Posted on 10/09/2008 10:13:07 PM PDT by Rennes Templar
“My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.”
This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.
Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that’s the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. (“Keep up the good work,” Palin told AIP members. “And God bless you.”)
.AIP chairwoman Lynette Clark told me recently that Sarah Palin is her kind of gal. “She’s Alaskan to the bone … she sounds just like Joe Vogler.”
So who are these America-haters that the Palins are pallin’ around with?
Before his strange murder in 1993, party founder Vogler preached armed insurrection against the United States of America. Vogler, who always carried a Magnum with him, was fond of saying, “When the [federal] bureaucrats come after me, I suggest they wear red coats. They make better targets. In the federal government are the biggest liars in the United States, and I hate them with a passion. They think they own [Alaska]. There comes a time when people will choose to die with honor rather than live with dishonor. That time may be coming here. Our goal is ultimate independence by peaceful means under a minimal government fully responsive to the people. I hope we don’t have to take human life, but if they go on tramping on our property rights, look out, we’re ready to die.”
This quote is from “Coming Into the Country,” by John McPhee, who traipsed around Alaska’s remote gold mining country with Vogler for his 1991 book. The violent-tempered secessionist vowed to McPhee that if any federal official tried to stop him from polluting Alaska’s rivers with his earth-moving equipment, he would “run over him with a Cat and turn mosquitoes loose on him while he dies.”
Vogler wasn’t just a blowhard either. He put his secessionist ideas into action, working to build AIP membership to 20,000 — an impressive figure by Alaska standards — and to elect party member Walter Hickel as governor in 1990.
Vogler’s greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States “tyranny” before the entire world and to demand Alaska’s freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.
That’s right … Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.
AIP leaders allege that Vogler, who was murdered that year by a fellow secessionist, was taken out by powerful forces in the U.S. before he could reach his U.N. platform. “The United States government would have been deeply embarrassed,” by Vogler’s U.N. speech, darkly suggests Clark. “And we can’t have that, can we?”
The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama’s tenuous connection to graying, ’60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins’ connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.
Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.
Where’s the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama’s fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.
About the writer David Talbot is the founder of Salon. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller, “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years,” which will be released next week in paperback by Free Press.
I'm in awe. :-)
As to Sarah Palin and her alleged contact. I heard Todd was a member way back when...but then that he wasn't. I've never heard that Sarah was a member and the quotes regarding her seem very out of context.
The libs and left are completely desperate to find anything to tag Sarah with. But they will fail.
So I guess that disqualifies her to be president.
You caught on to that as well. Nice try at gotcha journalism, but it ain’t workin’.
I hear that many of the Southern States have people in our own Congress, too.
This has got to be some sort of record.
He lied about it I suppose. Trolls pull this sort of crap all the time.
Good Reply.
Good Reply.
OIC.
When they can’t see glaringly obvious sarcasm, it shows what tense times these are.
Let's see, over 1/3 of the land area of the United States, and bugger-all for self -determination in regards the use of resources inherent in the state?
Actually, I tend to sympathize with the idea of wanting a government responsive to a people who want to be allowed to work hard and develop the God-given wealth which surrounds them a lot more than I do with the parasites in D.C. and and the parasites elsewhere they pander to.
Play that card! GO FOR IT!
Palin will get more votes as a result.
Besides, your 'exposee' takes in her husband, not her. Nothing like Obambam's direct participation in the corruption he has fostered.
And you guys call me a sleeper troll? This nuts been here 5 years!
David Talbot you are a small, ineffective tool wishing to be something special. Your powers of deduction lack proportionality thereby dooming you to forever being a nobody.
Republicans criticize the NOMINEE. Dems criticize aides and spouses. In a blaze of inspiration you conclude it is all the same.
You don’t even know what Todd Palin did except that his name apparently appeared on a roster somewhere.
Take a cue from your master the little o (who speaks to you in your sleep) and leave spouses alone. Perhaps if you retrieve all of the copies of your article from the internet you will salvage some small shred of what is left of your reputation. Better get busy.
I would say “nice try” but it really wasn’t. Oh heck, for you, yeah it probably was the best you could do. Attaboy.
As I told my Democrat pal - watch Hillary.
You know, I would agree with this, but the mere fact that he’s not a member anymore, shows that he doesn’t believe in them. I mean, at least Ayers still hasn’t apologized for trying to kill people...
Field marshal?
Heavy, heavy sarcasm.
Whazzup wit dat, David?
The Palin quote on the AIP that you post are simply not true, they just can’t be true.
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