October 8, 2008
Political Science Department
The Palin-Obama Paradox
When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his runningmate, one of the first things everybody noticed was that after all the talk about how inexperienced Barack Obama was, McCain's pick for Vice President---that is, his choice for President if he can't do the job---had even less experience. It seemed an odd choice, and it undercut his campaign's ability to bring up the experience issue.
Now David Tarrell of In The Moment points out another Obama-like aspect of McCain's choice. One of the stickier character issues the right has been throwing at Obama is his relationship with former Weather Underground bomber William Ayers. Any association with former terrorist, no matter how tenuous, is cause for concern. Which makes it all the more interesting that Sarah Palin's husband was involved in the anti-American Alaska Independence Party, the founder of which, Joe Vogler, was murdered when a deal to buy plastic explosives went bad.
It's like McCain was trying to undermine his own side's talking points.
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All that might be true except for one major rule you are forgetting:
"It's OK for me to [fill-in-the-blank], but not for you."
I hope this clears up this otherwise confusing issue.
Is that kind of like the way that, in order to protect Americans from the harmful effects of looking at pornography on the internet, members of the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force spend all day looking at pornography on the internet, but it's okay because they're...only looking for legal reasons...?
"was murdered when a deal to buy plastic explosives went bad."
That should read .. "as reported in the NY Times but disputed by an earlier, more precise and comprehensive article in the Chicago Tribune."
The only people that think or say Vogler was killed in a plastic explosives deal gone bad are Palin haters or Obama cheerleaders. Vogler's killer even recanted that previous statement he made.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940925&slug=1932524
In May, a year after Vogler's disappearance, police got a break when they cornered West in his stepbrother's home up the road from Vogler's house. West recently had been released from a halfway house where he was serving time for violating probation and writing bad checks.
Surrounded and claiming to be armed, West told a state trooper over the phone that he had shot Vogler in self-defense after an argument about explosives Vogler wanted to buy. West then set the house on fire, but police pulled him from the rubble with barely a scratch.
West, 38, now insists he was lying and only seeking attention. But police believe he killed Vogler in a simple robbery attempt.
Thank's for your comment, Where's Joe. I'm not sure what to make of West's recantation, but that article you link to mentions something else that puts a different twist on things: When I read that Vogler was trying to buy explosives, I naturally thought it was part of an illicit plan to attack something, perhaps a government building. But the article mentions that he owned gold mines which he had worked himself. I imagine that an Alaskan miner buying explosives is no more unusual than me buying printer paper.