Palin - Corrupt Republican Politics

It\'s taken time but a true picture of Sarah Palin's experience and political record is coming into focus - and it looks a lot like the Bush administration. If you thought the disaster of Katrina and the FEMA director's job was the last word in cronyism? Here's another example  of the "heckofa job Brownie" school of human resources pointed out by the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson:

 And the New York Times  reported Sunday that as governor, Palin appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to a $95,000-a-year job as head of the State Division of Agriculture. Havemeister "cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency," the Times reported, noting her as one of at least five schoolmates to whom Palin has given high-paying jobs in state government.
Nothing against cows. Nothing against high-school BFFs and being true to your school. But a different picture of Sarah Palin is beginning to emerge. The McCain campaign would like us to see a straight-talking, gun-toting, moose-eviscerating, lipstick-wearing frontierswoman. Instead, we're beginning to discern an ambitious, opportunistic politician who makes no bones about rewarding friends and punishing those who stand in her way -- and who believes that truth is nothing more, and nothing less, than what she says it is.

Wikipedia defines cronyism as "...partiality to long-standing friends, especially by appointing them to positions of authority, regardless of their qualifications." Palin's record is beginning to show a portrait of politics as usual - that's corrupt Republican politics - the same as we've had for the last eight years.