican Party and urged his fellow theocrats and secessionists to do the same with both Republican and Democratic local organizations.       Source: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/10/palin_chryson/                               Although her campaign is careful to point out that she was never a member and that her husband Todd, a member of 7 years, did not take part in formulating party policy, (he switched to Republican right before her first mayoral campaign) she has remained supportive of them and their agenda, including praising them in her welcoming speech at their 2008 convention. Who is being played here? The AIP wingnuts who hate taxes in all forms and want to secede from the Union (bye-bye Federal funding)? Palin, their Manchurian Candidate? The GOP base? McCain? Voters? All of the above?
• Tonight’s blockbuster news is that their lovely Wasilla home, which Todd, “built himself with the help of some contractor buddies,” was, in fact built for free with the labor and materials contributed by the “contractor buddies” who would go on to build the palacial Wasilla Sports Complex. When looking at the pictures, keep in mind that this facility is in a rural town of approximately 6,000 people and was paid for by a combination of Federal earmarks and raising the city sales tax to a whopping 25%. By comparison, the combined state and city sales tax for New York City, that hotbed of tax ‘n spending, is 8.375%, and far-left pinko Massachusetts, 5%.
• Go listen to the question at the end of the Biden/Palin debate, the one about “if, God forbid, you would have to succeed your running mate” and compare Biden and Palin’s replies.

By their fruits shall ye know them.