Tuesday Morning Open Thread
9 hours ago
Showing posts with label Troopergate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Troopergate. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Poll: Palin is Worst VP Pick Ever
An interesting number hidden in a new New York Times poll:
Mr. Obama’s favorability is the highest for a presidential candidate running for a first term in the last 28 years of Times/CBS polls. Mrs. Palin’s negative rating is the highest for a vice-presidential candidate as measured by The Times and CBS News. Even Dan Quayle, with whom Mrs. Palin is often compared because of her age and inexperience on the national scene, was not viewed as negatively in the 1988 campaign.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
ADN: Sarah Palin is 'Ignorant' or 'Orwellian'
The Alaska Daily News put up a scathing rebuke in a new editorial in reaction to Sarah Palin's Troopergate scandal.
Quote of the article:
Sarah Palin's reaction to the Legislature's Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.
She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."
Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.
Read the whole thing.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Quote of the Day
Look at it this way: If the race was close right now, this would be a killer. As it is, it's just one more shovel blow to the back of the skull.
Troopergate: Sarah Palin Broke the Law - Period.
As expected, the McCain campaign is out there today claiming that the recently released report of the independent investigator looking into Sarah Palin's Troopergate scandal concluded that Palin didn't break the law. Here's a campaign hack today:
"If you read the report, you will see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member," Palin said as boarded her campaign bus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "You got to read the report."
THIS IS A LIE.
There were two laws in question in the investigation. One had to do with the Governor's authority to fire a department head, and on this account, the report found that her firing of Walt Monegan didn't break the law.
HOWEVER, the report also found that Sarah Palin broke an Alaska state ethics law that prohibits state officials from abusing their office:
For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
So, to sum it up, Palin broke one law but not the other. She is a criminal. They can argue about whether Palin actually did break the ethics law but they are LYING when they say that "there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member."
Friday, October 10, 2008
Palin Camp Reaches New Height of Lying Chutzpah
After stonewalling the Troopergate in Alaska for over a month and refusing to be interviewed in the ensuing investigation, Sarah Palin's official McCain campaign hack lawyer is complaining that the report to be released today on her wrongdoing won't be complete because they didn't interview her. Seriously:
Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, tried to preemptively discredit the report, telling the ADN that it won't be comprehensive because Branchflower didn't interview Palin or her chief of staff, Mike Tibbles.
"They didn't even try to interview the governor. You want to know why she reassigned Monegan, it would be nice to talk to her. They didn't even try," Van Flein said. "It's a report that's going to be half-done at best. And anything that's half-done will likely be half-baked."
Monday, September 29, 2008
Alaska Becomes McCainistan
Alaskans appear to be none-too-pleased that the operations of the Alaska Governor's and Attorney General's offices have been handed over to the McCain campaign:
As one watches Governor Palin stumble through the three interviews she’s done since being announced as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, and as one reads the reports in the national media of Palin being sequestered far away from inquisitive reporters, and as one hears that requests for information about both her record as governor for the past 21 months and the legislative investigation into whether she improperly dismissed former Commissioner of Public Safety Walt Monegan are being shunted to the McCain campaign, it’s a bit jaw-dropping to attend one of the “truth squad” pressers and repeatedly hear that Palin is “an open book.” Actually it’s worse than jaw-dropping: It’s insulting.
A visibly frustrated Sean Cockerham of the Anchorage Daily News expressed what most in the room were thinking at Tuesday’s installment of the Palin “truth squad” charade: “[Governor Palin] says she’s an open book, she wants her story to be told, then why does she not speak to the press?”
Read More
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Palin Lawyer Stonewalling Troopergate Investigation
Wow, does it sound familiar to anyone to see a corrupt executive in an abuse of power investigation lawyer-up and then start stonewalling the investigation for political purposes (hello, Alberto Gonzales)? Well, it looks like that's the road Sarah Palin decided to go down in the ever-developing Troopergate scandal currently brewing in Alaska. It seems like only days ago--and, indeed, it was--that the folks close to Sarah Palin were downplaying her Troopergate scandal back home as a minor conflict that would be amicably resolved. Palin had agreed to cooperate fully with a probe being conducted by the state legislature, and things were proceeding smoothly enough that it appeared subpoenas wouldn't even be issued. The whole issue was being framed less as a scandal than as a misunderstanding everyone wanted to get to the bottom of. Not any more. Palin lawyered up a couple of days ago, hiring local attorney Thomas Van Flein, and she has abruptly shifted to a far more combative mode. First, Van Flein suggested that Palin might not sit down with investigators for a planned deposition later this month after all, citing the "bad timing" of the investigation. (Given that the investigation preceded her vice presidential nomination, it would seem reasonable to suggest the latter was the "bad timing.") Now, in a move worthy of the political big leagues, Palin has filed an ethics complaint against herself with a state personnel board whose three members she appointed, and demanded that it handle the issue exclusively and the legislature's independent investigation--unanimously authorized by a bipartisan panel--be shut down. I'm skeptical that this new, aggressive posture will serve Palin well: It ramps up the heat on the story and makes Palin look more like a typical pol under investigation and less like someone with minor issues to resolve back home. But evidently those around Palin--perhaps on the McCain campaign staff?--have now concluded that there is enough there there to make stonewalling preferable to downplaying. Either that or Palin felt that resisting legislative inquiries is an area where she needed to bone up if she was going to serve in a GOP administration.
Here's Christopher Orr of the conservative New Republic with some thoughts on how this will be a bad strategy for her:
Although, maybe I shouldn't be writing about this at all because any criticism of Queen Sarah is inherently sexist.
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