Is it true that Sarah Palin has made inaccurate statements?

Answer:

Opinions

All politicians lie or exaggerate at some point when it is politically expedient for them to do so, and when they feel that embellishing an issue can benefit themselves or teir campaign.

Lies

Also see Related Questions.

Keith Olbermann is tracking and donating $100 per lie to the Alaskan Special Olympics Fund. As of September 19, he had identified 37 lies (often repeated multiple times) and donated $3,700 (see Related Links for video clip). Lies have also been verified by a former Bush supporter who writes for The Atlantic (see 12 Lies in Related Links) and other independent sources such as the Seattle Times.

Other widely verified instances of Sarah Palin lies include:

  1. She said she "told the Congress thanks but no thanks on the Bridge to Nowhere". - The truth is that she supported the bridge to nowhere while running for Governor of Alaska in 2006. Once elected, she never opposed it and the U.S. Congress eventually killed the bill. Palin kept the $223 million already given to Alaska for it. Part of it was then spent on building a road to where the bridge would have been, which is now called the road to nowhere.
  2. She said she would cooperate with an investigation into Troopergate. Since, she has said she would not cooperate and has ignored subpoenas and had her top aides refuse to testify as part of the evidence gathering into the abuse of power investigation.
  3. She sold a state plane on eBay. She did put the plane on eBay, but sold the plane to one of her campaign contributors.
  4. She never asked the fired Public Safety Commissioner to fire the state trooper and the Commissioner agrees with her. The Commissioner has publicly stated that she did ask and he does not agree with Palin's version.
  5. She took a voluntary pay cut as Wasilla Mayor. He salary actually increased.
  6. She's not going to judge gays. She refers to it as homosexuality (a term almost exclusively used by anti-gay groups), suggests that it's a choice (it is long been medically proven as not a choice and probably genetic), and belongs to a church that promotes "gay conversion" and "pray the gay away".
  7. She claims to be against earmarks. The truth is that as Mayor of Wasilla she obtained over $20 MM in earmarks for a town of under 9,000 people. As governor of Alaska she has requested $453 MM earmarks. These projects include more than $130 million in federal funds that would benefit Alaska's fishing industry (Palin's husband is a commercial fisherman) and an additional $9 million to help Alaska oil companies. She also has sought $4.5 million to upgrade an airport on a Bering Sea island that has a year-round population of less than 100. (Source: Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143893857134389.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop )
  8. When asked if she hesitated to take McCain's offer to be his Vice President, she claimed she didn't hesitate. She has stated elsewhere that she asked her daughters for their opinion before accepting.
  9. The teleprompter broke during her Republican Convention speech. Witnesses have confirmed it did not.
  10. She did not fire a chef. She did fire the chef.
  11. She knew nothing about charging raped women for rape kits. She fired the police chief who did not charge rape victims and replaced him with the police chief who did charge rape victims.
  12. She visited Iraq. She visited the Kuwait border.
  13. She has foreign policy experience with Russia. She does not. Russian news media has even made run of her for this claim and openly mocked her intelligence. If she had worked with Russia in any way, they clearly came away unimpressed.
  14. In an interview with Katie Couric, she claimed she had negotiated trade missions with Russia. Slate Magazine found no evidence that any such trade missions had taken place while she was governor though. (See the Related Link ... Trade Missions, which is a report by Salon that also references an independent report from the Seattle Times finding no active trade missions and decreased financial support for an organization that works on Russian trade.)


Her detractors say she is very inexperienced so she's probably just practicing alot so she can get as good at it as they are.


Note on Keith Olberman:

Since Keith Olberman is the source of this answer it needs to be said that he is not an unbiased source. In fact, he was recently removed from MSNBC because of his obvious bias against the McCain/Palin campaign. (see links)

Other "sources" listed above include a gay writer who has found conflict with Sarah Palin's religious background. News sources such as the Associated Press have also been caught editing Palin's quotes and distorting her message. Another question worth asking "Is the media bias?"

It might be best to research smears against all candidates thoroughly before accepting bias bloggers comments as total fact.

Contributor: Aggie80
First answer by ID0403049175. Last edit by Answers.com Support. Contributor trust: 135 [recommend contributor recommended]. Question popularity: 26 [recommend question].