Mike Gravel on Palin

Here is a rare moment for me, a politician with whom I can't disagree. Mike Gravel, the former Senator from Alaska was invited onto a Left-wing radio show. It seems clear that the hosts were hoping to use him to rip into Sarah Palin and they brought up numerous lies and distortions about Palin that the Left have been insidiously spreading around. Senator Gravel, of course, is intimately aware of Alaskan politics and he doesn't let them get away with it. While he makes it clear he would never endorse McCain/Palin he also makes it clear that lying about her just isn't right.

I've read so many distortions about Palin in the last few days I've lost track of them all. Sadly I've even seen friends who were taken in by some -- such as the list of books that Palin supposedly tried to have banned.

Where Gravel was excellent was the so-called Troopergate incident. A state trooper, who had been married to Palin's sister was fired and Palin was "blamed" for that. The way the Left portrays this she had him fired because he and her sister were divorcing. The fact is that the trooper was fired after a series of violent incidents by himself. He tasered his young stepson, he threatened various people with harm and/or death. He was a thug who deserved to be fired. And Gravel is shocked that these Lefties seem to be siding with the cop in question in spite of his violent record -- just so they can attack Palin.

There are two major issues I have with Mike Gravel but the more I hear of him the more I like him. I was very impressed with the way he handled himself when he was seeking the Libertarian Party nomination in Denver. His wayward views on a couple of big issues were enough to keep me from supporting him. But in Denver the LP obviously decided that being a libertarian was NO longer a criteria for representing the party since they gave the two top slots to conservatives. Certainly among the not-quite libertarians running for the LP nomination I think Gravel is heads above the others. I'm glad he's around and he's doing a lot of good things. I especially love his attack on the Democrats at the end of the interview. The whole interview is about 9 minutes and well worth listening to.