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Palin defends earmark requests for Alaska


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In Alaska, meanwhile, the investigator looking into whether Palin abused her power as governor in trying to fire her former brother-in-law asked state lawmakers for the power to subpoena Palin’s husband, Todd, a dozen others and the phone records of a top aide. The state House and Senate judiciary committees were expected to grant the request.

Palin told ABC she welcomed the investigation. “There’s nothing to hide in this,” she said.

Palin was in Alaska on Friday and scheduled to attend a campaign rally in Nevada on Saturday while McCain took the day off, a reflection of her growing status as the GOP ticket’s celebrity draw.

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On “The View,” McCain said that Palin had “ignited a spark” among voters but acknowledged they parted ways on certain issues. The Arizona senator has said human behavior is largely responsible for climate change and opposes drilling for oil in a federally protected refuge, for example.

McCain appeared to back off a bit from his claim that Palin was the best vice presidential pick in U.S. history when he joked, “We politicians are never given to exaggeration or hyperbole.”

The GOP hopeful also stood by two debunked campaign commercials — one which said Obama favored comprehensive sex education for kindergarten students and another that suggested Obama had called Palin a pig. Both are factually inaccurate.

Obama, as an Illinois state senator, voted for legislation that would teach age-appropriate sex education to kindergartners, including information on rejecting advances by sexual predators. And while Obama told a campaign rally this week that McCain’s policies were like “putting lipstick on a pig,” he never used the phrase in connection with Palin.

“Those ads aren’t true. They’re lies,” said “View” co-host Joy Behar.

“They’re not lies,” McCain said, insisting that Obama “chooses his words very carefully” and should never had made the lipstick remark.

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