Maybe I was a little hard on the good former Governor of Alaska.
I guess it’s not all that bad to profit from your own Jerry Springer family drama while bashing your grandchild’s father for trying to profit from his own little 15 minutes of fame.
But how about cashing in as the keynote speaker for the 2010 Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America convention and expo in Las Vegas, when your political history includes the following?
- Signing HB 118 (passed into law in September ‘07). Under this law, any person throwing a party where an underage person possesses alcohol, even if they were not responsible for providing the alcohol, gets slapped with a $500 fine.
- Signing a bill SB 128, that requires the state Alcohol Control Board to maintain a database documenting the sale, distribution, and purchase of all alcoholic beverages.
- Firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan for not making satisfactory progress on resolving alcohol issues (oh and that other thing). And then…
- Taking Alaska’s Department of Public Safety in a “new direction” by calling for legislation that would slow the flow of alcohol to rural Alaska.
Yes, this is all standard Governor Stuff — especially in a state where alcohol abuse ranks as one of the biggest problems and leading causes of death. And now that everyone seems convinced Mrs. Palin is angling for another White House bid, it’s also relatively standard for her to be courting new potential backers, and raking in cash, by booking herself for one ridiculous speaking engagement after another. (Seriously? A bowling expo?)
After all, Craig Wolf, CEO of Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America, seems perfectly comfortable with the choice:
Governor Palin is a great supporter of America’s free enterprise system and understands that industries like the beverage alcohol industry play a key role in driving our national economy.
We’re proud and honored to welcome her as a speaker…We expect she will share with the convention attendees her analysis of the current political environment and her vision for America’s future.
Craig Wolf, of course, should be forced to drink nonalcoholic beer for his role in this little charade. Inviting Palin to fist-pump with booze distributors is like asking Jeremy Piven to give the tuna industry a pep talk. (Methinks his days in the biz are numbered.)
On the other hand, Rep. Bob Herron, who represents Bethel in the Alaska State Legislature and tried to work with Palin to get input from the local community before pushing legislation that eliminate bootlegging to native “dry” villages, did seem a teensy bit surprised at the decision, saying:
I’m a little puzzled. It seems a detour from her message that she has got going on now.
Yes. A detour. It’s not hypocritical, it’s just a detour.
Works for me. Does it work for you?
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Keep trying, SJP, I’m sure you’ll come up with something relevant eventually.
If I want to see watered-down, been-there-done-that Palin bashing, all I have to do is turn to the left-wing hi-jacked media. This is really becoming a turn off. Before you know it, this site will be attracting the crowd that likes to use lolspeak “omg i totly H8 palin lol shes so retrd yay OBAMA!” and will lose the smart and sensible crowd.
One more strike & you’re OUT!
Hey guys — Let’s give the girl time to adjust, hmmmm? Or are all of you offering to write for us? (Plenty of room for guest bloggers…)
And personally, I think it’s hypocritical on both ends of the speaking-fee deal. Palin for suddenly cozying up to Big Liquor, and Big Liquor for paying their former mortal enemy.
Gotta be fair & balanced, right?
Maybe my math skills are falling off, can anyone give me a proof for this?
A = -(3B+C)
where A=the promotion of the legal consumption of alcohol, B=legislation against the illegal consumption of alcohol, C=Walt Monegan (ok I have no idea how he even fits into this equation, help me out here)
Maybe once SJS grinds down her axe on Palin a few times she’ll get bored and get to the juicy stuff.
I come to Deceiver to get away from this stuff everywhere else. I come here for snark on the left wing, not fair and balanced snarking. I’m with falling star. One more strike and I’m out.
Hell I’d write for ya once in a while.
**Takes “The Big Book of Wiener Jokes” off shelf.**
I love a good Palin bashing, but I don’t see a conflict here. Passing legislation promoting responsible consumption shouldn’t be seen as opposition to the Wine Wholesalers trade.
An odd, and perhaps ill advised pairing, but nothing more.
I fail to see much hypocrisy here. I can’t say I’m all that fond of Palin, but the laws that were mentioned seem like laws promoting responsible alcohol consumption. Unless she’s going to tell the convention that she’s all for underage drinking and such what’s wrong with this?
Oversneer – I’ll admit that I don’t know much about the laws she passed. However, how do those laws make her the mortal enemy of ‘Big Liquor’. Unless she railed against drinking and tried to make Alaska a dry state those laws just look to me like responsible governing.
Does not one have to go to Fox to get fair & balanced.
Oversneer we don’t need another fucking Huffpost blogger on this site. Palin Derangement Syndrome is so rampant in SJS stories I will stop reading her crap until it goes away.
Nice try SJS… your first attempt might have held a little water. This one however..meh. I think not. So on one hand, she is promoting the legal sale of alcoholic beverages, and on the other hand, she is promoting the crackdown of illegal sales of alcoholic beverages. Where’s the hypocrisy? I agree with the other posts here; Strike two! One more and I’m out!
And to The Oversneer:
When you start telling us what we should or should not be saying if we disagree with your new blogger, you’re pushing in the wrong direction. I’m just sayin’…
@ fallingstar: “omg i totly H8 palin lol shes so retrd yay OBAMA!” LMAO! That made me laugh. Thanks very much, I needed it.
Quick! Everybody grab a pitchfork! (What am I, Martha Coakley?)
None of those laws affect you if 1) you’re an adult and 2) you’re a responsible drinker, not an alcholic or a “Cool Mom” who lets kids drink at her house.
Now if Sarah Palin was smashing up saloons like Carrie Nation and then decided to appear at this shindig to play nice with the booze industry, you might have a point. Otherwise, meh.
Sorry that was meant to be “alcoholic.”
Is it just me, or did everyone in this room wake up on the pissy side of the bed today? What I like about this blog is that it’s like the weather in New York City: If you don’t like it, just wait a few minutes and it’ll change to something else. Sheesh!
C’mon guys. I think the liberal media is super-biased myself and could use a good bashing like anybody else, but if there’s a genuine case of hypocrisy on the right I think Deceiver ought to report on it. Otherwise, wouldn’t this blog be biased as well (which, ahem, is a little hypocritical?)
I don’t know that this story is the best case of hypocrisy Deceiver could have come up with, but still! If we can have a post about PeTA hating on the dough kittens, this is valid fodder. So chillax.
Is SJS employed by the DNC? Every other writer here can find legit deceiver material. SJS just cant cut it. Apparently she needs a dictionary because she doesnt understand the meaning of the word hypocrite.
I am no Sarah Palin fan but SJSs stories are a joke compared to the work of the other writers here. Every time she posts she lowers my expectations for this site. Every time she posts a new article I wonder if you even have an editor. Apparently now.
SJS is a political hack, and a bad one at that. She needs to be let go. Her talents are not on par with the legit work of other writers here who actually find legit material on BOTH parties.
I would rather look at and read comments about Palin over the weekend than any Peta/Pam Anderson ad, or for that matter the great pumpkin a.k.a Oprah.
Miss Snarker is really stretching here yet again. Not impressed so far. We get it she doesn’t like Sarah Palin. I can read that kind of stuff everywhere. You can co better.
I didn’t see the hypocrisy in the Palin article either. Thumbs down.
Hey now. Some of you are starting to sound like NBC and Jay Leno…Remeber SJS is new to the fray and needs time to build a following and get used to the standards us dedicated readers expect.
Geez, guys, chill out. The purpose of an anti-hypocrisy blog is to report hypocrisy, correct? Republicans can be just as hypocritical as Democrats, and I’m registered Republican myself and extremely conservative. The Oversneer has been laying it hard to Obama here lately. SJS is laying it hard to Palin (although this one, eh, idk). It’s good to have both sides bashed. It keeps us all on ground level.
So, let’s kindly let SJS do her job, which is to report hypocrisy. On the right or the left. It’s important to have that balanced scale here, especially on a site like this.
LN if SJS has read ANY of the past posts on this site she would see that we don’t go in for BS Liberal talking points. Her posts sound like the nut jobs who kept filing bullshit lawsuits against Palin to simply tie up the Alaska state Governors office in constant litigation.
I’m sure there IS some hypocrisy in Palin’s life, solely b/c she’s in politics. I just don’t see how this qualifies. I know what it’s like to loathe and detest a politician (see the comments on any post here re: Obama/Pelosi/Clinton) but it’s not nearly so hard to find their hypocrisy as it is Palin’s. Nice try, though; I admire your single-mindedness.
Well let’s hope SJS hasn’t filed any of those trivial lawsuits because then we could, with good merit, get out our pitch forks. I am just saying everyone has a learning curve at a new job. Give her the benefit of the doubt that she will make us proud. If she doesn’t learn, I will provide the shackles and the wood, you provide the rag torches and we can burn the witch. (Just kidding, I think they outlawed witch burning a few years ago.)
Okay, I’m sorry SJS, I thought your first Palin article was spot on, but I just don’t see anything wrong with laws she signed and speaking in front of wine&spirits people. It is a stretch. I am confident you’ll do better.
Who knew some Deceiver readers would actually manage greater hypocrisy than the subjects of their misplaced attentions? Burn the witch? Seriously?
I guess you give SJS three options: 1) agree with you. 2) continue to be capable of original, critical though and expression in this forum, 3) quit and go blog for the “other” side.
I for one, fail to see the point of a public forum that offers dialogue no prospects.
Going along with the line of reasoning suggested by this post, I suppose President Obama is now pro-life since he chose to give the commencement address at a pre-eminent Catholic university. Blatant hypocrisy there.
Sorry, I’m not seeing the hypocrisy here. The ‘whoever supports neither reckless drinking nor underage drinking must be against ALL drinking or they’re hypocritical’ standpoint just doesn’t work.
You’re getting a tad better, though.
“I guess you give SJS three options: 1) agree with you. 2) continue to be capable of original, critical though and expression in this forum, 3) quit and go blog for the “other” side.”
Well, there is option 4… find some actual hypocrisy to post about, which this is not. Deceiver isn’t around for “original, critical thought and expression,” it’s to find people being two-faced–conservative or liberal. The problem is one side offers about 10 times more material.
Rocko’s got a point there actually. Though I would say the hypocrisy is more with the University that asked Obama to speak.
Same with this situation here. What I want to know is, when Palin was making these moves against excessive drinking, were the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers fighting her? If they were, and neither party ackowledged that in this get-together, then I think it would qualify as Deceiver-worthy material. It would also qualify if Palin was on the record saying she’d support a return to Prohibition.
SJS, I think what you need is to add some clarifying info to your posts. In your previous one on Palin, you failed to clarify whether or not Palin was actually paid (and if possible, how much), for her magazine interview. Focus on the details, get to the real root of the hypocrisy.
SJS needs to go. She doesn’t know the first thing about entertaining writing or hypocrisy.
Oversneer, its time to send her her walking papers. There is lots of right wing hypocrisy to report on that is worthwhile, SJS is ignoring it to pursue her petty hates.
When she leaves I come back. Until then I am no longer attending this site.
I can’t speak for Sarah, but I gotta say I’m touched to see how much you folks care about what we do for fun. Enough, apparently, to quibble with us when we don’t do it do your liking.
“SJS needs to go. She doesn’t know the first thing about entertaining writing or hypocrisy.”
… Dang.
I, for one, find her writing very entertaining, if nothing else. True, this might not have been the best example of hypocrisy, but like people have been saying, let’s let her get used to things. I mean, using her first article on Palin as an example, I think she had a good point. I was a Palin fan myself, now.
Let’s all calm down a little. I get sad when I see people I like on this website, but I don’t start crying “burn the witch” for it. I’m disappointed in the person, but I don’t take it out on the author of the article. And really, Lord, poor SJS has just been here a couple of days. Let her get her feet wet a little. The Oversneer knows what they’re doing when they find people to write this stuff.
Side note here, why did Simon go, I love him.
Guys, geez…relax.
But it IS true that there are major issues with alcoholism in Alaska. From what I’ve read, a lot of people there like to get hammered and wander off, which is one thing if you’re, say, NOT in the middle of nowhere in the frozen tundra…but in Alaska, it can get you killed.
Also, since when do we come here to only read about things that reinforce our own views? It’s a blog about hypocrisy, for crying out loud…I don’t give a crap if it’s “liberal” or “conservative.”
To clarify, I was poking fun of the people who were calling for SJS to be removed from this site. To me it seemed as rediculous as witch burning.
Are we gonna have “betcha” in the title of every Palin story SJS cranks out? ‘Cause that’s already getting old…
Opposing under-aged or excessive drinking does not mean that someone is against responsible consumption of alcohol. So I see no hypocrisy here. SJS is apparently another PDS sufferer. I’ve quit reading other sites because of ridiculous Palin-bashing. However, Deceiver is overall a great site. So, I will just skip SJS’s posts until she gets her PDS under control.
Speaking as a former alcohol/spirits lobbyist, I can tell you with certainty that every one of the laws listed in this post was proposed & lobbied by MADD and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). These are the two most virulently anti-alcohol groups in America. (MADD is no longer about preventing drunk driving, a cause which reached the point of diminishing returns about 15 years ago. It’s just a stealth prohibition lobby.)
The point is not that Palin endorsed some seemingly “common sense” measures regarding alcohol. It’s that she clearly sided with MADD and the RWJF over the wine & spirits industry when these laws came up for discussion.
So the hypocrisy is a bit subtle, but it’s there. Trade groups shouldn’t reward former politicians who thumbed their noses at them while in office. Craig Wolf (and I know the man) is the hypocrite here. Palin is just a White House hopeful who’s trying to be nice to everyone.
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normally, i would be horrified by the restrictions palin signed into law but the fact is that serious alcoholism is rampant in alaska so i don’t find any great hypocrisy between her enjoying a drink or two herself and trying to find some kind of compromise measures that might have some social and health benefits in her state.
I guess it’s hard for people in office to choose a certain ideal to stick to. They just want it all and consistency is nothing to them.