No Wolf Whistles for Sarah Palin's Compassion

by Walter Brasch  

Defibrillator usage increased last week after John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate and only a heartbeat from the presidency. But, shortly after most Republicans were shocked back to life they circled the wagons to declare she was the perfect choice. Apparently, the cure also included a dose of psychotropic drugs as well.

The pundits and commentators rallied beside Palin, even lying about how great her ghost-written acceptance speech was, apparently in the mistaken belief that they are being fair and balanced. Since Palin is the topic of everyone’s greatest love or deepest enmity, I won’t be writing about her life and most of her positions.    

I won’t write about her lack of experience—or her outrageous statements that she has more experience than Barack Obama, and her delusion that she deserves any of Hillary Clinton’s 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.  Although I would like to say something about her vicious attacks on community organizers, persons who sacrifice so much to help those with so little, I won’t. That’s for others to talk about.    

The fact she’s running on a ticket headed by a man who opposes lobbyist influence, yet had her inauguration as governor sponsored by an oil company—well, I won’t even bring that up. And, of course, I won’t say anything about her excessive use of pork barrel funds that McCain also opposes. And, I see no reason to point out that McCain’s first two choices of Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge were somehow vetoed by the Republican leadership.    

I’ll let others write about how Sarah Palin and George W. Bush both believe they are fiscal conservatives, but both are more “tax-and-spend” than the wildest liberal. For Bush, it was beginning office with a surplus of more than $236 billion and running up a $427 billion debt in less than five years. For Palin, it was a balanced budget at the beginning of her six years as mayor of a town of 5,000, and leaving it with a debt of about $20 million. 

Although there is no evidence she has had any interest in foreign policy, she did manage to tell us she’s sure that the war in Iraq is “God’s will,” and that Americans soldiers were sent to Iraq on a “task that is from God.” Nope. I won’t write about that, either. 

There’s really no need to comment upon the two ethics investigations that have been launched against her for abuse of her office or reasons why seven witnesses suddenly have decided not to testify. 

There’s no reason for me to discuss her belief that Alaska schools should teach creationism, and that she’s has doubts about the theory of evolution.  The fact that she believes library books should be banned if they have passages that disagree with her own beliefs, and that she tried to fire the city librarian who disagreed with her beliefs, won’t even be discussed.  

And, certainly, I won’t discuss her personal family life. Not her beauty queen background or her family values agenda that opposes single motherhood and supports only abstinence education instead of a comprehensive sexual education program. Her unmarried 17-year-old high school drop-out pregnant daughter can discuss that. 

I certainly won’t write about her belief that she is certainly not a proponent of the Green movement, and apparently believes it must be magic fairy dust that created Global Warming, since she doesn’t believe that people caused what’s melting the ice in Alaska and putting polar bears in danger of extinction. Not that she cares—she supports disrupting the balance of nature by drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which McCain opposes, and opposes a federal rule, enacted by the Bush Administration, which makes polar bears a threatened species. 

And that’s what I am going to write about. Sarah Palin and her boom-boom mentality. She loves to kill animals. As a youth, she went out daily so she could enjoy mooseburgers. I don’t know how many burgers a slaughtered moose can provide, but I suspect that if she, her family, and all of their friends ate all of the moose she killed, the cholesterol and obesity levels in Wasilla, Alaska, would be significantly higher than the national average. 

Killing moose is apparently one of the reasons that as governor she encourages wolf hunts. Alaska is the only state that allows hunters to use helicopters not only to kill wolves but also to chase them down and then execute them while they lay exhausted from the chase. No hunter would ever consider this to be fair chase hunting.  

Palin has even offered a $150 bounty for every wolf killed in Alaska. Kill every one of the 9,000 or so wolves in Alaska, and the taxpayers will reap a harvest of about $1.3 million. And, don’t worry about wolves being extinct in Alaska. There’s still another 5,000 or so in the Lower 48, most of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act.  

Wolves are highly intelligent social animals, who are loyal to their mates, care for their children, and protective of all in their pack. Humans should emulate them rather than murder them.  But just this past May, Sarah Palin had no problem with her own Department of Fish and Game killing 14 orphaned wolf pups in their own dens, in violation of her state’s own law.  Killing wolves doesn’t give hunters the excuse that they kill for meat or clothing. Wolves provide absolutely no meat value, and wolf coats are just not the fashion item for this season. Except when deliberately provoked, wolves don’t attack humans. Even then, wolves try to avoid human contact.

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