Blue Mass Group

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Office Redecorating You Can Believe In

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Given all the grief that Governor Patrick received for replacing the drapes in his office last year, I thought this article about the $50,000 that Sarah Palin spent to redecorate the mayor’s office in Wasilla was pretty ironic.

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  1. Shocked, I tell you.  Because the salon account sounds so realistic!

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    p>An illegal use of funds, to decorate an office to look like a bordello, and when confronted, she says “I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t”, and the alleged accuser says, whoops! he no longer has documentation of the expenditures, in his recollection Palin paid for the office face lift.

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    Four years later, the ambitious Palin won the Wasilla mayor’s office — after scorching the “tax and spend mentality” of her incumbent opponent. But Carney, Palin’s estranged former mentor, and others in city hall were astounded when they found out about a lavish expenditure of Palin’s own after her 1996 election. According to Carney, the newly elected mayor spent more than $50,000 in city funds to redecorate her office, without the council’s authorization.

    “I thought it was an outrageous expense, especially for someone who had run as a budget cutter,” said Carney. “It was also illegal, because Sarah had not received the council’s approval.”

    According to Carney, Palin’s office makeover included flocked, red wallpaper. “It looked like a bordello.”

    Although Carney says he no longer has documentation of the expenditures, in his recollection Palin paid for the office face-lift with money from a city highway fund that was used to plow snow, grade roads and fill potholes — essential municipal services, particularly in weather-battered Alaska.

    Carney confronted Mayor Palin at a City Council hearing, and was shocked by her response.

    “I braced her about it,” he said. “I told her it was against the law to make such a large expenditure without the council taking a vote. She said, ‘I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.'”

    “I’ll never forget it — it’s one of the few times in my life I’ve been speechless,” Carney added. “It would have been easier for her to finesse it. She had the votes on the council by then, she controlled it. But she just pushed forward. That’s Sarah. She just has no respect for rules and regulations.”

      • The other, in a campaign year, smart people turn stupid.

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        p>Salon reports the conversation I quoted above.  The author, David Talbot founder of Salon.  His works regarding Sarah Palin, no question, biased.  He reports she spent $50K on a redecoration of the mayor’s office, with a fairly outrageous conversation.  Doubtful to you?  No.  “…the better you know her, the less you like her…”

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        p>Source of Mr. Talbot’s quotes?  The Salon article doesn’t say.  

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        p>Proof from the quoted source?  Seems he’s misplaced it.

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        p>Verification from another source?  No mention.

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        p>Whatever.  Believe it, if that’s your Faith.  Question it, if it’s reasonable.

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        p>Media, on both sides ought someday to be ashamed.  If I called a plumber to come to my house and he did a lousy job because we disagreed politically, would be called negligent.  Media, whether it’s a local hack, with some talent as an objective reporter but who slings the lies or elsewhere a photographer, who just professionally }photographs Democrats (but doesn’t tell Republicans ’til after the shoot), continue to divide themselves according to their bias. No wonder MSM is dying.  Who trusts them?

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        p>But sure, “…the better you know her, the less you like here.”  Go with that.  Should you objectively think that Salon “interview” looks legitimate, say it.  If it doesn’t, say it.  I’d like to hear.

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        p>I say, it appears fabricated, based on a bit of truth from an email letter who asserts that she decorated her office for “small money”.  A faked conversation, with some outlandish quotes which can’t be proved or disproved, either printed as a lie of David Talbot’s, or else a lie by Nick Carney who’s advanced the charge.

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        • The letters are an interesting read.  Here’s the money quote from a small-town selectman:

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          Based on her approval ratings, the piece should have had about 20% on this guy with the ax to grind and 80% from those who laud her.

          But, gee, biased reporting. There’s something you don’t find everyday.

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          p>Talbot’s dripping condescension, beginning with wallpaper selection, mostly undermines what might have been fair criticisms of Palin as mayor.  Instead, it becomes a biased hit-piece.

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          p>To twist McCulhan, the message is the medium.  Won’t the liberals and progressives running Time, Salon, NBC news, and the NYT ever learn?

          • MSM wants Obama to win so badly they have completely abandoned journalism and have jumped in the tank. The microscopic investigative reporting on Palin is unprecedented. Have they checked Obama’s expense reports? Have they checked Biden’s per diem reimbursements? What did Michelle Obama’s DNC dress cost? How can Obama have been such an active politician these last few years with 2 small children to be caring for? Why did Obama run from McCain’s call for open Town Hall meeting debates this summer? “William Ayers” like relationships in Palin’s life would be front page fodder for the MSM and yet they have barely mentioned it. I am still hoping McCain and the Republicans can make this a major story.

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            p>BMG has become a great site for unsubstantiated single sourced stories like this and whether McCain used the “C” word and whether Palin made a racial slur…

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            p>If someone here is started a post with “I heard a story…” or “Joe Blow from NOT-A-RELIABLE-SOURCE.COM is reporting…” then stop the post and move on to how McCain and Obama differ on the future of Social Security…

            • We just see more evidence of bias in the other direction.  There seems to be a lot of wishing and assuming that McCain 2008 is like McCain 2000.  For a source sure to be unbiased I use http://www.factcheck.org.  It’s willing to call out either side when it plays fast and loose, but scanning the articles it posts I can’t help but notice it needs to correct Republicans more often.

            • I understand that Michelle’s dress was relatively inexpensive and straight off the rack, not that I personally care how much of one’s own money someone spends on clothing.

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              p>You yourself pointed out that Biden released his tax returns and made a huge stink about how little he gave.  Fact is he is worth less than just about every Senator and commutes home just about every night.  Again I couldn’t care less one way or the other.

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              p>The Ayers connection is much ado about nothing.

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              p>Maybe the reason the MSM hasn’t gone after these is that there is no “there” there and they know it, although as I recall this kind of innuendo is all Gibson and Stephanopoulos asked about for the first part of the PA debate.  This isn’t physics; there is no requirement that for every negative story about one candidate there has to be an equal and opposite story about another candidate to neutralize the damage.  Do you know that there is an issue with the questions you brought up?  If so let’s see it.

              • I understand that Michelle’s dress was relatively inexpensive and straight off the rack, not that I personally care how much of one’s own money someone spends on clothing.

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                p>Look at Vanity Fair’s calculation.  $280,000 as attributed to the value of 3 carat earrings.  The remainder of the outfit (dress, shoes…) was $20K.  Where’d the $280K valuation come from?  Not one clue.  I’ll call bullshit on that valuation.

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                p>Now Michelle Obama’s outfit. You may “….understand that Michelle’s dress was relatively inexpensive and straight off the rack,” but it wasn’t.  It’s from designer Maria Pinto.  

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                p>Cost with accessories?  We don’t know, because Vanity Fair was apparently not interested in comparing Michelle Obama’s expensive dress with Cynthia McCain’s.  They were trying to show that Cynthia McCain spends lavishly, when in fact, probably the outfitting costs between the two wasn’t so different.

                • The best post all week was on how Obama and McCain will be raising/lowering income taxes. As Gary said, the issue wasn’t Michelle/Cindy’s dresses, it was the pure bias of the MSM for Obama.

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                  p>So if you really believe the economy is in crisis, then why not stop talking about Sarah Palin banning books and all the other absurd minute details of the woman you all love to hate and talk about how either candidate will fix Social Security.

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                  p>If you check the posts for he last 2 weeks, the Dem posters here can’t stop talking about Sarah Palin’s religious beliefs and Cindy McCain’s wealth.

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                  p>I drop to this level too but will be glad to stick to the issues if others do.

          • If this was a hit piece then so was all the phony baloney outrage over drapes and Cadillacs in Deval’s first months in office.  You can’t have it both ways.  You point a figure at Time, Salon, etc.  Until you’re willing to call out the Herald, Fox News, ‘RKO, etc. over the same principles sit back and enjoy the taste of your own medicine

            • 1:  the governor tried to ban books;
              2:  the governor spent $50K illegally on an office redecoration;
              3:  Senator Obama is a pedophile;
              4:  the governor spent $10K on drapes for his office.

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              p>The point is, that #1 & #3 are definitively a lie, #2 is probably a lie, and 4 is true.  

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              p>So, be righteously outraged, or not, at that which is true, but I personally think we ought be outraged more when someone, associated with the media, simply lies to advance their position, even by the owners of this website.  

                • The McCain Camp said the charge “is categorically false” …

                  “Governor Sarah Palin has never asked anyone to ban a book, period”

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                  “Taylor Griffin, a spokesman for the McCain campaign, said Thursday that Palin asked the head librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, on three occasions how she would react to attempts at banning books.  He said the questions, in the fall of 1996, were hypothetical and entirely appropriate. [WHY]He said a patron had asked the library to remove a title the year before and the mayor wanted to understand how such disputes were handled.”

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                  p>What does Mary Ellen Emmons have to say?

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                  Emmons, a former Alaska Library Association president who now goes by Mary Ellen Baker, did not return calls seeking comment.

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                  p>Seems pretty weak Bob

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