Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 9/4/08 Section: Opinion

Before Friday, when John McCain made his vice presidential nominee public, Sarah Palin was a virtual unknown. On the day the announcement was made, there were 2.4 million visits to Palin's page on the most reliable source of information out there, Wikipedia.

A New York Times article on Aug. 31 detailed not only the visits made to the page, but the edits made to the page by a volunteer for the McCain campaign leading up to the big announcement.

While Wikipedia is a source that should be taken with a grain of salt, CNN calls itself "the Most Trusted Name in News." Yet the headline of an article on their Web site from Wednesday claims "Palin's maverick trail goes from city hall to gov's mansion."

Palin said in her speech after being added to the Republican ticket that she "stood up to politics as usual." Yet she has connections to Sen. Ted Stevens, the longest serving senator in the history of the Republican Party.

A Washington Post article on Monday stated that Palin served as the director for a political group organized by Stevens, who was indicted in July on seven counts of corruption. The article stated, "The group was designed to serve as a political boot camp for Republican women in the state."

Palin received endorsements from Stevens in her campaign to become Alaska's governor, and she spoke on Stevens' behalf before the indictment in July, according to the article.

She also received at least $4,500 in campaign contributions in her lieutenant governor run in 2002 from the same type of fundraising that was at the center of the Stevens corruption indictment, according to an Associated Press article on Wednesday.

In her introductory speech on Friday, she said that she stood up to the big oil companies. But she received donations from the founder as well as the vice president of VECO, an Alaska oil pipeline company that is involved in the Stevens scandal.

Palin's husband, Todd, works for BP Amoco PLC, an oil company. An article from KTUU, an NBC affiliate in Alaska, quoted both Todd and Sarah Palin in August 2007, saying they do not believe there is a conflict of interest.

Perhaps the biggest deception by Palin is her opposition to the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." According to a New York Times article on Sunday, the bridge would have connected Ketchikan to Gravina Island, Alaska. The $233 million bridge connecting the island with a population of only 50 people, according to the 2000 U.S. Census figures, was to be paid for with an earmark attached to a bill in the U.S. Congress.

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