Sarah Palin: Some Interesting Tidbits

Last week Carly Fiorina — top female surrogate of the John McCain campaign — stepped in it, saying Sarah Palin is not ready to step in to run a company like Hewlett-Packard. Later that day she had to walk it back by saying neither is McCain, Barack Obama or Joe Biden. Carly clearly never received the new memo from Team McCain titled “This is No Time for Straight Talk,” which has been distributed to all key players.

She won’t be getting any more memos; in fact, any and all of her appearances anywhere have since been canceled. Now, I don’t actually think Carly can hear me, or can read this, since she has been taken to an undisclosed location and won’t be heard from again until a McCain administration, when she and Phil Gramm can come back to the spotlight for good and say what they really think.

But Palin got the memo, because she is no longer participating in the “Troopergate” investigation she formerly welcomed. That’s interesting. So are some other Palin tidbits from last week that shouldn’t be overlooked.

We will start with the important news that Sarah Not-So-Pale-n’s tanning bed that she had installed in the governor’s mansion was paid for with her OWN money. Seriously, no wrongdoing there. Just catchin’ rays.

But on a more serious note, The Wall Street Journal reports Palin, the fiscal conservative, wasn’t exactly opposing handouts and fighting for smaller government when she overturned a decision to shut down a creamery that was losing money, more than $1.5 million since 2005. Local dairy farmers appealed to Palin, fearing the loss of subsidies, and she closed down the board and replaced it. “The new board, headed by one of her childhood friends, ordered the creamery kept open. Six months later — after the business racked up more than $800,000 in additional losses, according to state officials — the new board ordered it closed again.”

That echoes something from The New York Times piece from last weekend, a pattern of Palin hiring buddies to well-paying government jobs in her administration. If you haven’t read it, you must.

Palin’s supposed squeaky clean record on earmarks and pork-barrel spending turned out not be and was instead sullied by numerous false claims — it is notable that she has come to the rescue of subsidies and used the government to hand out plum jobs to friends with questionable qualifications.

Those mavericks, they really go their own way.

JOE BIDEN HAS KEPT UP THE GAFFES — WILL HE BE READY FOR HIS DEBATE WITH PALIN? Ask A.B. returns Tuesday, Sept. 23. Please join my weekly video Q & A by sending your questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.