Pain - Lying, Lusting for Power, and Missing Tax Income

I'm beginning to wonder if Sarah Palin is one of those people who literally can't tell the truth. If maybe the lies she tells on the campaign trail are less about dirty politics and more about pathology. She kept repeating that 'bridge to nowhere' line long after it had been discredited. She has done the same with the lie about Obama raising taxes 94 times. The latest example of her unwillingness to speak the truth is in her ridiculous remark about Afghanistan, claiming falsely that Obama had said all we're doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians.

That lie was discredited over a year ago because the Obama statment came in the context of a request for more troops over there - "It requires us to have enough troops that we are not just air raiding villages, and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there."

Of course, you can't expect Palin to actually know history, so she would be unaware that air raids were killing civilians and were basically ineffective militarily against the Taliban, or that conservatives, even Bush, were asking for more troops there, too, and citing civilian losses as oen of the reasons.

But is it too much to ask a candidate to stop repeating a lie that was discredited a year ago?

One of the scary things about Palin's history is her seeming lust for power. When she ran for Mayor of Wasilla a friend told her, You could be Governor, and Sarah's response was , I want to be president. In Alaska, she has a long hsitory of using people then stabbing them in the back and using them as stairsteps. And there's every reason to believe she'd do the same with McCain. Already she is questioning his decision to pull out of Michigan, saying she wants to campaign there. She wants to? It's all about her, I guess. No, let me amend that. She said, "Todd and I..." want to campaign there.

Todd and I? So is Todd about to become the de facto VP, just as he was the de fact Governor?

And the hubris of Palin - 5 weeks on the ticket and she's going public with his displeasure over McCain's strategy? A little uppity, isn't she? Who's at the top of the ticket here? Don't cry for me Argentina.

Now the tax returns. For 2007, the gross family income was listed as $166,000. $58,000 was Todd's income.

But Palin's slary was $196,531.50 as Governor of Alaska. Let's see, that puts her and Todd's combined income at $254,000. And apparently, the $60,000 per diem she collected, which the IRS requires her to list as income, is not listed.

What's going on here? Instead of the over $300,000 she had in income last year, she lists $166,000. Was this an unamended return the McCain campaign released? Did the Palin campaign knowingly try to deceive reporters by releasing a return they know understated their income? What would be the point?

Well, you can't have good old regular Joe hockey Mom Sarah making more money than Joe Biden, can ya? You betcha not! So if she has to lie to maintain her cred - well, golly gee. Let's not be like that irritating Katie Couric and ask her to answer this basic question.

And while we're talking about lies - that cutesy, folksy, smarmy Palin at the debate was an act. Go back and take a look at the videos of her debates in Alaska. Obviously, she thinks people are dumb enough to fall for it.

She may be right.