>>>Hey Walter,
>>>
>>>>>She promoted old friends to posts and made life difficult for enemies? Gasp! Holy Moly, no one does that!
>>>>
>>>>Does this make it right?
>>>
>>>Depends on your definition of "right". Elected officials have always put friends and associates in their cabinets because they know and trust them. It's the way the world works. Again, I don't see where this is so unique to Palin that it qualifies as news.
>>
>>But usually, they at least pick their friends who have some qualifications for the job at hand. When they do just hand out jobs like candy, the results are often pretty bad. ("Heckuva job, Brownie" comes to mind.)
>>
>>It appears that for Palin, the friendship far outweighed the question of qualifications. Now you can certainly make an argument that now and then, an official knows an individual well enough to know that person can do a good job, even though the person has no relevant experience, but you'd expect one or two such appointments. Five high school classmates in high level jobs seems like a little too much patronage, and not enough concern with making sure the job gets done right.
>>
>>Tamar
>
>You're known for not making judgments without being able to back it up, so since you made that statement you must know the education, training, and experience of those five and the positions they were given? Could you enlighten us please?

My statement was based on the NY Times article. Quoting from early on about the person appointed to the Agriculture Department, "A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency."

You'll note that my comments were not definitive. I specifically used "appears to" and "seems" because I don't have all the information. The fact that 5 high school classmates got appointments "often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages" is suggestive, though. Usually, when people leave the private sector for high-level government jobs, they take a _cut_ in pay. The idea is that you're making a sacrifice to serve your country or your state.

Tamar