Political Punch
Power, pop, and probings from ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper

« Previous | Main | Next »

Grímsson! How Could I Forget About Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson?!!

October 02, 2008 8:01 PM

A few weeks ago, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told ABC News' Charlie Gibson that she'd never met with a foreign head of state (this was before her trip to NYC last week).

The Seattle Times reports that Palin met with Iceland President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson one year ago in Anchorage at an Arctic energy symposium. In a private meeting, Palin and Grímsson talked extensively, primarily "about geothermal energy and Iceland's expertise in developing that resource."

Govp_icelandpres_group There's even a photo, from the Alaska state Web site.

However, to be precise, Gibson had been pretty specific that he was "talking about somebody who's a head of state, who can negotiate for that country?

And according to the CIA World Fact Book, in Iceland the office of president is largely a ceremonial post.

So I'm not certain that Palin was, in fact, "wrong" when she said she'd never met a head of state as Gibson defined it.

Just warming up here at the Fact Check desk, in preparation for the debate.

- jpt

October 2, 2008 | Permalink | Share | User Comments (19)

User Comments

Feed You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

She probably thought that Iceland was a county in northern Minnesota...

Posted by: Reality-based | Oct 3, 2008 6:23:45 PM

We are Power and Controls little Honey Bees.
They are dying off. Why? Mico-Grnerators.
How do the Insects SEE? Ask Power and Controls Military officials, who develope Military Equipment.

Call your house rep. and Vote NO to collecting their Honey.(money)
Vote Independant.
We are Power and Controls little Honey Bees.
They are dying off. Why?
Call your house rep. and Vote NO to collecting their Honey.(money)
Vote Independant.

Republican only except Pork.
They will blame everyone, but Rick Davis.
Remember him. McCcains Advisor, who was STILL recieveing Middle Americans Money, until last Month.
McCains Top Advisor, who was helping to raise McCains Funds.

Say NO to the Bailout for Rick Davis.
Say NO to the Bailout for Rick Davis.
Vote NO for McCains Pork
Vote NO for Bailing out McCcains advisor , Rick Davis.
Watch CNN and MSNBC for Truth and Justic

Posted by: remember the Honey Bee | Oct 3, 2008 9:53:13 AM

Irrelevant!

Posted by: foreclosure | Oct 3, 2008 5:14:28 AM

whatever does anybody see in the republican claim that they know more about the economy than anyone else? they have not done anything for the economy since 1929 than repeat the same litany over and over again. If we had listened to the republicans and invested the social security funds in the stock market, how much would be left now?

Posted by: EDward | Oct 2, 2008 11:33:45 PM

Warming up the "fact check", eh?

What happen to checking things that matter, sir!!

Posted by: John | Oct 2, 2008 11:12:11 PM

OK all you jabberwockys that have spent the last three weeks guffawing about the SNL skit and deprecating Palin as a dysfunctional caricature, how do you reconcile this performance? Obama's camp made a last ditch shameless spin effort to try to pitch Palin as one of the
"foremost debaters in America", to try to lower expectations with regards to Biden. Good grief. Palin is clearly well qualified for the role and as qualified as any VP candidate in history. She's convincing too. I'm sticking with McCain because he has grit and he's sticking with Americans.

Posted by: WestCoastMessenger | Oct 2, 2008 10:52:19 PM

Sarah Palin on a no-fly zone for Darfur:

"That's impossible, there are too flies in that area for us to kill each one."

What a hoot.

Posted by: Mr. Coffee | Oct 2, 2008 10:07:33 PM

Thanks for the education Roger. Actually the new number is closer to 850 billion when you add in all the pork that was added to swing 15 republican house members into passing the bill. You also might want to read about the tax free rum and wooden arrow clause. BTW the bill has nothing absolutely nothing in their to help out people with their forclosed mortgages. Its all about saving the markets.

Thanks for the broad-brush narrow minded comment, I am sure all the people stuck in the mortgage mess are just a bunch of "dumb ass" idiots. I can see you are a walking sterotype.

Posted by: HopingForABetterWorld | Oct 2, 2008 9:04:41 PM

The 700 billion dollars that the tax payers are paying is going towards the mortgages that were given out to the uncreditworthy borrowers.

ACORN, Barney Frank, democratic party and the CRA act together created this problem. Scrap the community re-investment act. No one should give out any loans to any one if they don't feel like.

There is a certain amount of population that lives the life of a parasite.

Posted by: Roger Miller | Oct 2, 2008 8:58:05 PM

Speaking of republican scare tactics, republicans have told us in fine detail about why we shouldn't vote for Obama, but I almost never get to hear even from mccain himself why we should give him our vote.

What I do see is a repeated pattern of condescending, sarcastic, childish, and incoherent attacks on the other guy, but almost never a discussion of anything positive that will happen if mccain gets elected. Why should America vote for him anyway?

Please don't use the line that he will be better than Obama, because we all see thru that transparent remark. I am looking for specific reason, not just rhetorical repeats of what you hear on right-wing radio.

Posted by: HopingForABetterWorld | Oct 2, 2008 8:55:00 PM

That's kinda like Barack Obama claiming he has foreign policy experience based on the personal jihad trip he took to Pakistan with his "college" friend way before he joined Rev Wright's Racist Trinity United America Hating "Church".

Posted by: OxyCon | Oct 2, 2008 8:54:47 PM

Things will get better with Obama???

Obama likes to hit on McCain because of Phil Gramm cracker a lot. What does Bubba Clinton have to say about Grammy?

One of the writers of that legislation was then-Senator Phil Gramm, who is now advising John McCain, and who Mr. Obama described last week as "the architect in the United States Senate of the deregulatory steps that helped cause this mess." Ms. Bartiromo asked Mr. Clinton if he felt Mr. Gramm had sold him "a bill of goods"?

Mr. Clinton: "Not on this bill I don't think he did. You know, Phil Gramm and I disagreed on a lot of things, but he can't possibly be wrong about everything. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence.

The truth will come out soon, about Barack taking in more Freddie/Fannie money, EVER, in his short time in the Senate, except the Democrat in charge of the commitee himself.

Bush 5 years ago tried to reign in Freddie/Fannie, even as housing seemd great. McCain called for action. The Democrats in charge didn't budge, and still today, 40% of them in the House didn't budge on the bailout.

It's no surprise that they are the least approved congress ever, even more despised than our President.

McCain will make the video Burning Down the House famous.

Posted by: John | Oct 2, 2008 8:47:49 PM

Re: James, check out the Palin Truth Files.

*popcorn*

I'm ready for the debate!!! Woo!!!

Posted by: John | Oct 2, 2008 8:43:34 PM

Roger Miller: Your problem is that we are all numb to your typical republican scare tactics. Let Obama win and our country will be financially ruined.

Now there is someone who is paying attention, just what do you think the borrow and spend republicans have been doing for the past 8 years. Well, they have been working overtime to turn America's economy in to a "big steaming pile." We all understand that things will only get better with Obama.

Posted by: HopingForABetterWorld | Oct 2, 2008 8:40:41 PM

The McCain campaign says it can prove Monegan was fired in July because of insubordination on budget issues
...
The "last straw," the campaign said, was a trip Monegan planned to Washington in July to seek federal money for investigating and prosecuting sexual assault cases.

In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: the governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request "is out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. Stevens."

Posted by: James | Oct 2, 2008 8:24:35 PM

If Palin was Biden, he would have puffed up the one meeting into a major "foreign policy" summit on energy.

To her credit, she did not claim the photo op was mre than it was.

Posted by: Stephen Gianelli | Oct 2, 2008 8:19:32 PM

Jake, Talk about ACORN. Help Obama elect and you people will be staying at Motels during your field trips. Liberal socialist will screw up every one including "in the tank with Obama' journalists.

Posted by: Roger Miller | Oct 2, 2008 8:17:09 PM

Jake, your in-the-tank for BO is showing again! Get a life beyond Palin - please!!

Posted by: Beckie | Oct 2, 2008 8:15:10 PM

Jake, can you stop giving us fruit punch and some more real punch. Real issues rather than fringe ones?

For example,
!!!Jeff Ortega, flack from Ohio Secretary of State's !!!Jennifer Brunner's office, was just on WTAM-AM in Cleveland. After six minutes of trying to explain why you aren't actually "voting" when casting an early vote, he says "I have to go now" and hangs up on host Bob Frantz:

Posted by: John | Oct 2, 2008 8:09:26 PM

Post a comment





 

POLITICAL VIDEOS