The Burdens Of Sarah

It is not a good time to be a Governor. It's an even worse time to be a Governor when the main natural resource propping up your petro-state is dropping in price. This is the world of Sarah Palin, Alaska's spunkiest reactionary.

A number of factors seem to have contributed to the bumpy homecoming: a residual anger among Democrats for the attack-dog role Palin assumed in the McCain campaign, lingering resentment from Republicans for the part she may have played in McCain's defeat, and a suspicion crossing party lines that the concerns of Alaska, at a time of economic crisis, will now be secondary to her future in national politics.

Nearly every move that Palin makes or does not make, acknowledges Joe Balash, one of her closest aides, is analyzed through a new political prism, scrutinized for its effect on a possible 2012 presidential candidacy. "There's nothing we can do to stop it," he said. "People wonder why she's doing something or not doing something."

The result of all this scrutiny and second-guessing, says one Republican ally, is that "the governor has been feeling beaten up."

Well ain't that a shame. It may be that she's feeling beaten up because her bad policies, ethics violations and obstructionist behavior is catching up to her. Her Attorney General had to resign for his role in Troopergate. She has to pay back taxes for past per diem expenses of trucking her whole family around Alaska on the public's dime. And her daughter Bristol managed to cough out the truth about the futility of abstinence-only education, which should be a benefit and a refreshing dose of reality, but will be met with shock in the social conservative milieu.

It might not be all the pressure, it might be that Palin is a bad politician.

And A Collective Sigh Came From Basements Everywhere

The sound you hear are Rich Lowry's tears:

Washington Whispers reports that Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) will no longer be speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the end of February. Palin told event organizers that the “duties of governing” now prevent her from attending.

It's curious timing. Over the past week, Palin's husband and members of her staff have been cited as in contempt for failing to comply with subpoenas from the legislature. And just yesterday, her handpicked Attorney General, Talis Colberg, resigned.

Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg has resigned in the wake of state legislators blasting his performance during the "troopergate" investigation.

"He just explained that it is a tough environment right now," said Gov. Sarah Palin, who appointed Colberg to the job just over two years ago.

In an interview with the Anchorage Daily News this morning, Palin said Colberg did a great job as attorney general. She talked about his background, coming from the private sector and not government, and said he served the state well.

"It is a harsh political environment right now. You saw what he went through these last couple of weeks with speculation that a couple of the lawmakers wanted to continue to grill him, a couple of the lawmakers not believing, it seems, what he had to say," Palin said. "I just hope this political environment doesn't deter others who want to make a positive difference."

It just seems like there's more to come here, and none of it good. Palin obviously needs to stay in the spotlight, so if she's declining a CPAC invitation, clearly there's trouble in River City.

Troopergate Becomes Zombiegate

As if they needed more problems, the investigator for the Alaska state personnel board, which was authorized to probe Troopergate by Sarah Palin herself, is about to release its findings on the eve of the election.

Could anything go worse for the McCain campaign? And they have themselves to blame for choosing a running mate with an ongoing abuse of power case against her.

Will update...

...aha, now I see why they dumped it before the election. The handpicked Personnel Board cleared Palin of wrongdoing.

There was a sense that the prosecutor, Timothy Petumenos, was independent enough to produce something without a partisan lean, but I suppose not. It'll be interesting over the next couple days to put this report next to the Branchflower report from before, which was pretty airtight.

Troopergate II: Still Trooperin'

When the Branchflower report was released showing that Sarah Palin abused the power of the office, I really hadn't considered that the Personnel Board report, the one she cooperated with, would be anything but a rubber stamp of her side of the story. After all, she appointed the whole board! But I guess they went and hired a Patrick Fitzgerald type who's undergoing a real investigation:

The state Personnel Board investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of Walt Monegan has broadened to include other ethics complaints against the governor and examination of actions by other state employees, according to the independent counsel handling the case.

The investigator, Tim Petumenos, did not say who else is under scrutiny. But in two recent letters describing his inquiry, he cited the consolidation of complaints and the involvement of other officials as a reason for not going along with Palin's request to make the examination of her activities more public.

Two other ethics complaints involving Palin are known. One, by activist Andree McLeod, alleges that state hiring practices were circumvented for a Palin supporter. The case is not related to Monegan's firing. The other, by the Public Safety Employees Association, alleges that trooper Mike Wooten's personnel file was illegally breached by state officials.

John Cyr, the PSEA executive director, said Monday the union plans to amend its complaint to be sure the board investigates "harassment" of Wooten as well.

Petumenos has not spoken to the press, in keeping with the secrecy of the state process. But he gave a rough description of the investigation's course in two letters to an Anchorage attorney threatening a lawsuit over Palin's effort to waive confidentiality.

This expansive scope may stem from the fact that--against all of Sarah's hopes--the personnel board appointed a tough, independent investigator for their investigation.

Some weeks ago, the McCain team devised a plan to have Palin file an ethics complaint against herself with the State Personnel Board, arguing that it alone was capable of conducting a fair, nonpartisan inquiry into whether she fired Monegan because he refused to fire Wooten, who had been involved in a messy custody battle with her sister. Some Democrats ridiculed the move, noting that the personnel board answered to Palin. But the board ended up hiring an aggressive Anchorage trial lawyer, Timothy Petumenos, as an independent counsel. McCain aides were chagrined to discover that Petumenos was a Democrat who had contributed to Palin's 2006 opponent for governor, Tony Knowles. Palin is now scheduled to be questioned next week, and the counsel's report could be released soon after.

Of course, this will now be used to discredit this report. The one that Palin authorized. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Walt Monegan is considering his options after the smear campaign that Palin and her allies have attempted against him.

I really thought this thing had dead-ended, but there appears to be new life. And of course, the very fact that we're talking about abuse of power investigations BEFORE Palin ascends to any higher office is disqualifying in and of itself (and worse for 2012, when I don't think she'll be the nominee, by the way).

End In Itself

It is sad that, just as there has been no accountability for the criminals in the Bush Administration for the past eight years, it appears there will be no accountability for Sarah Palin and her abuse of power in the Troopergate case, at least for the moment. The Attorney General who could prosecute her is a loyalist, the State Personnel Board which could impose fines or recommend impeachment is made up of Palin appointees, and the Republican legislature isn't interested in a food fight either.

Before the report was released, the idea had been floated that the legislature could institute impeachment proceedings. But since Friday night, that possibility appears to have receded. According to a TPM source who attended Friday's session of the legislative council, State Senate President Lyda Green, an outspoken Palin critic, replied with a flat 'no' when asked, after the report's release, whether impeachment was being considered.

And Green told the Christian Science Monitor over the weekend that even a censure motion is unlikely, since the legislature is not currently in session.

The chattering class saw fit to ignore the incident like good little lemmings on the Sunday shows. But I do think that being found guilty of abuse of power will have an impact in the Presidential race, regardless of how the McCain tries to spin it and lie about it. At the root, Palin was building a brand as a reformer, and this undercuts the image, which has already been badly bruised. The game in Alaska may be rigged, but the public is smart enough to figure this one out if they find out about it. I think there will be efforts made to alert them from Democratic sources.

Running For First and Second Liar

With the release of the Troopergate report, both Republican candidates have now an ethics violation on their record. And so why should it surprise you that the campaigns continue to lie about it.

It’s simply not possible to lie more deliberately or flagrantly than this:

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on Fox News this morning, when asked by Chris Wallace about the Troopergate report issued on Friday:

The reality is there was absolutely no wrongdoing found in the report — 1,000 pages — an enormous waste of time — and the best they could come up with was: no violations of any kinds of laws or ethics rules.

Except for the very first finding, which says that Palin abused her power.

Palin herself seems to think she's been cleared of wrongdoing.

Palin: Let me talk a little bit about the Tasergate issue if you guys would let me and, Meg, you want me to just jump right on in there?

Stapleton: Sure governor, go ahead.

Palin: OK cool.

Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that… .He did what any – I think — any rational person would do so again, nothing to apologize there with Todd’s actions and again very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing.

And once you read all that, you'll understand why McCain is personally vowing to end abuses of power while President, whatever it takes.

Friday Night News Dump, Alaska Style

Sarah Palin abused the power of her office. Why didn't they read the report she released exonerating herself? Wouldn't that be the fair and balanced thing to do?

A legislative committee investigating Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has found she unlawfully abused her authority in firing the state's public safety commissioner. The investigative report concludes that a family grudge wasn't the sole reason for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan but says it likely was a contributing factor.

The Republican vice presidential nominee has been accused of firing a commissioner to settle a family dispute. Palin supporters have called the investigation politically motivated.

Monegan says he was dismissed as retribution for resisting pressure to fire a state trooper involved in a bitter divorce with the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was fired as part of a legitimate budget dispute.

Well, she's said six or seven different things, that's just today's excuse, but that's besides the point. By the way that "politically motivated" investigation included 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats.

The report has been released (by unanimous vote of the Council) and can be found here. The nut graf:

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. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(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."

The wingnuts will hang their hat on the fact that the report says that Palin's firing of Walt Monegan was within her statutory authority, but the above paragraph doesn't have a lot of wiggle room. Her handpicked Attorney General failed to turn over documents in the case, too.

I think the best way for the McCain campaign to spin this is to assert that, by being found guilty of abusing power and obstructing justice, Palin has now shown herself to be perfectly qualified for the office of Vice President as it has been conceived by Dick Cheney.

Or, they can go the route of Palin's lawyer and claim that the report is incomplete because they never talked to Palin herself, which leaves me to wonder if there's a word in Eskimo for "chutzpah."

Perhaps the best, or saddest, part of this is that they tried to stage a replay of the Brooks Brothers riot, this time by dressing up in red noses and rallying against what I guess they'd call a "reindeer court":





As for the nitty-gritty details, I figure Marcy Wheeler's better at that than I am.

Other-Shoe-Drop Watch

Stephen Branchflower is going to deliver his report in the Troopergate probe sometime this morning. Of course, he could always back out, because Sarah Palin has exonerated herself.

On the eve of a report on a legislative panel's abuse-of-power investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report clearing her of any wrongdoing.

Palin, running mate to Republican presidential nominee John McCain, is the subject of two inquiries into whether she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was dismissed for resisting pressure to fire Palin's former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

Neat trick. I'm going to try it the next time I want to get out of paying my own parking tickets. "I wrote myself a voucher!"

Back on planet Earth, the New York Times reports that Palin and her associated simply harangued the heck out of Walt Monegan in their quest to harpoon Moby Michael Wooten.

By now, the outlines of the matter have been widely reported. Mr. Monegan believes he was ousted because he would not bow to pressure to dismiss Trooper Wooten. The Alaska Legislature is investigating the firing and whether the governor abused the powers of her office to pursue a personal vendetta. Its report is due Friday.

Ms. Palin has denied that anyone told Mr. Monegan to dismiss Trooper Wooten, or that the commissioner’s ouster had anything to do with him. But an examination of the case, based on interviews with Mr. Monegan and several top aides, indicates that, to a far greater degree than was previously known, the governor, her husband and her administration pressed the commissioner and his staff to get Trooper Wooten off the force, though without directly ordering it.

In all, the commissioner and his aides were contacted about Trooper Wooten three dozen times over 19 months by the governor, her husband and seven administration officials, interviews and documents show.

It goes without saying that this is not a person or a family to whom you should designate more power.

...OK, she's calling this thing Tasergate? She's actually getting ideas FROM the likes of Ace of Spades and Confederate Yankee?

Why do we wonder why we're melting down under this kind of conservative rule?

Tadd!!!

After obfuscation and stonewalling, Todd Palin finally submitted to questioning from the Legislature's investigator in the Troopergate probe. And it really doesn't look good for the First Dude.

Page 4, Line 3: "I had hundreds of conversations and communications about Trooper Wooten over the last several years with my family, friends, with colleagues, just about everyone I could including government officials."

In a July 18, 2008 press release, Governor Palin stated; “To allege that I, or any member of my family....directed disciplinary action be taken against any employee of the Department of Public Safety, is, quite simply, outrageous.

But yet according to Todd Palin's deposition he complained about Trooper Mike Wooten to Mike Tibbles, Randy Ruaro, Ivey Frye, Frank Bailey, Mike Nizich, John Bitney, John Glass and Audie Holloway.

In addition, during an interview with former Legislative Liason John Bitney last July, he said, "People don't know just how much weight Todd's words have. When Todd Palin makes a suggestion, it's not really a suggestion."

Having this many conversations, over two years after the last interaction with Wooten shows a pattern of Palin's obsession with getting even with Wooten.

The guy seems obsessed with getting Wooten fired. He discussed it with a dozen people, and pestered his wife about it so much she asked him to stop bringing it up.

But you know, he didn't work to fire the guy who refused to get rid of his white whale.

Muckraker has more. And the Alaska Supreme Court has denied the effort to stop the investigation, so there's going to be something out of this in the next 48 hours.

About Face

I guess after the courts ruled against quashing the subpoenas in the Troopergate probe, nobody wanted to wind up in jail.

Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg announced today that seven state employees will now honor subpoenas to testify in the legislative investigation of the Troopergate affair.

Colberg said the decision comes in light of a judge's ruling last week rejecting an attempt to quash the subpoenas.

All seven employees have decided, in light of Superior Court Judge Peter Michalski's decision, to cooperate with the legislative investigation, according to a statement today from Colberg's office.

And that's not all - Todd Palin's going to talk as well. But not until after the Branchflower investigation gets released next week, of course, and only to the parallel Personnel Board investigation that his wife controls.

Maybe they've just all signed off on the same story and got them straight. Or they were scared. Or just maybe, they can't stand the McCain campaign and have decided to go out on their own.

Sorry, Alaska Republicans

For Sarah Palin, the news is that the Troopergate investigation will continue.

An Anchorage judge today refused to halt the Legislature's investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin and denied the state attorney general's attempt to throw out legislative subpoenas [...]

Judge Peter Michalski said the Alaska Legislative Council can move ahead with its investigation, including having the state Senate Judiciary Committee subpoena Palin aides to testify.

“It is legitimately within the scope of the Legislature's investigatory power to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the termination of a public officer,” Michalski wrote in his ruling.

The aides (and Todd Palin) will be subject to criminal prosecution if they fail to comply with the subpoenas now.

And for Ted Stevens, the judge has rejected the motion for a mistrial over federal prosecutors withholding potentially exculpatory documents about their star witness:

After hearing heated arguments from lawyers Thursday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan turned down motions from Stevens' lawyers to dismiss charges against the senator or to declare a mistrial.

The judge had sent the jury home for the day after the defense accused prosecutors of suppressing evidence that could help the veteran lawmaker prove he was innocent.

I'm assuming they'll put Bill Allen, the witness, back on the stand so that the information can be released to the jury. Still, this was Stevens' best shot to close the case.

Going Over Like A Led Palin

I think John McCain suspended his campaign (sort of) to deflect attention away from the jaw-gaping performance by his running mate with Katie Couric. We already know that he ran in for a damage control interview with Couric last night in the middle of Letterman. That was the right move. I mean this is stunning:

COURIC: Why isn’t it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? … Instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?

PALIN: Ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up the economy– Oh, it’s got to be about job creation too. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions.

And this:

COURIC: You've cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that?

PALIN: That Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on our other side, the land-- boundary that we have with-- Canada [...]

COURIC: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

PALIN: We have trade missions back and forth. We-- we do-- it's very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where-- where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is-- from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to-- to our state.

As Couric said yesterday, in the understatement of the year, “She’s not always responsive when she’s asked questions.” Yes, in the way a hen is not responsive.

(ZOMG, you just called Sarah Palin a hen!)

I'm with Greenwald, she's either deeply ignorant and incurious or she's so buttoned up by the McCain campaign that she can only speak gibberish. I'm inclined toward the latter, actually. McCain's team is desperate to keep her stage-managed to such a ridiculous degree that Campbell Brown is calling it sexist.



Nobody can sound credible in that environment when you're always looking over your shoulder.

Of course, the McCain campaign has good reason to restrict access to Palin. Because her views, if offered to the public, would be extremely damaging. She has extreme Christianist viewpoints including book-banning. Her pastor is a nutcase who believes in witchcraft and who made this comment about Jews right in front of her:

The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It's high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That's what we are waiting for. That's part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the -- you know -- if you look at the Israelites, that's how they work. And that's how they are, even today.

Yeah, I think you would want to hide the candidate of holy war. Plus there's the unseemly influence of Todd Palin, her unelected de facto chief of staff. And the vindictiveness of their obstruction in the Troopergate case, which now might include witness tampering.

“Until McCain campaign staffers flew to Alaska to stop this investigation, the Governor and her staff agreed to comply with what we all know is a bi-partisan investigation. After Aug. 29 the campaign started working to block this investigation, and witnesses began joining that effort by ignoring their subpoenas and risking jail time. Something obviously changed the minds of these witnesses after Aug. 29th,” said Rep., Les Gara (D-Anchorage), a State Representative and Former Alaska Assistant Attorney General.

Alaska’s witness tampering statutes prohibit any person from “inducing” a witness to fail to comply with a subpoena. Almost daily, McCain staffers have called press conferences and made efforts to stonewall the legislative investigation. Prior to Aug. 29 no witness had stated they’d refuse to comply with the investigation, and the Governor in fact promised she and her staff would comply.

Karl Rove was asked if Sarah Palin would make a good President. He said "I don't know." And the McCain campaign wants to keep it that way.

...see also this Rolling Stone article on the myths versus the facts in Sarah Palin's image.

Troopergate Update

So after weeks of stonewalling, obstructionism, relaying to aides and staffers to avoid subpoenas, Sarah Palin is ready to cooperate in the Troopergate investigation. Sort of.

Attorneys for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin met with a special investigator for the Alaska Personnel Board earlier today to broker her cooperation with the panel's own probe of the scandal now known as "Troopergate," according to sources close to the matter.

Except the Alaska Personnel Board is not running the current investigation. That's the investigation Palin wants in charge of things, not the investigation headed by Alaska state legislature. After she gained the nomination for Vice President, she decided to file a complaint against herself to wrest control of the investigation from the legislature and to this Personnel Board. So Palin isn't cooperating with a damn thing. And this paragraph gets to the heart of it.

"Their goal has been to obstruct the legislative investigation," said Alaska State Rep. Les Gara, D-Anchorage. "The whole thing has been aimed to obstruct until after the election." The legislative probe is expected to wrap up in mid-October; Gara said he expected the Personnel Board investigation would not release findings until after the election. Petumenos did not respond to an inquiry.

And basically, they won this battle. The legislative investigation will go on and the findings will be presented in October, but by denying access to top staff and the First Dude Todd, it'll be hard to render anything approaching a judgment from it. The probe has effectively been delayed, and I'm not sure the McCain campaign paid all that much of a price for the obstruction, though I could be wrong. We will have to see what comes out of the Branchflower report.

Losing Alaska

This LA Times article tracks with a fundraiser I attended over the weekend for Ethan Berkowitz, a former member of the Alaska State House who is running for Congress against longtime Republican Rep. Don Young (and he's going to win). Berkowitz was asked about Sarah Palin and how Alaskans were responding to her national renown, and he said that the state was initially happy for her but many are shocked that someone who was elected governor on a platform of transparency and reform is now stonewalling a legitimate investigation in Troopergate. They're losing their esteem for her.

ANCHORAGE -- Jerry McCutcheon went to Sarah Palin's office here last week to request information about the firing of former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, the scandal that for weeks has threatened to overshadow the governor's role as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate.

McCutcheon was given a phone number in Virginia to call: the national headquarters of the McCain-Palin campaign.
Why, he wanted to know, did he have to call a campaign office 4,300 miles away to find out what was going on in Alaska government? The longtime civic activist phoned his local state representative, Les Gara, who quickly filed a protest.

These days, many such queries about Monegan -- or anything else involving Palin's record as governor -- get diverted to McCain staffers. A former Justice Department prosecutor from New York flew in recently to advise the governor's lawyer and field reporters' calls about Monegan. Soon after, Palin's willingness to cooperate in the Legislature's probe of the affair ended [...]

The partisan spillover of the presidential campaign into the statehouse, political analysts here say, now threatens Palin's most powerful political capital in Alaska: her commitment to transparency, her willingness to forge bipartisan alliances with Democrats to advance her legislative agenda, and her battle to upend the good ol' boy network.

"Is this going to dilute her image as a maverick who will clean out the rascals from their perches of power, when she herself cannot tolerate questions into her behavior, investigations into the firing of a public safety commissioner?" said Gerald McBeath, political science professor at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

This editorial from the Anchorage Daily News calls it "abdication" and asks the key question, "Is the McCain campaign telling Alaskans that Alaska's governor can't handle her own defense in front of her own Alaska constituents?" Ouch. Plus, the letters to the editor at the ADN are running strongly negative of Palin's recent conduct. And this won't help - Palin's been caught in a lie:

An internal government document obtained by ABC News appears to contradict Sarah Palin's most recent explanation for why she fired her public safety chief, the move which prompted the now-contested state probe into "Troopergate."

Fighting back against allegations she may have fired her then-Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, for refusing to go along with a personal vendetta, Palin on Monday argued in a legal filing that she fired Monegan because he had a "rogue mentality" and was bucking her administration's directives.

"The last straw," her lawyer argued, came when he planned a trip to Washington, D.C., to seek federal funds for an aggressive anti-sexual-violence program. The project, expected to cost from $10 million to $20 million a year for five years, would have been the first of its kind in Alaska, which leads the nation in reported forcible rape.

The McCain-Palin campaign echoed the charge in a press release it distributed Monday, concurrent with Palin's legal filing. "Mr. Monegan persisted in planning to make the unauthorized lobbying trip to D.C.," the release stated.

But the governor's staff authorized the trip, according to an internal travel document from the Department of Public Safety, released Friday in response to an open records request.

The document, a state travel authorization form, shows that Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich, approved Monegan's trip to Washington, D.C., "to attend meeting with Senator Murkowski." The date next to Nizich's signature reads June 18.

If Palin is starting to become a divisive figure in her beloved Alaska, I imagine it's worse throughout the country.

Fourthbranch II: The Fourthbranchening

Why am I not surprised?

The Hill reports that it inquired with both Joseph Biden and Sarah Palin about whether they would consider themselves to be part of the executive branch in the next administration. The Hill’s Kevin Bogardus reports, “Sen. Biden (Del.) believes the office he is seeking is solely in the executive branch, according to his staff. But aides to Alaska Gov. Palin did not answer the question”:

[A] spokesman for the Republican presidential campaign did not answer the question. Instead, he e-mailed remarks Palin gave at a campaign rally in Golden, Colo., on Monday.

Palin did not say what branch of government she believes the vice president’s office is part of in those remarks. Instead, Palin said she and Republican presidential nominee John McCain had discussed what responsibilities she would take on as his second-in-command.

Palin is asserting the same vagueness on the subject as Cheney because she wants to play by the same rules as Cheney, which of course are no rules at all. She has obstructed and intimidated the Alaska State Legislature to the point where they're probably a week away from dropping the entire Troopergate investigation, despite the fact that evidence already exists to show at the very least unethical behavior, if not a total abuse of power, in the form of Frank Bailey's phone call urging Walt Monegan to do all but fire Michael Wooten. The McCain campaign has taken over the investigation, and they're openly harassing reporters at home to get them to drop their unfavorable coverage. And the "First Dude," Todd Palin, is refusing to testify in the probe, just because... he doesn't like it. As he isn't a state employee, there's no way for him to invoke executive privilege. He just doesn't want to testify. And so he's not.

This is very dangerous stuff. This woman who could be Vice President is as devious and secretive and abusive as her predecessor. Check this out:

But those who know her say Palin, 44, is uncommonly deft at something else: sensing the mood of her constituents, shaping her public messages and harnessing a remarkable personal popularity to accomplish what she wants. "She has an incredible pulse on the public will," said Bruce Botelho, a Democrat who is mayor of Juneau, the state capital.

"She tends to . . . create a situation where legislators are cornered -- going against her would be political suicide," said John Bitney, who grew up with Palin, was her campaign policy director and became her first legislative liaison.

That's how Cheney took over the White House. This is happening all over again.

Fortunately, her negatives have jumped up as weeks of relentless attacks have taken their toll. And this ad about aerial wolf hunting really hits people in the gut and moves voters. But we have to be vigilant. The country can't afford four more years of Fourthbranch.

Stonewall Palin

If you track this from where we were to where we are, it's kind of incredible. So Sarah Palin was caught, on tape, trying to persuade Walter Monegan to fire her ex-brother in Law Michael Wooten. She promised to cooperate with the investigation. Then John McCain picked her to become his Vice Presidential nominee, and the Republican lawyers flooded the zone. Since then, aides who agreed to testify clammed up, cooperation was cut off, and subpoenas were issued. In the past 24 hours:

• Palin said she would not testify, despite pledging to do so earlier.

• She's decided the investigation is politically motivated and partisan, despite there being twice as many Republicans on the Alaska Legislative Council doing the investigating as Democrats, and despite the Republican from her own hometown of Wasilla casting the deciding vote to subpoena aides.

• She's flipped lawmakers who supported the investigation just a couple months ago. Five other Republicans have filed a lawsuit to shut the investigation down entirely.

• The McCain campaign has clearly fed their friendly media the line that this is partisan and part of a sexist plot to bring Palin down.

• She's changed her story about why Monegan was fired, now suggesting it was because of a "pattern of insubordination," which Monegan calls a lie. And get this - she's claiming he went over her head to go to Washington to seek funds for sexual assault prevention. That's right.

This alleged pattern of "outright insubordination" is said to have culminated in Monegan planning a trip to Washington to go after federal funds for an initiative to fight sexual assault crimes, which had not yet been approved by the governor. (Van Flein's account was in sync with the line taken last night by a McCain campaign spokesman at a press conference in Alaska.)

The issue of Monegan's work on the sexual assault initiative doesn't come completely out of the blue. In a lengthy exploration of Palin's record on combating sexual assault crimes, ABC News reported yesterday that Monegan was the "chief proponent" for an "ambitious, multi-million dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state," and that Palin's office "put the plan on hold in July," just days before Monegan's firing.

But whatever the role of the sexual assault initiative in Monegan's departure from state government, this is by now the third substantive explanation given by Palin for that departure. And, to one degree or another, all those explanations contradict each other.

It's interesting that Palin faulted Monegan for trying to combat sexual assaults in Alaska, particularly child sex assaults. This is a woman who as mayor of Wasilla charged rape victims for their own exams, and in a state with a troubling record on sexual assault, for her to fire those who wanted to make combating it a priority is very curious.

Evangelicals and social conservatives have embraced McCain's vice presidential pick for what they call her "pro-family," "pro-woman" values. But in Alaska, critics say Gov. Sarah Palin has not addressed the rampant sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and murder that make her state one of the most dangerous places in the country for women and children.

Alaska leads the nation in reported forcible rapes per capita, according to the FBI, with a rate two and a half times the national average - a ranking it has held for many years. Children are no safer: Public safety experts believe that the prevalence of rape and sexual assault of minors in Alaska makes the state's record one of the worst in the U.S. And while solid statistics on domestic violence are hard to come by, most - including Gov. Palin - agree it is an "epidemic."

Despite the governor's pro-family image, public safety experts and advocates for women and children struggled when asked to explain how Palin's leadership has helped address the crisis. And current and former officials from Palin's administration confirmed that an ambitious plan to tackle the crisis has apparently sunk into doldrums after arriving at the governor's office.

"She's really done a lot of work on oil and gas, but when it comes to violence against women and children. . . we haven't been on her radar as a priority," said Peggy Brown, executive director of the Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. The Juneau-based group is an umbrella organization for shelters and anti-violence programs around the state.

I don't know if it has to do with a far-right belief that treating rape victims equals abortion or what, but clearly Palin has turned a blind eye to a very serious epidemic in her own state, and on numerous occasions has actively worked against preventing sexual abuse.

But this is kind of a tangent. Clearly there's a massive cover-up going on here, complete with lies, politically motivated stonewalling and personal attacks against public officials. Right-wing lawyers are suing to shut the whole thing down, smearing Democrats involved with the probe in the process, in an effort to muddy the waters and create the impression that this is a partisan witchhunt. The goal is to pressure everyone involved into refraining from tackling the real issues here.

And if you want a comment out of Palin about this, forget it. She ain't talkin'.

Given the kind of disrespect for the rule of law and the Constitution that we've been through over the past eight years, this kind of steamrolling and stonewalling should be met with great concern. Sarah is growing up in Fourthbranch Cheney's image here.

Oh Todd

Come on down.

Alaska lawmakers voted Friday to subpoena the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, in a move that transformed a messy state personnel issue into a national campaign controversy.

The lawmakers acted at the request of Stephen Branchflower, who is in the midst of an investigation into the governor's dismissal of the state's director of public safety.

Branchflower said he also wants to interview the governor, but omitted her from the 13-person list of subpoena targets he presented to the lawmakers overseeing his investigation.

Todd Palin has an unusually large role for an unelected spouse in the affairs of state government. He gets copies of numerous emails from the governor. What other spouse gets that kind of treatment? I don't know how valuable it is to even mention Todd Palin a lot politically, but from my perspective it is very unsettling to have an unelected center of power here.

Meanwhile, this is much better than I expected in terms of the investigation into Troopergate. The legislature is doing its job thus far. Of course, we'll see how it unfolds.

Today In Palin

As we await the hard-hitting, brutally frank, just-the-facts-ma'am interview that I'm sure Charlie Gibson is about to throw down for his prime-time special on 20/20, today options for questions sprouted up practically all over the place.

First, we have yet another of her "accomplishments" called into question as just a substanceless catch-phrase. The natural gas pipeline she claims to have built is anything but.

Certainly she proved effective in attracting developers to a project that has eluded Alaska governors for three decades. But an examination of the pipeline project also found that Ms. Palin has overstated both the progress that has been made and the certainty of success.

The pipeline exists only on paper. The first section has yet to be laid, federal approvals are years away and the pipeline will not be completed for at least a decade. In fact, although it is the centerpiece of Ms. Palin’s relatively brief record as governor, the pipeline might never be built, and under a worst-case scenario, the state could lose up to $500 million it committed to defray regulatory and other costs.

Indeed, claiming any kind of major fiscal success in Alaska at a time of record energy prices is kind of like saying that the King of Saudi Arabia is a competent fiscal steward. It's not his leadership, but the resources in the ground that provide the wealth. Alaska is a petro-state that nevertheless steals from the federal government treasury billions upon billions in largesse to finance themselves. It's true that its proximity demands some manner of federal aid, but look at what Palin has requested in earmarks over the past year:

According to Alaska's 2009 catalog of earmark requests the state's sea life are in great need of federal money. As Politico points out, Palin's office requested $2 million in federal monies to study crab mating habits; $494,900 for the recreational halibut harvest and $3.2 million for seal genetics research.

Those requests for the study of wildlife genetics and mating habits seems pretty antithetical to the long-standig views of Palin's running mate, John McCain.

Might be a good question for either Palin or McCain.

Meanwhile, the continuing saga of Troopergate has added more surprises and revelations. Palin was apparently warned by a judge to stop disparaging her sister's ex-husband, even before she became governor of the state.

Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers' union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were "not job-related," and that Wooten was being "harassed" by Palin and other family members.

Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives."

Indeed, after she clearly fired Public Safety head Walt Monegan for his refusal to fire Wooten, an adviser to her warned her of the abuse of power perception, telling her that "'the situation is now grave' and recommended that she and her husband, Todd Palin, apologize for 'overreaching or perceived overreaching' for using her position to try to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired from the force." He also told her to fire any staff members who contacted Monegan over the firing.

Of course, Palin didn't step back then, and she's certainly not now, enlisting her state Attorney General to help quash subpeonas that may arise during the legislative investigation.

"The eyes of the nation have now turned upon us,'' senior Assistant Attorney General Michael Barnhill wrote. "We think there is a legitimate concern that this investigation is no longer being conducted in a fair manner.''

Barnhill complained in a seven-page letter about public comments made by Hollis French, a Democratic senator, that Palin or her aides may have broken the law by allegedly obtaining personnel files of the fired state public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan.

TPM Muckraker is skeptical that much will come of the investigation, as Republicans in the state who were eager to look into this before Palin was made their party's Vice Presidential nominee feel less inclined to do so now.

But there's one story that could absolutely get lots of attention, and should, especially by women.

Speaking to a teleconference audience of reporters around the nation, former Gov. Tony Knowles and current Ketchikan Mayor Bob Weinstein -- both Democrats -- accused Palin of misleading the public in her new role as the vice presidential running mate of Arizona Sen. John McCain.

While some of their complaints have already been aired, Knowles broke new ground while answering a reporter's question on whether Wasilla forced rape victims to pay for their own forensic tests when Palin was mayor.

True, Knowles said.

Eight years ago, complaints about charging rape victims for medical exams in Wasilla prompted the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill -- signed into law by Knowles -- that banned the practice statewide.

"There was one town in Alaska that was charging victims for this, and that was Wasilla," Knowles said.

Note that it essentially was an Obama surrogate that pushed this story into the mainstream. It's getting other traditional media pickup, too.

I cannot imagine someone so callous as to charge victims of rape for their own exams. That's shocking. Disgusting. It speaks to judgment. And it should be known by every family in America.

UPDATE: Great catch by Jed - McCain voted against Joe Biden's bill which ended the practice of charging victims for rape exams. McCain and Palin really are soulmates.

This HAS to be an ad.

That's Why The Lady Is An Obstructionist

They actually kept Sarah Palin out on the campaign trail a little more than expected before her return to Alaska. Maybe that's because her goons on the McCain campaign have been so successful in blocking the investigation into Troopergate. Since the McCain campaign operatives were deployed to the Frontier State, seven key witnesses have up and refused to testify in the probe. And there's definitely a connection there:

Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called "October surprise" that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.

In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska's bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called "troopergate" investigation.

Coghill charged that the senator, Hollis French, had "politicized" the probe by making a number of public comments in recent days, including telling ABC News that Palin had a "credibility problem" and that the investigation into the firing of public safety commissioner Walter Monegan was "likely to be damaging to the administration" and could be an "October surprise." Wrote Coghill: "The investigation appears to be lacking in fairness, neutrality and due process." [...]

As a further sign of the sensitivity of the probe, a lawyer for Palin told NEWSWEEK Friday that Todd Palin, the governor's husband, was in the process of hiring his own separate counsel to represent him in the legislature's probe. Thomas Van Flein, Governor Palin's lawyer, would not identify who is now representing the governor's husband. But he sought to deflect charges that Todd Palin, a commercial fisherman and oil company worker, had improperly intervened in state business by inviting Monegan to the governor's office and asking him to look into Wooten's status on the state police force. (For his part, Wooten has acknowledged that he "made mistakes," but that he was "punished appropriately" when he was suspended from the police force for five days in 2006.)

In an interview on Friday, Van Flein sought to deflect charges that Todd Palin may have acted improperly by talking to the state public safety commissioner about Wooten. Todd was "the governor's husband and a citizen of the state and he has every right to an opinion as [does] everyone else," Van Flein said.

There's a little more about the effort to remove Hollis French here. Fortunately, it was unsuccessful - the Legislative Council turned down Coghill's request. But the investigation is still neutered by the paucity of witnesses willing to testify. Meanwhile, one of the refusenik witnesses, Ivy Frye, hired the same lawyer as the one representing Palin - at taxpayer expense - in the case.

Subpoenas are expected, but the goal here is to drag out the case until after the election.

The Latest On Troopergate et al.

Quite a few developments, actually. Michael Wooten has emerged for an interview with CNN:



Wooten doesn't come off as entirely credible here, and he admits he tasered his own son in a demonstration. I don't know where the sympathies are going to go, but the personality of Wooten vs. Palin is besides the point. The Public Safety Administrator wouldn't fire him, so Palin fired Walt Monegan. And she used her public office to settle private scores. That's the issue.

The Alaska State Legislature has now fast-tracked the investigation, which means the details will be released earlier in October and not by Halloween, as scheduled. However, while they will issue subpoenas in the case, Palin will not be compelled to testify.

The commitee, led by Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat also announced that it would meet on September 12 to issue subpoenas in the case.

But according to the release, Palin herself will not be subpoenaed. The committee still holds out hope that she will talk to indepedendent investigator Steven Branchflower voluntarily.

"We also discussed and agreed amongst ourselves that no subpoena will be issued for the Governor," said Representative Nancy Dahlstrom, R-Eagle River. "She has told the public that she intends to cooperate with the investigation, indeed, she has told the public that she welcomes the investigation and I have every faith that she means it. If necessary we can send Mr. Branchflower to wherever the Governor is, or she can give her statement to him over the telephone, whatever is most convenient for her. We recognize that her schedule is extremely busy, and we want to accommodate that."

I think the majority-Republican committee is being way too nice to Palin here. She has explicitly said that she wouldn't testify in the case. And now they've moved up their deadline, making it easier for her to elude them. Like Palin's media strategy, her strategy will be to deny any request followed by attacking them for bothering to investigate. There won't be a backlash strategy, she won't call the Alaska Legislature "effete" or "East Coast liberals," but she will certainly mourn the "witch hunt" that intrudes on her private life (all the while making sure everyone sees the results of her private life, which she'll use as a human shield).

Meanwhile, on the earmark front, it turns out that the lobbyist for Wasilla, Alaska is the lobbyist that secured the bridge to nowhere, and Palin was certainly happy with his performance while she was mayor. In fact, she's praised the earmarking done by her porkbarrel colleagues in the Congress as recently as this year:

"And our congressional delegation, God bless 'em. They do a great job for us," she said at the forum hosted by the Alaska Professional Design Council. "Representative Don Young, especially God bless him, with transportation -- Alaska did so well under the very basic provisions of the transportation act that he wrote just a couple of years ago. We had a nice bump there. We're very, very fortunate to receive the largesse that Don Young was able to put together for Alaska."

Young barely hung on in his primary race - will Palin endorse him? Will she endorse the indicted Ted Stevens, who she ran a PAC for a few years ago?

Radio silence.