Palin: More Troopergate drip, drip
Posted: Thursday, September 04, 2008 9:29 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Sarah Palin
The
Washington Post
reports, that Palin “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
b****', 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. ‘Let's be clear, Governor Palin has done nothing wrong and
is an open book in this process. Mr. Monegan even stated himself that
no one ever told him to fire anyone, period,’ Comella said later in a
statement. ‘The Governor was rightly expressing concern about Mr.
Wooten.’”
Per NBC’s Aram Roston and Amna Nawaz, the head of the troopers Union in
Alaska, John Cyr, says that Gov. Palin is using her office to
"demonize" her ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten. Cyr also says
the union is filing an ethics complaint against Palin on behalf of
Wooten. He says the union is accusing the governor's office of
violating Wooten's rights. "The Governor is using her bully pulpit to
demonize this man," Cyr said.
It’s worth noting that the troopers union, the Public Safety Employees Association, is an AFSCME local.
The
New York Times
writes that governing Alaska is in many ways much easier than in the
other 49 states. “Alaska’s economic well-being - sustained, as most
things are here, by oil and federal spending - has allowed Ms. Palin to
avoid some of the tough budgetary choices vexing governors in dozens of
other states. That in turn raises questions for some people about how
much her experience is relevant to the rest of the nation and how much
she can relate to the troubles of struggling blue-collar workers in
places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, worried about the winter gas bills
and the mortgage.”
“That said, by other measures, Alaska is harder to govern than a smaller, more settled realm in the Lower 48. With vast distances, large numbers of indigenous peoples and a narrowly based extraction economy - with a handful of giant multinational oil corporations dominating the game - some economists say a country like Nigeria might be an apter comparison. ‘Alaska really is a colonial place,’ said Stephen Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. ‘One third of the economic base is oil; another third is federal spending. The economy is extremely narrow and highly dependent. It’s not to say that Alaska is a beggar state, but it certainly is true that Alaska is dependent on decisions made outside it, and over which Alaskans don’t have great control.’”
Her
first passport was in 2006? "Palin got her first passport in 2006 and has visited just four countries, and has had little involvement in her state's cross-border issues, raising questions about her supporters' assertions that Alaska's proximity to Russia has given her unique experience on foreign affairs. In seeking to demonstrate the first-term Alaska governor's readiness to be John McCain's second-in-command, campaign officials have maintained that Palin has had to deal with unusual security challenges and a variety of diplomatic and trade issues in a state sandwiched between Russia and Canada.”
"However, a review of Palin's 20 months in office shows that aside from overseeing the National Guard's state-level emergency missions, as all governors do, the first-term governor played no role in any territorial defense or other national defense operations involving military forces. Palin has also visited one fewer country than originally stated by her Alaska office. Earlier in the week, the governor's Alaska spokeswoman was quoted as saying Palin had traveled to Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, and Ireland, in addition to Canada." But Ireland was just for a refueling stop."
