Trade missions to nowhere

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Yeah, so you remember Palin's assertion, in her interview with Katie Couric, that there'd been "trade missions back and forth" between Alaska and Russia? (She was responding to Couric's question about whether there'd been "any negotiations... with the Russians." She didn't give any specifics and quickly, if awkwardly, moved on, claiming that she's been monitoring Putin and watching out for a Russian invasion.)

Well, there's a good reason she didn't give any specifics and didn't want anything to do with Couric's question. As Alex Koppelman points out at Salon's War Room, there never were any trade missions.

A previous governor, Democrat Tony Knowles, led one in 1997, but "[t]hat seems to be about it for Russia-Alaska trade missions lately." "When asked for examples of trade missions with Russia that have taken place under Palin's watch, gubernatorial spokeswoman Kate Morgan refused to answer the question."

If anything, there has been disengagement under Palin, not engagement. For example, according to Koppelman, a Seattle Times article published a couple of weeks ago "noted that Anchorage is host to an organization called the Northern Forum, a council of regional governments from all the northernmost countries of the world. But the Palin administration cut the Forum's budget from $75,000 to $15,000, and stopped the practice of sending representatives to its meetings."

So there you have it.

Yet another lie from Sarah Palin.