Sarah Palin Knows One Other Supreme Court Case – Exxon Shipping v. Baker

I didn’t want to think about or write about Palin for awhile, because she distracts from all the crazy shit coming out about McCain, like his gambling problem – which is just what you want in a President during an economic crisis,  but this latest stuff about Palin is just too good.

According to HuffPo/Politico, soon-to-be released footage of Palin’s interview with Katie Couric reveals that she cannot name ANY Supreme Court cases other than Roe v. Wade.  Good lord, she could have gotten the gist of Miranda just by watching an episode of CHiPs.

There’s also the sad reality that Palin’s name will forever be tied to Obama’s historic run for President, a moment in the history of American race relations as monumental as Brown v. Board of Education — which she’s never heard of.

Her ignorance about the Supreme Court offers enough low-hanging smart-ass fruit to fill an oil tanker, I’ll leave the rest of it for others to gather; but I will talk about the oil tanker, specifically the Exxon Valdez – the ship that dumped a bazillion gallons of oil off the coast of Alaska about 20 years ago.

Aside from the environmental horrors, the spill decimated the local fishing industry.  Impacted Alaskans filed a class action suit and won $2.5 billion.  Palin and her husband were eligible to join the class, but refused.   Earlier this year,  the Supreme Court reduced Exxon’s damages to $500 million. Palin even went on local Alaska TV news and talked about it.  She was very sympathetic to the impacted families.

Watch Sarah Palin console her loyal subjects

So why wouldn’t Palin mention Exxon Shipping v. Baker, the one other Supreme Court case that she definitely knows about?  Because it turns out that her condolences to the fisherpeople of Alaska were just political cover; it seems that the Gov. had already let Exxon off the hook long before the Supreme Court did.  A few weeks ago, in an unrelated story,  the Seattle Post Intelligencer reported:

Palin refuses to push Exxon to pay the government for the unanticipated environmental injuries from the disastrous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill…Shortly before Palin took office in 2006, the government presented Exxon with a demand to pay $92 million for this additional environmental damage, but her administration has since not pressed the issue nor taken Exxon to court to collect the money. Meanwhile, Exxon reaps record profits from Alaska.

If Palin talks about Exxon Shipping, the pesky media elite will drill-baby-drill into this issue. I dug up this information with a Google search, real journalists with real sources and real access will hit a gusher.  After that, McCain’s running mate won’t look very mavericky and reformy — she’ll look oily, just like G.W. Bush.

There’s another reason she’s forgotten about this case.  In August, the Blog of the Legal Times reported that  Palin’s solidarity with Alaska’s fishing industry put her on the wrong side of John McCain’s buddies on the bench (although I doubt John McCain is a fan of Justice Souter)::

Alaska and Gov. Palin were strongly supportive of the plaintiffs in the litigation. “The justices Sen. McCain likes” were were not as supportive. In the 5-3 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was in the majority that cut the punitive damages award, and Justice Samuel Alito Jr. recused because he owns Exxon Mobil stock. The others in the majority written by Justice David Souter were Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Anthony Kennedy.

OK, that’s all I have to say about Sarah Palin.

And now, back to my bank’s website and trying to find the “hide money in a coffee can and bury it in the backyard” option for my IRA.