Judging Governor Palin

To get the bridge issue out of the way, the sound of flip-flops reverberate through the typical political windstream. There’s nothing new here since people in general, and politicians in particular, tend to correct their misbegotten actions with statements blatantly contradicting the facts of the matter. An individual’s posturing can assuage her devout followers but she may eventually find herself at the wrong end of the bridge to nowhere.

Of more importance are activities that found Walt Monegan, former Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner, getting the boot a for not bootin’ Mike Wooten, Alaska State Trooper and Palin’s brother in law. Sarah contends there was no involvement taken by her, her family or any member of her administration to prompt Monegan’s removal.

Palin had appointed Monegan Public Safety Commissioner as she was filling cabinet posts upon her taking office as Governor in January 2007, praising his public service record. According to Monegan, Palin’s hubby, Todd, met with Monegan shortly thereafter to present the family’s findings from a private investigation about incidents going as far back as 2003 when Wooten used a Taser on an 11-year old stepson and shot a moose without the appropriate hunting license.

Palin’s sister, Molly McCann, waited until 2005 to report the misconducts of Wooten - the same day she filed for divorce. According to Palin’s daughter, Bristol, the timing of the filing was ”because of the divorce”, although Wooten had already been cleared of any wrong-doing in a 2004 accusation of consuming alcohol while using a trooper vehicle while on duty, which he wasn’t. The ruling concluded with an internal investigation finding that the allegations were “Not Sustained” because the only witness was Palin’s father, Chuck Heath. Allegations continue to claim Wooten has made threats to Heath and other family members.

Speculation has been made that in the coming month McCain will be forced to replace Palin with an alternate choice, possibly Mitt Romney. Well, uh… that would make McCain inept at making responsible decisions as a presidential candidate and put the Republican Party in an embarrassing position. This is as likely to happen as Barrack Obama replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton.

As McCain is viewed as a maverick among the Washington crowd, Palin seems to fit right in as she presented herself in the 2006 gubernatorial election in contention with the Alaskan Republican Party leaders. This is likely the reason that a 12-member bipartisan committee of the legislature voted unanimously to hire a private investigator to investigate Palin and her staff for abusing executive power. The inquiry was given a three-month contract to make a ruling by the end of October.

All of this brouhaha started because of the nasty divorce and custody battle of Sarah Palin’s sister Molly. Despite Monegan’s belief that he was offered a job as executive director of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which paid a salary $10,000 less, because he wouldn’t give in to pressure to fire Wooten, Palin stands by her statement that no pressure was put on Monegan to fire Wooten by staff members.

Palin’s judgment is put into question for replacing Monegan with Chuck Kopp, previously the police chief. Within days he was removed from the post because of a 2005 investigation of sexual harassment of an employee while he was Police Chief of Kenai. A replacement has yet to be made but Officer Wooten remains on the police force.

Will this be the scandal and catalyst to unseat John McCain from taking root in the White House? Not likely, because Palin and seven of her administration members are refusing to cooperate with the private investigative unit authorized by the Alaska Legislature. They site that the probe should be pursued by a state personnel board, whose three members were appointed by Governor Palin.