Sarah Palin's red-meat speech written by vegetarian ex-Bush speechwriter

Matthew Scully worked as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush for five years, starting in the 2000 campaign. During Bush's first term, he was part of the team that drafted the post-9/11 speeches and every major presidential address. He's also written speeches Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Dan Quayle and Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole.

So maybe it wasn't a surprise that Republican John McCain's team hired him to produce a prime-time debut speech for vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the first-term governor of Alaska who attacked Democrat Barack Obama last night in her role as what she described a pit bull with lipstick.

Obama press secretary Bill Burton was one of the first to take note of the Scully connection. In a statement last night he said:

The speech that Gov. Palin gave was well-delivered but it was written by George Bush's speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we've heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Gov. Palin and John McCain want to define 'change' as voting with George Bush 90% of the time, that's their choice but we don't think the American people are ready to take a 10% chance on change.

What may be even more surprising is that Scully, a anti-abortion author who made a passionate case for vegetarianism in his book "Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy," teamed up with the moose burger-eating, caribou-hunting governor. As the Austin American-Statesman noted, on page nine of the book, Scully makes clear his aversion to hunters, as follows:

And to me it has always seemed not only ungenerous and shabby but a kind of supreme snobbery to deal cavalierly with them (animals), as if their little share of the earth’s happiness and grief were inconsequential, meaningless, beneath a man’s attention, trumped by any and all designs he might have on them, however base, irrational or wicked.

Palin is shown here in her downtown Anchorage office in 2007, sitting next to a grisly bear (an earlier version of this post said it was stuffed, but now we're not so sure. Ditto the crab.) Red meat indeed.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Stephen Nowers / Anchorage Daily News

Comments

[X_POLYGAMIST WIFE]

Palin and McCain should join the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and move to Colorado City, Arizona where the largest polygamous enclave in America resides. In Colorado City there are plenty of down syndrome babies, tons of teenage pregnancies, and ALL the women support white male supremacy.

http://www.bankingonheaven.com

[Contessa]

Governor Palin's executive experience only equals that of the approximate size of San Diego !! I should know- I live in Alaska ! Wake up America and don't be fooled by McCain's choice- If he is voted in, America will quickly turn the clocks back to the old days of banned abortion- Let's see what Palin is prepared to say this week to World News on ABC. Will she really want to reveal her true beliefs- She does not believe that global warming exists, only believes in creationism and just two years ago in a a speech, she made the comment that she was ok with the words "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance, just as our founding fathers were! But wait- those words were added during the McCarthy era !! Wake up America, or we are in for a rude awakening....

[Shen lo]

Take a good look at this link. I don't know if the amount of insanity enveloping this country has been properly studied or reported on. http://www.vegsource.com/talk/top/ LOOK AT IT. Here is what you'll find: "Obama is a muslim." "Obama supports killing babies." "I'm never visiting this site again because you're voting for a democrat." THIS IS WHAT AMERICA HAS TURNED INTO. When and how will this stop?

[Alicia]

He's disgusting for turning his back on animal cruelty.