Oprah Winfrey released a couple of teasers for her interview with Governor Sarah Palin that was taped yesterday, but will air on Monday.
It should be an interesting interview. I’ll be particularly interested in her remarks about Levi Johnston. I’m glad to see her take the high road here. Josh Painter transcribed her answer to the question about Levi Johnston:
"I think he needs to know that he is loved and he has the most beautiful child, and this can all work out for good. It really can. We don’t have to keep going down this road of controversy and drama all the time. We’re not really into the drama. We don’t really like that. We’re more productive."
I hope that he pulls his head out of you know where, gets a job, and starts being a Dad. Anyway, enough about him. I really didn’t want to give him anymore blog space.
The AP released some snippets from her book, Going Rogue: An American Life… via Anchorage Daily Press, a snippet from the snippets:
She writes about the "jaded aura" of professional campaign aides and how McCain’s entourage limited her access to the media, leading to allegations — unfounded, she says — that she was avoiding reporters.
And she says that most of her legal bills were generated defending what she called frivolous ethics complaints, but she reveals that about one-tenth of the $500,000 was a bill she received to pay for the McCain campaign vetting her for the VP nod.
She said when she asked the McCain campaign if it would help her financially, she was told McCain’s camp would have paid all the bills if he’d won; since he lost, the vetting legal bills were her responsibility.
Conservatives 4 Palin notes how AP botched the amount of the bill received for the McCain campaign vetting, and originally reported it was a bill for $500,000. She was immediately criticized by another “anonymous” McCain staffer (spineless twits). Who obviously had no clue the bill wasn’t that much. Still $50,000, very classy to leave your running mate with that bill.
She’s also been busy on Facebook with two posts. The first was on how Pelosi’s Health Plan should be DOA, talking about the penalties for not getting health care:
But here’s the thing: they have to make the penalty for opting out very harsh in order to force us to buy coverage. The only way to keep this government run health care plan afloat is for everyone to buy into it – especially young and healthy people. That means that they will have to penalize citizens if we choose not to buy a plan that will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year.
The bill that came out of the Senate last month – the Baucus Bill – does just the opposite. It calls for a much lighter penalty ($750 maximum) for people who don’t buy government approved health coverage, making it cheaper to pay the fine than to pay for the coverage. (And with a recession on, who can blame families for not wanting to pay $15,000 for a government mandated health care plan?)
But here’s the kicker: the bill also forces insurance companies to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions. Think about what that means. A lot of people – especially young and healthy people – will just pay the penalty instead of purchasing coverage because they’ll figure that it’ll always be there if they get sick, as government has promised. That’s what will happen, and when it does it will totally undermine the very concept of “insurance” – which is basically a group of people pooling their resources over time to cover themselves for a rainy day, paying while they’re healthy so that they’re covered when they’re sick. Those who are healthy now pay for those who are sick. If your insurance pool only contains sick people, it’s a bust. And that’s what this government plan will be. Without all of those young and healthy people paying into the pool and defraying the costs, the government will have to pony up more and more money, and who knows how long the whole crazy plan will last before it goes broke – and our country with it!
And then she weighed in on President Obama’s acknowledgement that there are limits to what government can do about the 10.2% unemployment rate. In response to his willingness to consider “any demonstrably good idea” she suggests that he look at the ideas that worked in 1983, the last time unemployment was this high:
If you want real job growth, cut taxes – including capital gains taxes and small business payroll taxes – and slay the death tax once and for all. If you want to stimulate the economy and help poor and middle class families, cut payroll taxes so that more Americans can keep and invest more of what they earn.
If you want lasting economic expansion and prosperity, get the federal government’s budget under control. Instead of more pork-laden stimulus plans, let the free market correct itself. That’s what Reagan did, and history proves it worked.
I don’t see Obama embracing any of those ideas though.
Update: Drudge Report has a two page excerpt of Going Rogue posted… so much for it not getting leaked, an except of the excerpt:
Meanwhile, the media blackout continued. It got so bad that a couple of times I had a friend in Anchorage track down phone numbers for me, and then I snuck in calls to folks like Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and someone I thought was Larry Kudlow but turned out to be Neil Cavuto’s producer. I had a friend call Bill O’Reilly after I was inundated with supporters in Alaska asking why the campaign was “ignoring” his on-air requests for a McCain campaign interview. I had another friend scrambling to find Mark Levin’s number. Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press. At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, Tracey or Tucker would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, “No! Absolutely not- block her if she tries to go back.”
2nd Update: Sarah Palin on AP’s faux pas:
As you probably have heard, the AP snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release. And as is expected, the AP and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book. Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain.
We can’t wait to hit the road and meet so many on the book tour! See you in Michigan first…
– Sarah Palin