In an interview with Investor’s Business Daily last July, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) took issue with those who say that drilling for oil in the U.S. will not solve America’s energy problem. “I beg to disagree with any candidate who would say we can’t drill our way out of our problem,” Palin argued. Yet last night during her speech accepting the Republican nomination for Vice President, Palin mocked her “opponents” for reminding her that “drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems” :

PALIN: Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems – as if we all didn’t know that already. But the fact that drilling won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all.

Watch it:

Last night during her speech to the Republican National Convention, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sought to play up her experience as mayor of a small town in Alaska by mocking community organizing:

PALIN: And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a “community organizer,” except that you have actual responsibilities.

Today, the nation’s leading organization’s responded to Palin’s attack:

– Center for Community Change: When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn’t attack another candidate. She attacked an American tradition — one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors.

– Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now: ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending remarks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country. The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their lack of touch with ordinary people.

– USAction: These groups, and the millions of individuals they represent, are dismayed by the recent dismissal of their efforts in the form of political attacks. Community organizations have been at the heart of every major reform in modern history – from the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement for example, the quest for civil rights began when community organizers mobilized the disenfranchised.

– Community Organizers of America: The last thing we need is for Republican officials to mock us on television when we’re trying to rebuild the neighborhoods they have destroyed. Maybe if everyone had more houses than they can count, we wouldn’t need community organizers. But I work with people who are getting evicted from their only home. If John McCain and the Republicans understood that, maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to make fun of community organizers like me.

Faith In Public Life has more responses from leading community organizers.

Check out The Sarah Palin Digest.

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Today, U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff to four years in prison “on conspiracy and other charges after federal prosecutors recommended leniency due to Abramoff’s cooperation in pursuing corruption cases against lawmakers and former administration officials. He faced a maximum of 11 years under a plea deal reached in 2006.”

The far right has largely embraced Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) choice of Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) as his vice presidential running mate. But as the St. Louis Beacon recently wrote, few Republicans have been “more gleeful” than Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly:

“The more Democrats talk about Sarah Palin’s lack of experience, the more it hurts Obama,” Schlafly says, “because it makes us realize he (Obama) doesn’t have any executive experience. Also, I object to him because he’s a guy who has never worked with his hands. He’s just an elitist who has done nothing but community organizing.”

Schlafly has also called Palin a “breath of fresh air.” “She’s right on every issue,” she added. In fact, two months ago, Schlafly had already asked Palin to speak at a Republican National Coalition for Life session at the convention this week. At the last minute, however, the McCain campaign pulled Palin from the event.

Schlafly’s embrace is hypocritical. She is so eager to endorse the Republican vice presidential choice that she’s abandoning her long-held conservative beliefs. In the past, Schlafly has railed against working women:

The flight from the home is a flight from yourself, from responsibility, from the nature of woman, in pursuit of false hopes and fading illusions.

Focus on the Family’s James Dobson has similarly jumped away from the ship of conservative values. Dobson has accepted the choice of Palin, a mother of five, to run for vice president, calling it “a personal matter.” In the past, however, he has blamed “the supposed crumbling of ‘moral values’ and [the] ‘anarchy that is now rumbling through the midsection of democracy’ on working mothers and ‘permissiveness.’” “A little push in any direction and she could go over the edge,” Dobson said about working mothers in 1998.

One of the few conservatives who has stuck to her ideology is Dr. Laura, who has expressed disappointment in the pick of Palin. “Marriages and the welfare of children suffer when a stressed-out mother doesn’t have time to be a woman, a wife, and a hands-on Mommy,” wrote Dr. Laura earlier this week.

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Earlier this week, Hurricane Gustav slammed into the Gulf Coast, barely sparing the New Orleans area. As the Wonk Room has documented, the intensity and frequency of these storms is linked to the warming planet. In an interview with ThinkProgress in St. Paul, MN on Tuesday, former Bush EPA administrator and New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman said that global boiling is undeniable:

There’s no question that the climate is changing and scientists will tell you that one of the outcomes of that is more frequent and more severe storms, droughts, and floods. They just can’t tell you when or where these things will actually occur. … Scientists will tell you that there is a definite correlation between these temperature changes that we’re seeing and the frequency and intensity and severity of storms.

Watch it:

Whitman added that she is “not as comfortable as [she] would like to be” with some of the decisions made by EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

The Hill reports that today, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) used the racially-loaded term “uppity” to describe Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL):

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”