1 Boring Old Man

Palin Talks to Alaska Reporters about Troopergate

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin this weekend disregarded an ethics investigator’s finding that she had abused her executive power as Alaska’s governor and instead embraced a second finding in the report to say that she had been cleared of wrongfully firing her state public safety commissioner.

Investigator Stephen Branchflower’s 263-page report said Palin breached state ethic laws when she, her husband and members of her administration tried to get the ex-husband of her younger sister fired as an Alaska state trooper. A second finding determined that Palin was within her right to fire public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, even if she did so in part because he didn’t bow to pressure to sack the trooper.

In a Saturday conference call with Alaska journalists, Palin said she was "pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there." She denounced the investigation, calling it "a partisan circus." The McCain-Palin campaign said that she and her family had good reason to try to get the trooper fired.

A transcript of the brief conference call was posted on the Web site of TV station KTUU. In the call, Palin was asked, "Do you think you did anything wrong at all in this troopergate case?" The governor replied, "Not at all. And I’ll tell you — I think that you’re always going to ruffle feathers if you do what you believe is in the best interests of the people whom you are serving"…

It is a remarkable strategy – this talking over the facts as if they were not even there. I was always amazed when Bush or Cheney did it, but Palin has taken to it like a duck to water. She may be better at it than they were. This is how she’s exceeding them: "… pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there." The report said:

For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 2952.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 2952.110(a) provides

“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”