Tuesday, October 7, 2008

People in Glass Houses...

... should not throw stones. As Sarah Palin accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists" she should realize that her own past will, or at least should, be fair game as well.

In 1994, the New York Times, in an article entitled "Remains of Alaska Separatist Are Identified" writes that:

The blue tarp and duct tape in which the remains were wrapped, officials said, matched a description given by a convicted thief, Manfred West, who confessed last summer that he had killed Mr. Vogler in a plastic-explosives sale gone bad and had then buried him.


Remember that Palin's husband Todd was a member of Vogler's group, the Alaska Independence Party, until 2002.

According to this article in Salon.com today, not only was Vogler the founder of the Alaska Independence Party, he also proudly claimed "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." In this quest, he also sought and received the support of another nation in this quest:

Vogler's greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations to denounce United States "tyranny" before the entire world and to demand Alaska's freedom. The Alaska secessionist had persuaded the government of Iran to sponsor his anti-American harangue.


Imagine the reaction if Obama's spouse had, just six years ago, been a member of a group whose founder's body was found after "a plastic explosives sale gone bad?, who claimed to have "no use for America or her damned institutions?"

Did she "open the door" to the discussion of these ties to radicalism by trying to point to Obama's supposed radical links?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Please don't take my unique questioning ideas personally, as I don't know and I am just asking you what you think. I was wondering whether being openly political on your professional legal blog may sometimes be unwise. I have written or emailed other lawyers the same question. I also feel passionately about politics and love politics and I guess I am somewhat of a political junky. Yet, I think irregardless of which party wins or which party I support, that maybe it would be more correct to post political ideas on a different blog than my professional public blog. Some people say blogs are like diaries and people put down emotional things and say things like I feel "cloudy" and stuff like that. I have been entertained and educated by blogs and if I disagree with the blog, well I don't have to read it, although I respect other people's ideas so I usually read it anyway. Never-the-less, would you feel uncomfortable in representing someone from the opposite political party from you. Also, can someone from the opposite political position have worthy valuable ideas and deserve some degree of respect even though you disagree with them. If your mother or father or someone you care about were members of the opposite political party would you treat them with respect? Are law blogs required to be political? Are there some things that should be above or beyond politics? How would it feel to be sentenced by a Judge who was a member of the opposite political party or prosecuted by a prosecutor from the other side or defended by a defender from the other side or arrested by a law officer from the opposite political party? I think there have been some historical incidents involving political type things and they usually go against the politicizer. Like Socrates, all I know is I don't really know, but asking the question makes you think.
Yours in Defense of All Fellow Human Beings,
Glen R. Graham, Tulsa Attorney

Unknown said...

Keep on blogging.

Windypundit said...

I posted about this on my blog, and I got an interesting comment with a link to a newspaper article that suggests West has a few problems with the truth. Also, this Vogler character owned a few gold mines. When I hear about someone buying explosives, I think "bomber," but now I'm guessing there's nothing sinister about an Alaskan miner buying explosives. It's a tool of the trade.