Palin's Appalling Ignorance Keeps Surfacing, This Time On Oil Exports

It matters whom a presidential nominee picks for a running mate. It says quite a bit about their judgment. After all, John McCain is presuming to be the person who will appoint a Cabinet and many federal judges. If he can't pick a good vice presidential running mate ...

Sarah Palin has shown herself to be someone with barely enough of an IQ to do OK with coaching and preparation. (As does McCain.) But when it comes to off-the-cuff knowledge of the issues, she's been losing every round since she was chosen. Today, the subject was oil exports.

Onward.
The Associated Press reported today:

WASHINGTON - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports — especially from her state's North Slope fields.

A questioner at a town hall-style meeting in Wisconsin said he had heard that at least 75 percent of the oil drilled in Alaska was being sold to China and said, if true, he would like to know why.

"No. It's not 75 percent of our oil being exported," Palin said, suggesting some of Alaska's oil, in fact, may be going abroad but not that much.

"In fact," she added, "Congress is pretty strict on, um, export bans of oil and gas especially."

No Alaska oil has been exported since 2004, and little if any since 2000, according to the Energy Information Administration and the Congressional Research Service.

And Congress has never imposed outright bans on oil exports. Congress prohibited exports of Alaska oil in 1973 when the Alaska oil pipeline was built. But that ban was lifted in 1996 when there were large volumes of Alaska oil coming down from the North Slope and U.S. demand was soft.

The Alaska ban has never been reinstated.

So this is Big Mac's expert on energy issues?

This is a person clearly trying to play far out of her league. But here's a scary thought: George W. Bush, Il Doofus himself, has been "president" for nearly eight years. Now, we're in two wars with no foreseeable end, the economy has been wrecked, and the Constitution has been sullied beyond understanding.

Bigger mistakes have been made -- perhaps.

(Here's a link to the whole AP article.)

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Economically Better Off?

Conservative columnist George Will claims average Americans “are better off today than they were in 2000-2001.” This despite all evidence to the contrary.

Since Will is never wrong, this homeless veteran must be better off:

And so are these laid-off workers.

And the family who used to live in this house.

And certainly those in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward are better off.

Every average American is certainly better off at the pump today than they were in 2000-2001.
So, quitchyerbitchin.

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Manifesto Joe's Great Moments In Conservative History, Chapter 8: Fox News Has Lincoln Debating Frederick Douglass

The Pythons (as in Monty) couldn't have done better than this. The American history scholars at Fox News aired this Monday, in an attempted reference to Hillary Clinton's debate challenge to Barack Obama. A lot of bloggers and pundits got to the item before I did, but hey, better late than never for something this priceless:



An intern apparently had to take the rap for this screw-up, but the immaculately groomed boobs on the air seemed pretty oblivious as well. The conservative spin would be to blame it on the deficiencies of our public school system. You know, the one that pays so poorly that brighter teachers tend to leave the profession post haste.

Others went on to have fun with this gem:



And more fun still:



When Joseph Pulitzer was asked, what are the three most important things in journalism, he is said to have replied, "Accuracy, accuracy, and accuracy."

Fox must be sharing a fact-checking intern with Rush Limbaugh. They "report." This time, some of us get to deride.

Crossposted at Manifesto Joe.

There's more: "Manifesto Joe's Great Moments In Conservative History, Chapter 8: Fox News Has Lincoln Debating Frederick Douglass" >>

"Return on Success"?

Tell these people and their families, who returned all right, but with your feigned success charged at their expense.

There's more: ""Return on Success"?" >>

Olbermann on Rice

On Sunday, commenting on evoking the 2002 Iraq authorization, Sec. of State Rice said: “It would be like saying that after Adolf Hitler was overthrown, we needed to change then, the resolution that allowed the United States to do that, so that we could deal with creating a stable environment in Europe after he was overthrown.”

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann provided a "Special Comment" tonight in response. If you haven't seen it, Think Progress has the video.

There's more: "Olbermann on Rice" >>