Friday, October 10, 2008

"Troopergate" Explained. . .In Only 263 Pages!

Well now the world can rest easy as the Alaskan Legislative Council released it vaunted report on whether or not Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power by firing the Alsaska director of public safety, Walt Monegan.
It had been alleged that Mr. Monegan was fired for allegedly refusing to fire a state trooper that turned out to be a former husband of Gov. Palin's sister who was embroiled in a very, very bitter divorce.
Well, here are the major findings that come out of the 263 page tome:

1) 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."


2) I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

OK, I am missing something?
It appears that the two paragraphs contradict one another. Because it does.
On the one hand, investigator Steve Branchflower, writes that Gov. Palin abused her power in relation to two sections of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.
Then it appears to exonerate Gov Palin by citing the thrust of the investigation, whether or nor Mr. Monegan was fired for refusing to fire state trooper Michael Wooten. It says so right there.
So, a strong supporter of the Democrat presidential nominee, Sen. Messiah Barack Obama gets everyone all riled up by saying there will be an "October surprise" that would be damaging not only to the governor but by extension Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John "F--- You" McCain. All state senator Hollis French could do is get this mish-mash of a report that essentially says two different things. And in the end, it exonerates Gov. Palin.
Of course the DDBMSOWM is misreporting this by emphasizing the section in which Mr. Branchflower says that Gov. Palin abused her power. Never mind that the report essentially is a big fat nothing.
And to show that this was not the big "October surprise" that Sen. French had promised, the report was released much earlier than the October 31 date-yes Halloween-that he wanted.
If this gets more coverage than the clear contradictions that Sen. Messiah Barack is being caught in trying to explain his relationship with American terrorist William Ayres, it is all we need to know about the total bias of the DDBMSOWM.

HT: Beldar posting @ www.hughhewitt.com

2 comments:

Rightwingsnarkle said...

It's called 'abuse of power.'

It's pretty simple, really. And it's wrong.

If the number of pages in the report bothers you, just remember that it was based on an investigation conducted by a scrupulous lawyer with a reputation for rigor and fairness.

Abuse of power, something that we should all be concerned about.

Anonymous said...

Actually, I'm surprised that such an admittantly partison person, a lawyer at that, couldn't have found some way to word it that was a bit more, umm, decisive.

Isn't this the same as condemning Bush for exercising his executive authority when he fired those Attorneys General?

"Yeah, sure, it's perfectly legal, but we don't like it so: ABUSE! ABUSE! ABUSE!"

And the PDS spreads like wildfire ...