Troopergate & Palin

[Kulaf]

People with the "reformer" tag on them often are blunt and abrupt in dealing with personel and ruffle a lot of feathers. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me that she tends to deal with people in a get on board or get out of the way kind of manner.

[Ddrak]

I'm sure she does, although calling her a "reformer" is a stretch. I was more referring to the fact she often let personal issues creep into her "do it my way or I'll fire you" type of administration style.

Dd

[Kulaf]

I didn't call her one....i said she was tagged as one. AK is a small......big state. When you read some of the "issues" she has had as mayor.....they center around the old "everyone knows everyone" theme. I persoanlly live in a town of 5k people with a city council that votes as a clique. There are 5 members total and 3 of them vote in lock step with each other. It tends to create a lot of drama and frustration with the other two members and with the city in general.

Hard to fire people you know on a personal basis without there being hard feelings.

[Ddrak]

I'm sure there's lots of small-town politics that went on. The stuff of concern is this type of thing where she appears to be using her position to get special treatment and gifts. It *seems* she had a real problem with her ethical position as mayor that can at least be made to look a lot like your typical Mayor Quimby style corruption.

Dd

[Harlowe]

Time's report on it

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,881 ... 99,00.html

But the Branchflower report still makes for good reading, if only because it convincingly answers a question nobody had even thought to ask: Is the Palin administration shockingly amateurish? Yes, it is. Disturbingly so.

A harsh verdict? Consider the report's findings. Not only did people at almost every level of the Palin administration engage in repeated inappropriate contact with Walt Monegan and other high-ranking officials at the Department of Public Safety, but Monegan and his peers constantly warned these Palin disciples that the contact was inappropriate and probably unlawful. Still, the emails and calls continued — in at least one instance on recorded state trooper phone lines.

The state's head of personnel, Annette Kreitzer, called Monegan and had to be warned that personnel issues were confidential. The state's attorney general, Talis Colberg, called Monegan and had to be reminded that the call was putting both men in legal jeopardy, should Wooten decide to sue. The governor's chief of staff met with Monegan and had to be reminded by Monegan that, "This conversation is discoverable ... You don't want Wooten to own your house, do you?"

Monegan consistently emerges as the adult in these conversations, while the Palin camp displays a childish impetuousness and sense of entitlement.

Another amateurish sign: Todd Palin's outsize role in the mess. Branchflower said it was out of his jurisdiction to pass judgment on the First Gentleman, but his report paints an extralegal role for Todd Palin that would have made the Hillary Clinton of 1992 blush. In the report, the head of Gov. Palin's security detail says that Todd spent about half of his time in the governor's office — not at a desk (he didn't have one), but at a long conference table on one side of the office, with his own phone to make and receive calls. It became a shadow office, the informal Department of Getting Mike Wooten Fired.

It was at that long table that Todd Palin first scheduled a meeting with Walt Monegan, days after his wife's administration began. He showed Monegan three huge binders of evidence against Wooten, including a picture of a dead moose that had been shot illegally. After Monegan came back saying that there was no new actionable information, Todd began a very visible campaign of stewing and fuming, trying to get access to personnel files, calling up and down the Public Safety org chart.

[Harlowe]

Some new trouble for the Palin's - was the $552,000 house that "Todd and some buddy contractors built on their own" really a kickback for the Sport's Complex?

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-08/ ... of-sarah/5

This one might have some legs and would not surprise me a bit, but it's from the Village Voice, so we'll see.

Todd Palin told Fox News that he built the two-story, 3,450-square-foot, four-bedroom, four-bath, wood house himself, with the help of contractors he described as "buddies." As mayor, Sarah Palin blocked an effort to require the filing of building permits in the wide-open city, and there is no public record of who the "buddies" were. The house was built very near the complex, on a site whose city purchase led to years of unsuccessful litigation and, now, $1.3 million in additional costs, with a law firm that's also donated to Palin collecting costly fees from the city.

[Harlowe]

WSJ's Peggy Noonan

Palin's Failin' What is it she stands for? After seven weeks, we don't know.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1224192 ... 08_mostpop

Mr. Obama continued to claim he will remove wasteful spending by sitting down with the federal budget and going through it "line by line." This is absurd, and he must know it. Mr. McCain continued to vow he will "balance the budget" in the next four years. Who believes that? Does even he?

We have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office.

In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position.

I agree with her on neither party tickling me with their plans on fiscal responsibility.

[Harlowe]

Palin, I think the McCain aide that called her a "whack job" is absolutely right. Now she claims Obama wants to rewrite the Constitution. Something she has yet to read.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... stitution/

“Sen. Obama said that he regretted, he regretted that the Supreme Court hadn't been more radical and he described the Court's refusal to take up the issues of redistribution of wealth as a tragedy,” Palin said. “And he said that he also regretted that the Supreme Court didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers there in the Constitution, that's a quote.”

Palin was suggesting Obama had expressed support for a broad redistribution of wealth in American society that would be carried out by the Supreme Court, but as fact-checkers noted on Tuesday, Obama was discussing the courts in the context of the civil rights movement, and was not referring to taxes.

Additionally, Obama said in the interview it was a mistake for civil rights leaders to rely too heavily on the courts to affect social change, and that issues of income redistribution were better left to legislators and community organizers.

Nevertheless, Palin claimed that Obama — a former constitutional law professor — favors allowing the judiciary to seize property and personal income in order to “spread the wealth around.”

“So you have to ask: Is this a suggestion that he'd want to re-write the founding document of our great nation to accomplish his goals, and what does that say about his ideas on future Supreme Court justices?” Palin asked.

Under an Obama administration, Palin said, judges would “confiscate your property and your hard, all of your hard-earned money and then re-distribute that. He may call that a tragedy, but I call it fairness and adherence to our U.S. Constitution.”

This really deserves it's own WTF post. Honestly, what the fuck Palin?

[Ddrak]

Fox, Drudge and the McCain campaign in general had the same "tragedy not redistributing the wealth" lie. The stupidest part of the whole thing is Obama was actually taking the *conservative* point of view in the speech they are referencing and slamming the civil rights movement for going to court far too much.

The flat out lies presented by the "right" are not flat out despicable and the reason the GOP is going to lose in one of the biggest landslides since Reagan.

Dd

[Harlowe]

New ethics complaint filed in Alaska against Palin.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/ ... 4071.shtml

[Harlowe]

They keep saying she's going to release them, even she said she would, so why isn't she releasing any kind of medical records or even a summary as the rest of the candidates have? Anything would be better than being so secretive about it. What could possibly be in there that would make her reluctant to do so?

Just strange. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar ... edica.html

[Ddrak]

My bet would be something entirely innocent like anti-anxiety meds or similar that they are worried people will spin. The problem is, by not releasing they're giving voice to the conspiracy theorists who are saying it's because she wasn't pregnant for #5, or she screwed around and had a bunch of abortions as a teen, or something, all of which I seriously doubt.

Dd

[Harlowe]

Yeah you are probably right, I was thinking it was something more like - she really didn't have the amnio she claims to have had that told her that the baby she was carrying had DS and she decided to keep him anyway. It wouldn't be a big deal, it would just add to her problem with story-telling.

[Ddrak]

Possibly. I'd assume that she'd have had a nuchal translucency done at the very least. Amnio is a bit tougher as you have about a 1 in 100 chance of aborting the baby while the procedure is done.

Dd

[Harlowe]

Wow, this is what she thinks about the First Amendment ...how frightening.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html
Sarah Palin speaks on the First Amendment

Somehow, in Sarah Palin's brain, it's a threat to the First Amendment when newspapers criticize her negative attacks on Barack Obama. This is actually so dumb that it hurts:

In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

Maureen Dowd recently made an equally stupid comment when she complained that her First Amendment rights were being violated by the McCain campaign's refusal to allow her on their campaign plane.

The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.

If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.

This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional.

According to Palin, what the Founders intended with the First Amendment was that political candidates for the most powerful offices in the country and Governors of states would be free to say whatever they want without being criticized in the newspapers. In the Palin worldview, the First Amendment was meant to ensure that powerful political officials such as herself would not be "attacked" in the papers. Is it even possible to imagine more breathaking ignorance from someone holding high office and running for even higher office?

UPDATE: The Constitution also guarantees freedom of association. Thus, by Palin's "reasoning," when newspapers -- or Palin herself -- criticize Obama for his associations, they're threatening his constitutional rights.

[Lurker]

It really is telling that after eight years of the worst, least popular President in U.S. History, the Republican base has flocked to fringe wackos like Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber as their standard bearers. This absolute moron so impressed Embar that he hoped she'd run in 2012. Any second thoughts about that, Embar?

[Harlowe]

so impressed Embar that he hoped she'd run in 2012.

What????

[Lurker]

After watching Palin tonight, I firmly believe she'll be the President in 4 years. She was phenomenal.

[Harlowe]

I'm hoping he just said that after her convention speech - because that was written by author and speechwriter - Matthew Skully. What has become painfully clear from that moment on, was that he did not however follow her on the campaign to write her speeches and Palin in her own words is ..as one of the McCain aides says...a whackjob.

[Lurker]

I thought her convention speech sucked and she sounded horrible delivering it. That sort of high-schoolish snotty meanness doesn't play well with me.

Also, Embar went on a wishy-washy defense of Palin tear for awhile after that.