Click to enlarge. Sarah Palin was for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it.

Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech last night at the Republican National Convention was her opportunity to introduce herself and let us learn more about her. To let us hear from her own lips, even if someone else wrote the words, what she might do as vice president, how a GOP victory could help this country at a troubled time and why she is quaified to be vice president.

We got none of that. I didn’t expect her to explain her own Troopergate or why she wanted to ban books at her local library or how she reconciles being glad her pregnant teenager made “the choice” to marry the father while opposing choice for American women as a whole. In this respect, she did not disappoint.

But the speech was flash, not substance. Red meat for a bloodthirsty base looking to be fed. She achieved that with a smug, divisive, sarcastic and often-belittling speech that was reminiscent of Spiro Agnew, the combative vice president who resigned in disgrace a few years before his boss, Richard Nixon, resigned in even greater disgrace.

And it was a speech of half-truths and distortions. I did some fact checking with the help of Politifact and the Associated Press.

The pork-barrel money for the now-infamous bridge to nowhere
She said – “I told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ on that Bridge to Nowhere.”
In fact – She supported it as a candidate and opposed it only as governor and the project was nearly dead. For more on her earmarks in general and this one in particular, see Flip-flop Award - McCain Again.

Taxes
She said – Barack Obama supports plans to raise “income taxes … payroll taxes.”
In fact – He supports higher taxes only for those making more than a quarter-million dollars a year.

That state jet
She said – “That luxury jet was over the top. I put it on eBay.”
In fact – Yes, she did. But it got no bids at all. It was sold offline.

Experience
She said – “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”
In fact – I will quote the AP here: “Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.”

A real whopper
This was on her behalf when former Arkansas governor and failed presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Palin “got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States.”
In fact – Palin ran for mayor twice. She got 616 votes in 1996 and, up for re-election, 909 votes in 1999. That’s a total of 1,525. Even though Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses in January, he remained on the primary ballots in 23 states and the District of Columbia. He got 76,165 votes.

What I took away from this speech is that Sarah Palin showed she can be a good vice-presidential candidate in the long tradition of VP candidates serving as pit bulls. She did not show she can be a good vice president.

With or without lipstick.