Inspired by Sarah Palin

I was getting caught up on my blog reading earlier today and was reading a follow up about Sarah Palin's dinner auction on eBay or, more specifically, about a bidder who lost the auction because he was not allowed to cast the winning bid because of the rules that had been set up for the auction itself.

The blog post I was reading is here:

http://www.themudflats.net/2009/09/25/will-sarah-palin-have-dinner-with-keith-olbermann-for-200000/

Ken Morris was the bidder who did not get to place a final bid on the eBay auction. Mr. Morris then offered $100,000 to be paid to a veteran's charity if former Gov. Palin was willing to have dinner with he and other people with opposing viewpoints from her own.

After her speaking engagement in China earlier this week, he doubled his offer to $200,00 because:

'Here's what's got my head Linda Blairing: Sarah Palin--who must've said our President was "pallin' around with terrorists" a thousand times--gave a speech in a communist nation known for human rights abuses, forced late term abortions, child sweatshops (thereby making products so cheaply that U.S. manufacturing cannot compete), and poisoned dog food. She then criticized the president in this foreign land for implementing trade restrictions.'

When he increased his offer, he wrote this:

'I originally wanted to post a challenge to the hundreds of readers who have expressed a willingness to contribute to veteran charities if this meeting of the minds came about. My thought was to match public contributions up to an additional $100,000. However, there are many logistical problems beyond my ability to address, so I’ll simply double the offer to $200,000and suggest to Ms. Palin that there are many people who will add to the total. The $200,000 minimum might well be something substantially larger.'


This bothers me.


Plenty.


For the record, I am not a Sarah Palin fan but I am even less of a fan of people who deliberately use our veteran's and charitable contributions as political footballs. The men, women and families of our military and the non-profit organizations that support them deserve so much better than this.

I would like to propose if Sarah Palin never responds to this offer, that Mr. Morris and anyone else who was so eager to make a donation if this dinner took place, make the donation anyway.

Include a note if you want that your donation is specifically because you don't support Sarah Palin- whatever.

I made a donation this evening. Being unemployed, it wasn't much but if I hadn't, I would be no better than those being complained about.

Just something to think about.