There is something else brewing against her. Personally, and I may get beat up for this, I hope not, I think it is cool that she knows how to handle a gun. A big one. But I'm not really thrilled about killing animals for sport. I want to find out more where she stands on this issue. There have been some photos posted to try to sway voters that are open to her back into the Obama camp. But didn't Hillary claim to have been a hunter at some point (there is a difference between knowing how to handle a gun and hunting)? Pictures of aborted fetuses are much worse compared to dead wolves. I live where a lot of people love to hunt, and have slowly come to understand why some of our deer overpopulation needs to be culled out, but I wish we could find a more humane means to do it rather than allow bow and arrow hunting on a public trail as has been done here and elsewhere. Some wander quite a distance before they drop. I would rather they be killed by a good marksman with a gun where their death is usually more swift if it has to be so. I would rather not have to see it happening.
Likewise, I don't live in Alaska and know that there is another side to hunting animals there. Much of it I know is for sport and getting a trophy. The other is that the natives depend on live game for their food, unlike most of us in the lower 48. The wolves threaten their food sources. Evendently some are hunted and shot from planes. Because the vastness of the wilderness, it seems to me it might be hard to hunt wolves any other way.
Please understand that I am not against legally killing wild game for food and am not in any way an activist against other kinds of hunting, just have a personal distaste for the killing of animals for the fun or thrill of it. I have examined myself and because I am a meat eater, I just shift off my unease about some animal suffering knowing that somebody else does the dirty work in packing plants.
No way am I involved with PETA and I most definitely believe in killing anything that is threatening human life, livestock or pets.
Most things I'm reading about her I really, really like, do wish she had a better handle on foreign policy, but believe she has visited Kuwait and our troops without a lot of fanfare connected with it. Maybe we'll find out more about that.
Overall, McCain's putting her in the VP slot eases my conscience about some of the reservations I had about him to the point I now may be able to vote for him whereas before I would not have. In many, many ways, she is truly a breath of fresh air. One thing I have complained about in the past is that relatively unknown, good people without name recognition and a lot of money behind them don't stand a chance. The accomplishments she does have, she has done on her own. There is so much positive about her that appeals to me.
You just need to be aware of what is out there and what is going to be used against her.
She and her husband are hunters and from what little I know it appears to me that she hunts for the sport and eats what she kills. One of her favorite dishes is moose stew. I’ve never had moose but I do like venison, elk, quail, pheasant, buffalo, duck and goose, but I’m not a hunter. For the most part I prefer the taste of the wild game rather than farm raised geese, ducks, etc. It isn’t just the Native Americans who depend on game for food. I have lots of friends who have freezers full of fish they’ve caught or game they’ve hunted and killed. Occasionally I even get some of it.
In most cases it’s illegal to hunt from an airplane but they do allow it currently in Alaska for wolves and grizzly bears but that’s usually as an animal control effort and not sport. There isn’t much sport in hunting from an airplane IMO. It’s also very tough to recover the meat. My guess is those that aren’t involved in predator control who do it aren’t Alaskans rather they come into the state for a very short time for trophy hunts. I would doubt that Sarah Palin or her husband are that kind of hunter. Alaska Ballot Measure 2 is designed to eliminate it. See: http://www.alaskastar.com/stories/082108/new_20080821009.shtml
Her level of experience in foreign affairs is essentially equal to that of Senator Obama unless you count his living for a few years as a lad in Indonesia. He’s held no hearings in his subcommittee, attended very few if any relevant committee hearings. He’s been too busy running for President. Prior to his term in the US Senate most of which has been spent running for president he has no national security experience or training while she’s the head of the Alaska National Guard. That’s why she was in Kuwait. She as governor, was visiting the Alaska National Guard troops assigned to Kuwait and Iraq. She also made a number of low key visits to wounded troops.