As Governor, Palin appointed a childhood friend, Franci Havemeister, to the head of the State Division of Agriculture. Havemeister, a former real estate agent, had no previous experience in agriculture. She cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency, which pays her $95,000 a year. That sounds a lot like Palin's reasoning that she's qualified to deal with Russia because she can see their land from her land.
The appointment of Havemeister is also eerily remniscient of George Bush's political appointments. Bush is infamous for putting unqualified friends in high positions. Remember Michael Brown (aka "Brownie"), head of FEMA and former horse show promoter? I'll bet the citizens of New Orleans won't forget him anytime soon. He sat twiddling his thumbs while the city drowned during Katrina.
Ms. Palin also seems to keep politics in the family. According to the Times, when she had to cut her first state budget, she met with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects. Her husband hardly seems qualified to weigh in on the state's budget issues, not to mention he's not an employee of the state.
The Times reports: "Throughout her political career, she has pursued vendettas, fired officials who crossed her and sometimes blurred the line between government and personal grievance, according to a review of public records and interviews with 60 Republican and Democratic legislators and local officials."
After eight years of Bush incompetence, the last thing the country needs is an incompetent VP appointing incompetent friends to positions they are not qualified to hold.
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