Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the running mate for GOP presidential candidate John McCain, wrote e-mails that harshly criticized Alaska state troopers for failing to fire her former brother-in-law and ridiculed an internal affairs investigation into his conduct.
The e-mails were shown to The Washington Post by a former public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, who was fired by Palin in July. Monegan has given copies of the e-mails to state ethics investigators to support his contention that he was dismissed for failing to fire Trooper Mike Wooten, who at the time was feuding with Palin’s family.
"This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he’s been promoted," said a Feb. 7, 2007, e-mail sent from Palin’s personal Yahoo account and written to give Monegan permission to speak on a violent-crime bill before the state legislature. "It was a joke, the whole year long ‘investigation’ of him," the e-mail said. "This is the same trooper who’s out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he’d ‘never work for that bitch, Palin.)"
Asked about the e-mails, Palin’s campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Palin was merely alerting officials to potential threats to her family and that there is no evidence that Palin ever ordered Wooten to be fired…
If "there is no evidence that Palin ever ordered Wooten to be fired," I wonder what this e-mail was intended to convey. To be honest, going over Palin’s record feels like a dead end to me. This is just one example of many where she micromanaged, fired people, changed tunes, etc. It’s anything but stellar – the stuff of an impulsive neophyte. It’s not her actual record that accounts for her being on the ticket. It’s the persona that got her elected that matters to McCain. Both McCain and Palin are running on the premise that Obama is all persona and no substance. What’s fascinating is that neither McCain nor Palin are in any position to make that claim. The opposite is true. He’s a pseudo-Maverick who voted in lockstep with the very Administration he’s claiming he’ll reform. And Sarah Palin needs to move on from Alaska’s Governorship before her rookie administrative style catches up with her. She may have every reason in the world to be mad at Trooper Wooten, her former brother-in-law, but that e-mail isn’t the way to deal with her anger. Nonetheless, being an overprotective sister is hardly a reason to be disqualified from the Vice Presidency. But dismissing her ex-brother-in-law’s boss for not firing him is another matter…
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