Palin's priorities

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(I apologize for being AWOL the past couple of days, but work has been unusually and exceptionally busy this week and I just haven't had the time not just to blog but even to pay attention to the news. I'll get going again slowly, and I hope to be back to my usual blogging schedule soon. With that, let's get on it...)

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Here's pretty much everything you need to know about Sarah Palin -- or at least a good deal of it:

Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spent more money to de-ice her private jets than she did donating money to candidates during the first 3 months of the year, according to new filings made with the FEC.

The filings show Palin's political wing, Sarah PAC, paid a FL-based airplane service company $14K to de-ice a private jet. The PAC spent more than $16K -- twice as much as it donated to individual candidates -- on hotels from New Orleans to New York City to Richland, WA.

And it's good to work on Palin's behalf. Consultants for the PAC made more than $233K through their contracts, the report shows. Ex-spokeswoman Meg Stapleton, who left the PAC last month, had a $10K per month contract. Randy Scheunemann, one of Palin's top advisors during the WH'08 campaign, also makes $10K a month; during the last 3 months, Jason Recher, another aide on the '08 campaign, made $50K.

The amount she pays her staff pales in comparison to the amount she gives to help GOP candidates win elections. Palin gave just $7,500 to candidates running for office this time.

So it would seem that Sarah Palin is all about... the glorification and adoration of Sarah Palin.

Even when she supports a Republican candidate, it's really just about her.

And, just as she did during the campaign, she spends wildly in her pursuit of (highly profitable) self-promotion.

No, this isn't news. Yes, we knew this already. But it's nice to have the clarification.

I can only repeat what I wrote back in October of 2008:

[W]hile there's undeniably a lot of ignorant, anti-intellectual Wasilla in her, that most of all, she clearly longs for the bright lights of the big city and the showy fashion of Saks and Neiman Marcus. She's like the backwards hick who so badly wants to be accepted, to belong, to make it, and to make sure everyone knows she's made it, and just ends up trying too hard and looking like a parody.

It's quite pathetic, actually. Whatever she once was, whatever she may be at her core, Sarah Palin is now just a massive fraud.

That much has remained consistent since her emergence on the national stage.