That's the message from Alaska today where an investigator assigned by the legislature to explore the firing on Palin's former brother-in-law issued his final report. Conclusion: "Gov. Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda."
Of course, this investigation was handicapped by the fact that Palin and her husband refused to cooperate with it. If you side with Palin, you will feel that she has been lynched, crucified, or whatever verb you prefer. After all, the mcCain camp did its own investigation, and surprise, they found her completely innocent! If however you accept the legitimacy of the investigation, you end up thinking that she was rather petty about the brother in law thing, and should have had the stature to stand above it for the good of her office as Governor. If McCain loses, Palin's career has a setback, and her legacy may be one of a brief escapade of style over substance and personality over statesmanship. But she is tough as a pit bull, as she herself is quick to admit, so do not count her out yet.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 26
Thomas Van Flein voiced disagreement and said: " "In order to violate the ethics law, there has to be some personal gain, usually financial. Mr. Branchflower (the investigator on the report) has failed to identify any financial gain."
There was no immediate vote on whether to endorse the findings of the investigation.
"I think there are some problems in this report," said Republican state Sen. Gary Stevens, a member of the panel. "I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye."
Because Branchflower's report does not recommend any particular penalty for Palin, it shows the investigation was outside the Legislature's authority, campaign Meghan Stapleton said.
Branchflower's finding that Palin broke state ethics laws is beyond the scope of the original investigation, which Stapleton and O'Callaghan said was to determine if she had a legitimate reason for firing Monegan.
Sen. Gene Therriault, R-North Pole, said the report is flawed because Branchflower didn't take into account statements and other materials submitted earlier this week by Todd Palin and administration employees who earlier had resisted subpoenas.
Two other lawmakers said the governor and her husband's actions were understandable.
Another member of the Legislative Council, Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, said he thinks Branchflower's findings are wrong, and that Palin didn't violate the ethics act.
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/552393.html
Come on Paula. You know that the officer was suspended and further reprimanded for his actions. You know that the tazering incident was in the family home, with the kid willingly participating and lying on the floor surrounded by pillows, with witnesses watching it like a training exercise. It was incredibly stupid and showed a significant lack of judgment, but it was not "tazering children" as if he was out there angrily trying to electrocute people. He was sufficiently castigated and reprimanded for his actions (as he was for the drinking incident).
You know that the problem was that Palin used her position to wage, as Chris says, a petty campaign to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. This is what the mostly Republican committee determined. As Governor she was within her rights to fire the guy she fired for what ever reasons she felt were valid, but she was not within her rights to arbitrarily and capriciously wage a personal vendetta using the influence of her official position. Which the report concluded that she did. [More importantly, perhaps, is that she allowed her husband - a private citizen - to use her office to put pressure on state employees.]
The problem is that Palin tried to use her office to accomplish a personal goal. Regardless of the nobility of her goal she abused the power of her office. That's un-American.
Obama had a girl shadowing him during his visit to China. Media took it up and blew it hot but the fire subsided because nobody desired to blow-hot-blow-cold.
But the greatest error Obama did in China was raising the issue of Indo-Pak relations. China made no mention of it or concur for or against it. But Indian media took it up and exposed the rebuff Obama or US got for such a unnecessary venture.
India, people must know is a land of Hindus and they never succumb to pressure. And more than that, India has always maintained a neutral stand over which no other nation can compete. Not boasting but truth. So people who go about slinging mud at Sarah Palin must also know that as of date, she has become more famous through the media as also a popular figure who has every chance of contesting elections in 2012 and why not a victory of sorts? Just by way of a passing thought.
Obama? time will tell, but i don't see him doing that thing.
You can depend upon me for more news as time advances. Till then you may enjoy the breeze of people's biased views on Sarah Palin. I am also watching the developments for further inputs.
You know, that's very true. Socrates would agree with you in a NY minute.
But this one, Personally I would prefer, from a radicals perspective, to see a McCain presidency simply for the resentment, disenfranchisement and civil unrest it would provoke which would invariably result in broad changes in 2012 is very dangerous thinking, but of course, it's your *choice.*
BUT
The 2008 Presidential election is not those things.
And what we'll have in a few months is - SWEET POTATO PIE.
Besides, I am not interested in a 'revolution" as long as the right wing has 70% of the guns in this country. No that is not a solid figure, it is a guess, but really, who likes guns the most? The right wing.
There are solid scientific theories about all this. Theories that are based on empiric and peer reviewed work, and that have nothing to do with doomsday sayers. It has to do with models that predict a mass extinction probability within the habitats of a species attaining our level of intelligence.
Natural selection is like a game of chance. The problem, at least for many humans, is that natural selection could care less if you are the president of the USA, a farmer, a monkey in a box or even bacteria. It is a natural phenomenon, neutral beyond the myth of Switzerland, and takes no sides. All living things are treated by *natural selection* with equal rights. Life would not exist without it. Death is part of its equation. So even our scientific attempts at manipulating natural selection is part of natural selection. From that logical space, we seem to have *choice* in the matter at hand. In a relatively very short period of time, evolutionary forces have developed in the human species a brain that can understand the very phenomenon that has created life. But natural selection has many functions - yet unknown - to reveal us. It's like climbing a mountain in a forest, and occasionally seeing the ever more breathtaking horizon. There are many feedback loops in natural selection, and one of them now is the human mind's capacity to act willfully into the system, which again is a purely natural phenomenon. Even natural selection herself has a birth and death. The universe seems to be expanding, and in many billions of years, the physics of entropy will make biological life rather impossible. If we act into the system like a rapist , then we are doomed. If we act into the system like a mother to her child, we will figure out to survive a lot of things that would otherwise wipe us out. So from that odd level, there is a huge choice to make a difference, including with your vote for...
I'm not going to be shy. My choice is Obama
Regarding the instance you staed in the post, those are fabrications by the media, the general public and her opponents. Everyone has his or her discretion to decide, to act and to suggest remedies. It is his or her prerogative as to how to go about an issue. And any decision taken or any step initiated would always be after looking in to the merits and demerits of the case. It is another matter that the matter comes up for discussion or calumny after an incident and the media or the calumnist manages to manipulate facts and figures to suit his stretch of script. Just fabrication and nothing else.
It is just expediency for everyone to assess the acts of another through his own selfish eyes, mind and logics. It is another matter that the person who commits a thing, knows the inns and outs of a case and suggests or acts in the optimum manner. So I do not see any suggestible loophole in her handing a particular situation. Just hogwash by her opponents and detractors who are out to get hold of something to strike. All humbug.