[Vision2020] Palin: VP for Vendetta

[Saundra Lund]

VP for vendetta

The Troopergate report suggests how Sarah Palin would govern the US: by
abusing her power to settle personal grudges  
Michelle Goldberg guardian.co.uk
Tuesday October 14 2008 13.00 BST  

When I was in Alaska last month, several people told me they were afraid to
speak about Sarah Palin on the record, lest they invite retaliation from the
governor's office or, God forbid, from the next vice-president. At the time,
I didn't take such worries too seriously. As abominable a candidate as Palin
is, it was hard for me to imagine vice-presidential staffers trying ruin the
lives of private Wasilla citizens just because they had displeased her. But
reading the official report of the investigation into the Palin
abuse-of-power scandal known as Troopergate, it seems that perhaps her
critics were being more prudent than paranoid.

As scandals go, Troopergate is absurdly picayune. According to the report,
released Friday by the bipartisan legislative council that authorised the
investigation, Palin and her husband tried to use their political power to
have her sister's ex-husband, state trooper Michael Wooten, fired from his
job and investigated for workers compensation fraud. They also pressed
authorities to prosecute him for a moose shooting that was unlawful because
of a technicality (the permit had been issued to his then-wife, who was with
him at the time, rather than to Wooten, who pulled the trigger). The
governor then fired Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner, because he
refused to get rid of Wooten, something he could not legally have done. This
stuff is so ridiculously small it seems silly to even be writing about it,
especially at time of multiplying global emergencies. 

Yet given that there is still a chance - albeit a diminishing one - that
Palin could soon be in a position of national political power, it's worth
looking at how she has exercised power in the past. As a window into how
Palin might rule, Troopergate's very pettiness is what makes it so
troubling. We're used to politicians who do favours for campaign
contributors, who are too cozy with lobbyists and who resort to underhanded
tactics against political foes. What we are not used to are politicians who
use their offices to intervene in family quarrels and punish their
relatives' personal enemies. For the last eight years, we've suffered under
an administration that sees no difference between politics and governing.
Palin is something arguably worse, a person who sees no difference between
her private life and her public duties. Even Dick Cheney, after all, hasn't
used his office to torment disfavoured former in-laws.

Though Palin claims the report has exonerated her, that's an outright lie.
It is true that it concluded that she was within her rights to fire Monegan,
since the governor is allowed to replace department heads without cause. But
it also found that Palin "abused her power" by violating the Alaska
Executive Branch Ethics Act, which holds that any "effort to benefit a
personal or financial interest through official action" is a violation of
the public trust. 

More interesting than the report's conclusion, though, are its pitiful
little details. There are endless haranguing phone calls to people
throughout the bureaucracy demanding action against Wooten, even after the
Palins are warned that their actions could get them in legal trouble. There
are scenes of Todd Palin, who apparently spent a great deal of time working
in no official capacity out of his wife's office, presenting Monegan with
dirt on Wooten unearthed by a private investigator. We see Todd trying to
bust his ex-brother-in- law for dropping his kids off at school and then at
church in a patrol car (both times, it turns out Wooten had permission to
use the vehicle for personal business). We learn that the judge presiding
over Wooten's divorce from Palin's sister weighed the Palin family's
vendetta against him in splitting up their assets, ruling that Wooten is
likely to earn less in the future because his ex-wife's family "have decided
to take off with the guy's livelihood".

This is not, of course, the only case in which Palin has behaved like Gossip
Girl's Blair Waldorf, mobilising her minions against those who've fallen
from her good graces. One of the people enlisted against Wooten was Palin's
legislative director John Bitney, a friend of hers since junior high school.
Bitney later angered Palin by having an affair with Debbie Richter, who at
the time was separated from Todd Palin's best friend. He was summarily
fired. (Debbie Richter has since become Debbie Bitney).

All this is, of course, pretty trivial stuff. But how terrifying to think of
a vice-president - or a president - wielding the power of her office to
settle such personal grudges. The Bush administration has famously been
described as the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis. Palin promises
something tawdrier still. Again, bad prime-time soap operas offer the best
analogy. Could America survive the rule of the Mayberry Carringtons?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/oct/14/sarah-palin-t
roopergate-election