Sarah Palin: A Towering Sense of Entitlement

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Revelations the last couple of days on Sarah Palin's expenditures of Alaska public funds for her children's travel and the whopping $150,000 spent by the GOP on clothing and accessories for the Palin family reveal a towering sense of entitlement that to me embodies everything that has gone wrong with America under Republican rule.

It is nothing short of astonishing to me that a public official would feel herself entitled to regularly take her children on five-star vacation trips at the expense of taxpayers, or to expect that places be made for her family members at any event to which she is invited and for which other people are paying. Palin seems to have regarded Alaska as her own personal family fiefdom, as I suppose she would regard the entire United States were she to become vice-president or, God help us, president.

It is equally astonishing that the McCain/Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee would feel entitled to spend $150,000 of money contributed by hardworking Republican voters like Joe the Plumber on clothing and accessories for Palin and her family; and that Palin would feel entitled to accept goods like the Louis Vuitton handbag little Piper Palin was photographed carrying across an airport tarmac. If this is how John McCain and Sarah Palin manage their campaign funds, how would they manage the federal treasury? Would American taxpayers be footing the bill for all the extended Palin family to take African safaris and shopping excursions to the fashion capitals of "socialist" Europe? Would Todd and Levi be measuring for menswear on Savile Row at your and my expense?

Of course, Sarah Palin has shown nothing but a towering sense of entitlement since becoming the GOP's vice-presidential nominee: entitlement to power, despite her utter lack of qualification for it; entitlement to throw all manner of lies, innuendo, and insult at two opponents who have treated her with graciousness and respect; entitlement to say who is a "real American" and who is not; entitlement if elected to assume powers the vice-presidency is not even granted by the constitution, such as that of being "in charge of the Senate." As governor of Alaska, Palin felt entitled to use her office to carry out personal vendettas and reward personal loyalty at state expense, just as she felt entitled to use state funds to take her kids on expensive vacation trips. Sarah Palin is all about entitlement.

I am reminded by Palin's actions and attitude of a story I once read about former Republican congressman Tom Delay (aka "The Hammer"): Lighting up a cigar in a restaurant on federal property in Washington DC, Delay was asked to put it out and told that smoking at that location was a violation of federal government regulations. Delay's reply: "I am the federal government!" Now that's a towering sense of entitlement.

I don't think, however, that even The Hammer's towering sense of entitlement can keep up with the Hockey Mom from Wasilla's. The more I see and hear of Palin, the more firmly I am convinced that she should never be allowed within 100 miles of the Oval Office, much less a heartbeat away.