After lying about death panels, the Bridge to Nowhere, aerial hunting, and pretty much everything else she's known for, it should come as no surprise that half-term governor turned Fox News analyst Sarah Palin would lie about the mantra that came to define her ill-fated run for the vice presidency: “Drill, baby, drill!”
And lie she did -- here's Sarah Palin on Twitter wagging her digital finger at the “Extreme Greenies” regarding the Gulf oil spill: "[S]ee now why we push'drill,baby,drill'of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"
The message is clear: “drill, baby, drill” was never about dangerous offshore drilling like the Deepwater Horizon site, it was about safe “onshore” locations like ANWR.
Except that it wasn't.
Here, for example, is Sarah Palin at an October 21, 2008, campaign event in Reno, with emphasis added:
PALIN: John [McCain] and I have to adopt an all-of-the-above approach to meet America's great energy challenge for you. That means harnessing alternative sources, like wind, and solar, and biomass, and geothermal.
(APPLAUSE)
And we will develop clean-coal technology. And we will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that we have underground, including off-shore.
(APPLAUSE)
We will drill here, we'll drill now, and that's when you start the chant. Yes.
AUDIENCE: Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!
PALIN: You bet. We'll drill, baby, drill, and we'll mine, baby, mine, as your placard said, yes.
Nevada, it is for our nation's security's sake and this is for our nation's economic prosperity and job opportunities in our future. We need American energy resources brought to you by American ingenuity and produced by American workers.
And here she is the day before in Loveland, Colorado:
PALIN: And whether Joe Biden approves it or not, we will develop clean coal technology and we will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that are warehoused underground, including our offshore sources. We will drill here and drill now. (Cheers, applause.) Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.
And three days before that, in West Chester, Ohio:
PALIN: It's nonsense, the road that we have about on. And we will change that. We will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that we have here in the U.S.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!
PALIN: Drill, baby, drill. That's right.
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE: Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!
(APPLAUSE)
PALIN: It also means safely tapping into our offshore sources, safely, environmentally safe.
UPDATE: Just last month, Sarah Palin said the Gulf oil spill should not change our posture towards offshore drilling at all. Asked by Fox News' Greta Van Susteren if “we should continue to go full speed ahead with the offshore drilling” in the wake of the spill, Palin responded: “Absolutely.”
From the May 14 edition of Fox News' On the Record:
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, so now we know that they don't do that. Shouldn't we at least put a halt on all offshore drilling because if they did it here on this particular rig, what would in any way give us confidence on any other rig?
PALIN: No, we are too reliant on oil.
VAN SUSTEREN: So we just keep drilling?
PALIN: We have to keep drilling. We have to learn from the mistakes that have been made with this Gulf spill. We have to get to the bottom of it, what caused it and we still don't know that.
VAN SUSTEREN: In the meantime, though, until we get to the bottom of it, you think we should continue to go full speed ahead with the offshore drilling?
PALIN: Absolutely.
VAN SUSTEREN: Even until we get to the bottom of this.
PALIN: Absolutely. There is that inherent link between our own domestic energy supplies, production of, and our own security and prosperity and our own freedom in America.