Debunking the Sarah Palin Rumor-Mill

With all the rumors flying around Al Gore's Invention the Internet about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin, blogger Charles Martin has started a list to assess the credibility of same, many with links to sources.

A sample:

1. Yes, she is Governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the Lieutenant Governor. No, she’s not currently Mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was Mayor of Wasilla, some years ago.
2. Yes, as Governor of Alaska, she’s the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard. And yes, her professional military subordinate is quite impressed with her in that role.
3. And yes, the New York Times says the job of Governor of Alaska is one of the harder, and more powerful, jobs in state government.
4. Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal.
5. Yes, she did giggle when someone called Lyda Green a “bitch.” Yes, Lyda Green is a cancer survivor. Yes, it was the same Lyda Green who tried to force a scheduling conflict that would make Palin miss her son’s high school graduation. Yes, this would also be the Lyda Green who complained no one had asked her about Palin during the vetting process.
6. Yes, she did push for and approve the Wasilla Sports Center. Yes, it did cost a lot of money. (People keep saying $20 million, that article says $14.5 million, but then they also added a $1.2 million dollar food service/kitchen piece. This year, after Palin was out of office as Mayor.) Yes, the city went into debt to do it (how did you buy your house, bunkie?) and raised the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay for it. Yes, the city is paying it off early. Yes, there is an ongoing dispute about title (following a struggle with the Nature Conservancy and another buyer. And yes, at the time it was built, Wasilla had a Federal judge’s decision that they had title to the land.

[links omitted]

Read the rest of the 70+ point list here.

On a less serious note, Moderate Risk takes a preemptive approach to dismissing Sarah Palin rumors before they happen:

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10. No, Sarah Palin does not volunteer to serve as the Alaska state executioner to break up the long winter nights. (That's what she has Todd for.)
11. No, Sarah Palin did not “kilt her a b'ar when she was only three.” (Rumors of her mother holding her up as an infant on Pride Rock to accept the fealty of all the animals have no video evidence to dismiss it.)
12. No, Sarah Palin did not hunt down and kill everybody with a picture of her in a bikini from her pageant days. (Most people destroyed the negatives of their own free will after the disappearances started.)

While Palin Facts does a tongue-in-cheek roundup of little known Sarah Palin facts. Sample fact: "Sarah Palin is the reason compasses point North."

:)