Imagine if the Obamas had hooked up with a violently anti-American group in league with the government of Iran.

By GottaLaff

Via Salon:

"My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."

This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.

Only one problem. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. ("Keep up the good work," Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")

What? IWRC* Palin is blessing Say It Ain't So Joe Vogler? A raging anti-American? Why, that's positively anti-American! It's a good thing he doesn't have ties to any of our enemies, because that would spell real trouble!

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.

That's right ... Iran. The Islamic dictatorship. The taker of American hostages. The rogue nation that McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.

Doggone it, it's a good thing IWRC is white. Otherwise, she'd never hear the end of this, you betcha.

The Republican ticket is working hard this week to make Barack Obama's tenuous connection to graying, '60s revolutionary Bill Ayers a major campaign issue. But the Palins' connection to anti-American extremism is much more central to their political biographies.

Imagine the uproar if Michelle Obama was revealed to have joined a black nationalist party whose founder preached armed secession from the United States and who enlisted the government of Iran in his cause? The Obama campaign would probably not have survived such an explosive revelation. Particularly if Barack Obama himself was videotaped giving the anti-American secessionists his wholehearted support just months ago.

Where's the outrage, Sarah Palin has been asking this week, in her attacks on Obama's fuzzy ties to Ayers? The question is more appropriate when applied to her own disturbing associations.

Where's the good ol' corporate media on this one? Tom Brokaw should get right on it. He's got that awesome "fairness" thing going for him.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

Finally: Obama camp raises Todd Palin's secessionist ties

By GottaLaff

Marc Ambinder:

In response to Gov. Sarah Palin's invocation of Barack Obama's "terrorist" "pal" William Ayers, Democrats have settled on a rhetorical response that inquires, innocently enough, whether Todd Palin's association with anti-American secessionists is fair game, especially in light of Palin's charge that Obama "is not a man who sees America as you and I do."

Todd Palin, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, might well have seen America unlike his wife did -- that is, an America that one can secede from. He was comfortable belonging to and being associated with a political party whose founder seemed to delight in denouncing the principles that hold our union together. [...]

Conservative groups have spent more than ten million dollars on ads tying Obama to Ayers, and so far, Americans don't seem to give a heck. (This tells us what about how we're going to make that mortgage payment?)

Maybe Palin's willingness to go there changes all that.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Via TPM Election Central:

McCain apologists will argue that Sarah Palin was not a member of this group. But Obama wasn't a member of any Ayers anti-American group, either. And again, Palin repeatedly courted the AIP, and her husband was a member for years.

The main takeaway from today's Times story is that Obama's ties to Ayers are, if anything, less substantial than commonly alleged. So if the Ayers association means Obama "palled around" with "terrorists," as Palin put it today, surely Palin can be said to have "palled around" with a secessionist party whose founder openly professed hatred of America.

If Palin is going to directly question Obama's patriotism over his association Ayers, surely all these facts are now fair game and freshly relevant.

As Ambinder says in his piece, Obama wasn't influenced by Ayers, someone he barely knew, but IWRC* eats, drinks, and sleeps with Todd. He influences her daily, in ways that I don't even want to think about. I hope there's more where this came from, Team Obama.

*"In What Respect, Charlie?"

SIDEBAR, UPDATE:

Gov. Sarah Palin's going to visit Omaha tomorrow night, the local paper reports.

Remember, Obama's campaign wants -- and thinks it can get -- the electoral vote that NE allocates.

UPDATE #2:

Gov. Sarah Palin's husband is planning to speak to an investigator looking into abuse-of-power allegations against the governor, Todd Palin's lawyer said Saturday. He previously refused to testify under subpoena in a separate probe. Attorney Thomas Van Flein said he asked the investigator, Anchorage attorney Timothy Petumenos, to reserve the third week of October to interview Todd Palin, but a date has not been set because he is waiting to hear back from Petumenos. [...]

The two investigators could interview Todd Palin together or Branchflower could use Petumenos' interview in his own investigation, Van Flein said, though Branchflower is scheduled to end his probe at least a week before the planned interview.

Founder of Alaskan Independence Party as bad as Reverend Wright

By GottaLaff

Will we hear the same screams of anti-Americanism and accusations as we did during the Reverend Wright kerfuffle? You can stop laughing now:

The founder of the Alaska Independence Party -- a group that has been courted over the years by Sarah Palin, and one her husband was a member of for roughly seven years -- once professed his "hatred for the American government" and cursed the American flag as a "damn flag."

Is that anything like saying "God damn America"? No? What about "my hatred for the American government"? Sounds like renouncing and denouncing to me.

The AIP founder, Joe Vogler, made the comments in 1991, in an interview that's now housed at the Oral History Program in the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government," Vogler said in the interview, in which he talked extensively about his desire for Alaskan secession, the key goal of the AIP.

"And I won't be buried under their damn flag," Vogler continued in the interview, which also touched on his disappointment with the American judicial system. "I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home."

Ruh-roh.

"And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska."

You can listen to audio of the relevant section of the Volger interview here. Bill Schneider, curator of oral history at the library, verified the authenticity of the interview and the quote [...]

Three years after the controversial interview, in 1994, Palin attended the group's annual convention, according to witnesses who spoke to ABC News' Jake Tapper. The McCain campaign is disputing her presence there, but Tapper found two people to attest to it.

The McCain campaign today produced Palin's voting registration records, and said they proved she was never a member of the party.

But she has repeatedly reached out to the group. The McCain campaign has confirmed she visited the group's 2000 convention, and she addressed its convention this year, as an incumbent governor whose oath of office includes upholding the Constitution of the United States.

Palin's husband, Todd Palin, was a member of the party from 1995-2002 with a brief exception in 2000.

It's worth noting that Vogler isn't just some figure from ancient history. He is still being hailed on AIP's site this year, the same year Palin addressed the group's convention.

If we're going to play the same "guilt by association" card as the Republicans did, then Sarah Lou is ready to be cuffed, fingerprinted, and thrown in the ol' hoosegow. Or is that moosegow?