Too late perhaps to save her public image? Will it be lost in the welter of stories about the arrival of the much anticipated Election Day concluding (we hope) this interminable campaign?
Perhaps. But, at least it vindicates those of us confident of Sarah Palin’s integrity. Her record as a reformer remains intact.
Yesterday, the Alaska Personnel Board released a report exonerating the Alaska Governor “in the Troopergate controversy,” finding that she was “within her rights to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.” More that just exonerate the Governor, this new report faults a previous report commissioned by a committee of the state legislature (which voted to release the report without approving it):
. . . the new report says the Legislature’s investigator was wrong to conclude that Palin abused her power by allowing aides and her husband, Todd, to pressure Monegan and others to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten. Palin was accused of firing Monegan after Wooten stayed on the job.
. . . .[Timothy] Petumenos -an independent investigator hired by the personnel board] wrote the Legislature’s special counsel, former state prosecutor Steve Branchflower, used the wrong state law as the basis for his conclusions and also misconstrued the evidence.
Petumenos found “no cause to believe” that Palin or any other state official violated the state’s ethics law in this matter.
Noting that “Monegan won’t get a hearing from the Personnel Board to ‘clear his reputation’,” Ed Morrissey asks, “Where does Palin go to clear hers after this tempest in a teapot?”
Certainly not the mainstream media who are likely to bury this report. Whenever evidence emerges showing that they attacked unfairly, well, they run a quick story and quickly move along.
Who is Sarah Palin?
I don’t have special knowledge of all of the facts, so I’m asking this sincerely, but isn’t it possible that Sarah Palin was within her rights to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan even if she did so for petty or capricious reasons?
That is, since Palin was Governor, if Monegan served at her pleasure and could be fired for any reason, is it possible that she could have terminated him because of a personal family dispute with Wooten and still been within her rights as the governor?
My question to you Democrats is why you are so protective of Wooten… a dirty cop who got drunk in his squad car, threatened to kill members of Palin’s family, and tasered a ten year old boy just for the hell of it. Does your hatred of Palin go so deep that you are willing to defend a cop who obviously has no business wearing a badge? Or is your party so thoroughly corrupt that you oppose firing bad cops on general principle?
Dan, I don’t think the original report hurt McCain/Palin. And even if this report came out earlier and was reported more sufficiently to your satisfaction, I don’t think it would help McCain/Palin.
V the K, I am sure there are people are willing to defend the cop for whatever reason. If it was in my power, I would do more than fire this human scum. The question is how Palin herself handled the matter. Since this creep was her ex-brother-in-law, it would have been best if she recused herself, if that was possible. I’m just wondering why it had to go far up the chain of command to begin with. It seems to me that what this “cop” should have been enough to terminate him, but for some reasons, his immediate superiors didn’t. I am more troubled by that.
That’s why I don’t think this incident hasn’t hurt Palin. Those who are blindly partisan enough to fault Palin more than this former cop were not going to vote for Palin anyway. Those who at least would consider voting for Palin would understand Palin’s motives, even if what she did was technically unethical or wrong by Alaska’s laws.
Pat, isn’t the most probable answer to your question that Monegan was protecting the bad cop because he himself was corrupt, and that alone should have been grounds for termination?
And apparently there was nothing unethical or wrong about her actions under Alaskan law.
Re. Sarah Palin: I’m beginning to understand the gay male/Judy Garland thing.
Sarah Palin is a great politician, and a wonderful governor.
During the next few years, the Democrats will spend a lot of time and money trying to undermine her.
First of all, Governor Palin could fire any of her Commissioners for any reason since they serve at the pleasure of the Governor, as is the case in just about every state (except if the Commissioners are elected or are constitutional officers under the state Constitution).
Second, Palin was within her rights to fire Commissioner Monegan when she said he refused to cut his budget, went public about it and demanded more money and campaigned and lobbied to get more funding from the Legislature.
Palin offered him a position as the State Alcoholic and Firearms Board Director and he refused the position. Governor Palin indicated that he would be better suited for the position since he had a background in that area and was proficient in knowledge of the programs it ran.
How any State Trooper gets to stay on the job after getting caught drinking on the job, illegally hunting and killing game/wild life and never mind tasering his own step son, threatening to put a bullet in his father in law’s head, is beyond me…..but that’s a whole different story.
Once again, the MSM did what it wanted to do and I say Go Sarah Go….and I love that she goes above the heads of these morons who think she is unqualified, not smart, not a leader, etc..let them continue to misunderstimate her as she goes all the way into the White House in 2012 as President and if she wins VP in 2008….
I still remember all the jokes on how stupid Reagan was and we know what happened there……so keep going Sarah (next time around she won’t have former Bush staffers muzzling her since she will run her own show in winning the Presidency)
oops..that is being elected as President in 2012..but same difference…..for now I say my prayers and hope for the best and that the MSM gets to be made the damn fools they are and hoping John McCain is elected President in 2008.
btw, would some one tell Ms. Peggy Noonan, the phoney that she is, that NObama is not elected President yet as she talked about 2008 being the next 1980 and history will show its the start of a liberal era and you can’t stop history…..what is she on Nobama’s payroll to get voters to stay home who would have voted for McCain by announcing on Morning Joe that the election is all over before even the polls are open……..
the intellectual snobs/so called conservatives drive me as nuts as the left wing nuts…..they all drink from the same Nobama Kool Aid….
It’s distressing that the media is covering the passing of Obama’s grandma and his grief of her passing more than the exoneration of Sarah Palin in the ludicrous “Troopergate” witch hunt. No one is covering the ominous looking Black Panthers with nightsticks (i.e., billy clubs) who are hovering outside the doors of a voting location in Philadelphia (see video on YouTube). No one is covering that Obama is going to be instrumental in destroying the coal mining industry (his words, not mine, not Rush Limbaugh’s, his to the San Francisco Chronicle back in January), and how he feels our US Constitution needs to be dismantled so that the president has more power, and all the other alarming things this America-bashing socialist has said behind closed doors. How can people still be UNDECIDED???
Get out and vote – Vote Palin/McCain!
Has the LA Times relented and released the video tape that they have of Obama at that going-away party where he spoke and they applauded anti-Jew sentiment? Are the people still picketing out there for the public to be informed about that damning video?
Pat, isn’t the most probable answer to your question that Monegan was protecting the bad cop because he himself was corrupt, and that alone should have been grounds for termination?
That may well be. That point should have been investigated, if it wasn’t.