Sarah Palin: Welfare Queen

For a political party seeking to re-brand itself as one of fiscal responsibility, Sarah Palin is fast becoming a serious embarrassment. She must have taken a page from the Nadya Suleman playbook (the crazy woman who juiced herself up with fertility drugs to crank 8 little tax burdens in California), because she traveled to DC this weekend to grovel at the feet of The Obama to get in on the stimulus pie. Jazz Shaw at The Moderate Voice weighs in:

As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin quickly mastered the art of working the spigot on federal funds, allowing cash to flow into her town. As Governor she wasted no time in setting records, making Alaska the highest per capita feeder at the federal pork trough. She seemed to undergo an amazing reformation during her vice presidential bid into some sort of mavickery pork buster, but now that she is - at least temporarily - out of the national races, it’s probably not surprising that she’s back in town with her hand out.

There's also a strange backstory to the governor everyone loves to criticize, as Ken Layne already notes. She blew off the Republican leadership for something called the Alfalfa Dinner that was hosted by Obama. It's some Southern society wingding to honor Robert E. Lee, who led a bunch of rabblerousers 150+ years ago but was squashed by the glorious Army of the republic. Why the President would continue this odd tradition is beyond me, but the irony was not lost on him:

"Many you are aware that this dinner began almost one hundred years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee. If he were here with us tonight, the general would be 202 years old. And very confused,” Obama said.

Alaska is already the porkiest state in the union, so the pride Palin takes in being the head of a "fiercely independent state" makes for easy scrutiny. Other governors are jumping on the bandwagon to fleece the federal taxpayers for more loot, and you can expect others to follow suit. Politicians tend to stay in power by providing freebies to their constituents so that voters come to depend on government largesse and become afraid to vote the bums out of office. You'd think there would be more hesitancy in a time of massive budget deficits to slow down this sort of corrupt behavior, but it appears to be ramping up.