Serial liar Sarah Palin simply cannot help herself. If you are appying for a job for which you are woefully unqualified, sometimes you resort to padding the resume. You lie, you embellish, and you print your resume on expensive stock paper.
The New York Times examines yet another aspect of this trainwreck of a vice presidential candidate. Pure comedy:
When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project.
Stretching more than 1,700 miles, it would deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states and be the largest private-sector infrastructure project on the continent.
“And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence,” said Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. “That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.”
The reality, however, is far more ambiguous than the impression Ms. Palin has left at the convention and on the campaign trail.
Certainly she proved effective in attracting developers to a project that has eluded Alaska governors for three decades. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success.
The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.
What the McCain campaign has put before the American people for consideration is a fraud of a candidacy. It is built upon lies and half-truths. The Republicans think Americans are stupid. It is up to the American people to prove the Republicans wrong.
The fact is that, for the pipe lines to come into play, a few things have to happen first. The gas producing companies will have to settle on deals with the state (which hasn’t happened yet), and then begin production process (extract and refine), and only then distribution through the pipe lines can begin. These companies already asked the state for assurance that gas tax will be high enough so that profit will be substantial.
The pipeline might never be built due to the complexity of the project (refined gas has to travel more than 1700 miles through Canada just to reach main land U.S). If the project does not see the light of the day, the state of Alaska may potentially lose up to $500 million it committed to pay for the associated costs (regulatory etc). So she may have screwed up the state budget already.
And she better quit gloating on how she took on the “big oils†because it will have to be the “big oil†companies like ExxonMobil or BP who’d have the capacity to produce gas in such huge amount (for the pipeline dream to become a reality).