[Vision2020] Palin: VP for Vendetta

[No Weatherman]

PE for Palin Envy


On 10/14/08, Saundra Lund <sslund_2007 at verizon.net> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>  =======================================================
>   List services made available by First Step Internet,
>   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>  =======================================================
>