Oh. Come. ON! Palin is a Successionist?

ABC News is now confirming that Sarah Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party:

Officials of the Alaskan Independence Party say that Palin was once so independent, she was once a member of their party, which since the 1970s has been pushing for a legal vote for Alaskans to decide whether or not residents of the 49th state can secede from the United States.

And while McCain's motto -- as seen in a new TV ad -- is "Country First," the AIP's motto is the exact opposite -- "Alaska First -- Alaska Always."

...

She doesn't know what Palin's position was.

"It never came up in conversation," Clark recalls. "But when she joined the party our platform was right under her nose."

No kidding it was right under he nose. Their entire reason for the party's existence is emblazoned all over their website's front page:

A belief that there should be a vote on Alaskan secession, since the Alaskan people were not given the required slate of choices back in 1958.

Their founder, a man named Joe Vogler, famously said, "I'm an Alaskan, not an American. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." The same man also said, "[T]he fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American government."

To polish it off, we have the following greeting to the AIP Convention for 2008.


Did McCain know that she had sent a love letter to a secessionist group this very year?

Of course their defense will be, "AIP members don't want to secede from the union... the just want the option to vote to secede from the union. Those are totally different things!"