Sarah Palin: Mavericking Her Way Into the White House

Did Sarah Palin’s Debate Statements and Strategies Constitute Fraud Against the American People?

[Yurica Report Editor's note: Following the publication of this essay, the Yurica Report discovered Frank Rich's New York Times article published on October 12, 2008. We believe that Mr. Rich's analysis is so important that we inserted quotes from it and links to the original article, titled "The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama." The new material in this article is at this link. Mr. Rich's complete article at the New York Times is here and a Yurica Report copy is here.]

Today America stands in one of the most precarious crossroads in its history; the ground beneath the two roads is rolling from a major quake, which is off the Richter scale, and appears to be causing the collapse of the economy. Significantly, it all started with widespread financial fraud—that is, with widespread financial mavericking!

The choice of which candidate Americans vote to become the next leader of the United States may be the most important vote that anyone has cast not only in our lifetime, but in all time.

We have arrived here because John McCain placed his ambition to be president above his duty to protect and preserve his nation and the Constitution. Faced with the prospect that powerful dominionist ultra religious-right leaders like James Dobson and the Southern Baptist Convention’s lobbyist, Richard Land (along with the SBC), would sit out this election, McCain accepted their terms: He chose their choice—the unknown, untried Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. [1]

To be sure, she is perky, gutsy, and feisty. She is also Miss Congeniality. And she is down home—even up there in Alaska. She talks, walks, and expertly steps through the new Pentecostal follow-the-leader line dance.[2] She has the look and sound of something comfortable and folksy to us. The heartland warms up to it because it is familiar and unthreatening. But no matter how we feel about walking the Glory-land Way with God’s loosened chosen—it still is no criteria upon which to base a voting decision for the next presidential team. We have an obligation to dig deeper and to “test the spirits.”

As Steven Waldman, the editor of Beliefnet, wrote recently, “there’s something else going on here.” Waldman quotes Mark DeMoss, the former chief of staff to the late Jerry Falwell:

“Too many evangelicals and religious conservatives are too preoccupied with values and faith and pay no attention to competence. We don’t apply this approach to anything else in life, including choosing a pastor.”[3]

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Vice Presidential debate in order to determine whether Sarah Palin participated in a fraudulent scheme to deceive American voters. I am making the assumption that no one—including born again Christians—will vote for a presidential team that would willingly perpetrate a fraud upon America in order to obtain votes. Here is my case, and it begins with a little background.

The League of Women Voters ran the presidential debates from 1976 to 1984. In 1984, Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale’s campaigns vetoed sixty-eight proposed panelists prior to their debate “in order to eliminate difficult questions from the debates.”[4] In 1986, the Democratic National Committee joined with the Republican National Committee and ratified an agreement “to take over the presidential debates.”[5]

By 1988 new strategies introduced into the presidential debates were openly criticized as people became more and more alarmed that the changes introduced by the National Committees actually constituted fraud. The League of Women Voters, in fact, withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates after the George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis campaigns secretly agreed to a “memorandum of understanding” that would not only decide which candidates could participate in the debates but who would ask the questions and extended even to the height of the podiums.[6] Then League President, Nancy M. Neuman made a stunning announcement on October 3, 1988:

“The League of Women Voters is withdrawing its sponsorship of the presidential debate scheduled for mid-October because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter.” [7]

Calling for a “fair and full discussion,” Neuman warned that the candidates’ political organizations goal was “to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and honest answers to tough questions.” Ms. Neuman said, “The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”[8] She added:

“Americans deserve to see and hear the men [and women] who would be president face each other in a debate on the hard and complex issues critical to our progress into the next century.”[9]

Neuman was not alone. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Walter Cronkite called the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) an “unconscionable fraud.” [10]

Nancy Neuman and Walter Cronkite appear prescient in retrospect—both in their discernment of the introduction of fraud into the campaign process and in their deep concern for the effect fraud would have on our democratic procedures.

Black’s Law Dictionary is one of the best places to start in order to define legal concepts. Black defines fraud as:

“An intentional perversion of truth for the purpose of inducing another in reliance upon it to part with some valuable thing belonging to him or to surrender a legal right; a false representation of a matter of fact, whether by words or by conduct, by false or misleading allegations, or by concealment of that which should have been disclosed, which deceives and is intended to deceive another so that he shall act upon it to his legal injury.”[11] (My emphasis.)

Let me just make two points clear: first, fraud is engaged in for the purpose of inducing someone to part with something valuable—something the victim has under his or her control. In the case before us—it is an attempt to gain a valuable legal right—the legal vote of the victim. Secondly, the perpetrator accomplishes this by any means including the concealment of information, which he or she should have disclosed, and the concealment deceives the victims to act in such a way that the perpetrator is benefited.

“A generic term, embracing all multifarious means which human ingenuity can devise, and which are resorted to by one individual to get advantage over another by false suggestions or by suppression of truth, and includes all surprise, trick, cunning, dissembling, and any unfair way by which another is cheated.”

Black then states, “Bad faith” and “fraud” are synonymous, and also “synonyms of dishonesty, infidelity, faithlessness, perfidy, unfairness, etc.” and quotes the decision in Joiner v. Joiner, Tex. Civ. App., 87 S.W. 2d 903, 914, 915.[12] The decision asserts that fraud:

“Includes anything calculated to deceive, whether it be a single act or combination of circumstances, whether the suppression of truth or the suggestion of what is false, whether it be by direct falsehood or be innuendo, by speech or by silence, by word of mouth, or by look or gesture.”[13]

The courts have seen everything! No matter how you look at it—fraud is not only unfair—it is dishonest and it is immoral! The question before all Americans is whether—under any circumstances—the electorate should vote for a presidential team that conspired, executed and condoned fraudulent behavior in order to mislead the American public for the purpose of obtaining their votes? The question before all Christians is: how can they vote for a person who practices fraud?

The Presidential and Vice Presidential debates are controlled by a secret agreement that is signed by the respective candidates’ campaign managers. The 2004 agreement is available on the web and was agreed to by Bush-Cheney 2004, Inc. and Kerry-Edwards 2004, Inc. We do not have a copy of the 2008 agreement. But I will refer to the 2004 agreement as a sample of the rules that reflect what the moderators have revealed in the debates so far. For example, it is possible to deduce that some of the same rules exist in the 2008 debate that were in operation for the 2004 debates which we will examine.[14]

Under Section 6, subsection (a) of the 2004 agreement, the candidates agreed to the following, and which appears to hold for 2008:

“The candidate receiving the question shall be entitled to give an opening response not to exceed two (2) minutes, and thereafter the other candidate shall be permitted to comment on the question and/or the first candidate’s answer for up to one and one-half (1 1/2) minutes.”[15] (Emphasis added.)

The following is a partial quote from the transcript from the New York Times of the Vice Presidential debate. Sen. Biden answered Gov. Palin’s remarks and in doing so, he exposed Palin’s and Senator McCain’s abrupt change from supporting deregulation to trumping the opposite:

Sen. Biden: “John [McCain] on twenty different occasions in the previous year and a half called for more deregulation. As a matter of fact, John recently wrote an article in a major magazine saying that he wants to do for the health care industry—deregulate it—and let the free market move like he did for the banking industry….”[16] (Emphasis added.)

In fact the article by John McCain appeared in the September/October 2008 issue of Contingencies. And this is what Sen. McCain wrote in that article:

“Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.”[17]

However, as Senator Biden closed his comments, he added, almost as an aside, “The middle class needs relief, tax relief. They need it now. They need help now. The focus will change with Barack Obama.”[18] (It’s important to understand right here that “tax relief” was not under consideration—it was not the question being examined.)

Gwen Ifill, the moderator, then gave Sarah Palin the opportunity to respond to Sen. Biden’s deadly pertinent and accurate statement on Senator McCain’s desire to deregulate the health care system the same way the banking system was deregulated:

Ifill: “Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain’s comments about health care?” [19](Emphasis added.)

Sarah Palin, however, declined the moderator’s offer to respond and instead asserted:

“I would like to respond about the tax increases. We can speak in agreement here that darn right we need tax relief for Americans so that jobs can be created here. Now, Barack Obama and Senator Biden also voted for the largest tax increases in U.S. history. Barack had 94 opportunities to side on the people’s side and reduce taxes and 94 times he voted to increase taxes or not support a tax reduction, 94 times….”[20] (Emphasis added.)

Gwen Ifill then in fairness was forced to give Senator Biden the opportunity to respond to Palin. He said, “The charge is absolutely not true. Barack Obama did not vote to raise taxes. The vote she’s referring to, John McCain voted the…same way. It was a budget procedural vote…It did not raise taxes.” Then Sen. Biden said: “Using the standard that the governor uses, John McCain voted 477 times to raise taxes…”[21]

Keep in mind that it was Palin who deviated from the agreed upon format and also deviated from the contract (Memorandum of Understanding), which was presumably approved by all the parties—and required the “other candidate” in this case Palin, to “comment on the question and/or the first candidate’s answer for up to one and one-half minutes.” Governor Palin, however, did neither. She deliberately avoided answering Senator Biden’s analysis of deregulation and its consequences on the American people.

We can conjecture that Palin may not have known about Senator McCain’s article, or that she didn’t know how to respond to the evidence revealing that Senator McCain had expressed intention to deregulate the health care industry as the banking industry had been deregulated. This was particularly unnerving since she had just called for the federal government to take “strict oversight of those entities in charge of our investments and our savings.” On the other hand, she may have seen the issue as such a pitfall that she swiftly changed the topic entirely, picking up on Biden’s slight reference to taxes in order to hide her improper avoidance so she could escape full disclosure to the audience and to the American people.

But that is not the end of Sarah Palin’s attempts at avoiding answering questions. After Senator Biden stated that the governor “did not answer the question about deregulation, did not answer the question of defending John McCain about not going along with the deregulation, letting Wall Street run wild…” Governor Palin was given another chance to respond. She said:

“I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you [Senator Biden?] want to hear, but I’m going to talk straight to the American people.”[22]

Here, Sarah Palin telegraphed her true intentions. Whatever her justification for not answering a question is no longer important. What is important is that she admitted that she was prepared to answer any question by answering one that had not been asked. In other words, she did not only violate the contract, but she changed the rules and introduced fraud into the presidential debates as a technique for evasion, when she was under a moral duty to “be straight” with the American people.

In fact, Sarah Palin refused to answer any question that she did not like. But that did not stop her from asserting this:

“I like being able to answer these tough questions without the filter, even, of the mainstream media kind of telling viewers what they’ve just heard. I’d rather be able to just speak to the American people like we just did.”[23]

And she also stated her willingness to engage in an astonishing Machiavellian pragmatism—whatever it takes to get the job done. Answering Gwen Ifill’s question on whether the constitution “might give the vice president more power than it has in the past,” Ifill asked, “Do you believe as Vice President Cheney does, that the Executive Branch does not hold complete sway over the office of the vice presidency, that it is also a member of the Legislative Branch?”

Palin: “… Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do…”[24] (Emphasis added.)

This idea that it is acceptable to “do what we have to do” or “do whatever it takes to get the job done,” is not only anti-Constitutional, but is an anti-biblical, anti-honorable new conservative dominionist pragmatic piece of hogwash! There are restraints upon government built into the Constitution and Americans cannot afford to allow the executive branch to continue to decimate those constitutional restraints. What is worse, Gov. Palin has already demonstrated her abuse of constitutional restraints as mayor and as governor of Alaska.

According to a 263-page report released on October 9, 2008,[25] Gov. Palin abused the powers of her office by knowingly permitting her husband and subordinates to press for the firing of a former brother-in-law, a state trooper. Although Ms. Palin pledged to cooperate with the investigation, according to the New York Times, the McCain campaign flew operatives into Alaska to wage a public relations campaign to discredit the investigation and to help mount legal challenges to it.[26]

But the willingness to “do whatever we have to do” goes beyond Ms. Palin's Alaskan troubles. Frank Rich describes just how far Sarah Palin is willing to go to become Vice President in his New York Times column of October 12, 2008. (And also available at the Yurica Report). Rich describes how the McCain-Palin ticket has introduced inflamatory rhetoric against Barack Obama that ignites the crowds:

As Palin said at her debate, “Americans are craving ... straight talk and just want to know…”[27]

Clearly the most important moral question facing all Americans in this election is: Who is speaking rot and who is speaking the truth? It is left up to the voters to take the time to discern the difference between the two. However, the basic distinction between a true leader and a false one was laid out by Moses and requires each of us to test the truth or falsity of statements made by would be leaders. (Deuteronomy 18:22, and 13:3) According to the ancient biblical wisdom, deceptiveness is the prime indicator of a false leader.

Sarah Palin and John McCain have enthusiastically labeled themselves “mavericks” in order to create a slick image of themselves as politicians “who bolt at will and set an independent course” from their party. The word, however, has a much more negative meaning, which they are probably unaware of —else they never would have used the word in the first place.

What the McCain-Palin team doesn’t know is this: the definition of “maverick” as a verb is “to obtain by dishonest means.” Since they are self-admitted “mavericks,” we can assume that if Sarah Palin becomes the next Vice President, she and John McCain will secretly owe their mutual success to their mavericking—that is—to the execution of their dishonest and fraudulent strategies.[28]

[1] David Kirkpatrick, “McCain’s Effort to Woo Conservatives is Paying Off,” New York Times, September 2, 2008 at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03conservatives.html?_r=3&th=&oref=slog&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

See the same article reprinted as: “Who Really Told McCain to Select Sarah Palin or Else” by David Kirkpatrick at https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/WhoToldMcCainToSelectPalin%20.html

[2] Wikipedia defines a line dance as: “A... choreographed dance with a repeated sequence of steps in which a group of people dance in one or more lines … without regard for the gender of the individuals, all facing the same direction, and executing the steps at the same time. Line dancers are not in physical contact with each other. Older “line dances” have lines in which the dancers face each other, or the “line” is a circle, or all dancers in the “line” follow a leader around the dance floor; while holding the hand of the dancers beside them.”

[3] Steven Waldman, Editor-in-Chief of Beliefnet, “Sarah Palin: A Big Gamble for Religious Conservatives,” September 2, 2008 at http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/09/sarah-palin-a-big-gamble-for-r.html

[4]"Deterring Democracy: How the Commission on Presidential Debates Undermines Democracy,” a joint report by Brennan Center for Justice, Center for Voting and Democracy, Common Cause, Democracy Matters, Democracy South, Judicial Watch, National Voting Rights Institute, Open Debates, Public Campaign, Rock the Vote, Voting Rights Project of the Institute for Southern Studies, published August 23, 2004. Available at http://www.opendebates.org/documents/REPORT2.pdf and also available at:

https://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/DeterringDemocracyPresDebates.pdf

[5] “G.O.P. Seeks a City for ’88,” New York Times, January 26, 1986.

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_on_Presidential_Debates

[7] At the LWV, League of Women Voters website at: http://www.lwv.org/AM/PrinterTemplate.cfm?Section=Press_Releases&CONTENTID=7777&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm

[8] Ibid.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Walter Cronkite, “Reporting Presidential Campaigns,” in The Politics of News: The News of Politics, Doris Graber, ed. (New York: CQ Press 1998). Also cited in “Deterring Democracy: How the Commission on Presidential Debates Undermines Democracy” at: http://www.opendebates.org/documents/REPORT2.pdf

http://www.cc.tvguide.liveworld.com/thread/Presidential-Debate/Open-Debates-Independent/800047554

https://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/DeterringDemocracyPresDebates.pdf

[11] Henry Campbell Black, M.A., Black’s Law Dictionary, Fourth Edition, St. Paul, Minn. West Publishing Co., 1951 at page 788.

[12] Ibid, pp. 788-789

[13] Ibid, p. 789.

[14] https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/2004_debateagreement.pdf

[15] “Memorandum of Understanding” 2004 Presidential and Vice Presidential Debate Agreement. At: https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/2004_debateagreement.pdf

[16] The New York Times Transcript of the Vice Presidential Debate, October 2, 2008, at: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html

and also at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/TranscriptVPDebate_2008.html

[17] http://www.contingencies.org/septoct08/mccain.pdf And see Think Progress at http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/20/mccain-deregulate-insurance/ and also Paul Krugman, “McCain on Banking and Health, New York Times, at: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/19/mccain-on-banking-and-health/

[18] The New York Times Transcript of the Vice Presidential Debate, October 2, 2008, at: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html

and also at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/TranscriptVPDebate_2008.html

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid.

[25] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20081010_TROOPER.pdf

[26] Serge F. Kovaleski, “Alaska Inquiry Concludes Palin Abused Powers,” October 11, 2008, N.Y. Times. At: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/us/politics/11trooper.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[27] The New York Times Transcript of the Vice Presidential Debate, October 2, 2008, at: http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html

and also at: https://www.yuricareport.com/Campaign2008/TranscriptVPDebate_2008.html

[28] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines “maverick” as a verb, “to obtain by dishonest or questionable means.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

Some voters told reporters that they didn’t want Obama
to run, let alone win, should his very presence unleash
the demons who have stalked America from Lincoln to King.
After consultation with Congress, Michael Chertoff, the homeland
security secretary, gave Obama a Secret Service detail earlier
than any presidential candidate in our history — in May 2007,
some eight months before the first Democratic primaries.

On August 16, 2008, Rick Warren, the affable pastor
of the 83,000 member Saddleback Church in Southern
California made history by setting up a sequential debate
between Barack Obama and John McCain at his church.
In spite of the natural tendency to rank the competing
candidates’ performances, it is Rick Warren’s character
traits that deserve closer scrutiny here, particularly the words
he chose to say to the press, prior to the Saddleback forum.

Upon learning the news, Matthew Staver, Chairman
of Liberty Alliance Action, Chairman of Liberty Counsel
and Dean of Liberty University School of Law said of
the choice, "Absolutely brilliant. . . ."The excitement
was palpable among conservative leaders when they
heard that Gov. Palin was Sen. McCain's choice for
Vice President. There is a high level of optimism among
conservative leaders that the McCain-Palin combination
is a ticket that will connect with values voters."