Why Troopergate Matters---a lot

[kpete]

Truly Must-Read
--Josh Marshall
I've been meaning for a while to write a post explaining just why Trooper-Gate matters -- a lot. And I will. But for now read this piece just out from the Times on Palin's governing style. In a different way it tells the same story -- a small-minded person who populates her administration with cronies and grade-school friends, fires those who dare to criticize her and uses the power of her office to pursue personal vendettas. In other words, someone in the habit of abusing official power who should not be let within a mile of being president.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/216645.php

In Office, Palin Hired Friends and Hit Critics

By JO BECKER, PETER S. GOODMAN AND MICHAEL POWELL
Published: September 13, 2008

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.

When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget, she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

[1corona4u]

1. She definitely has shown a pattern with this...

[polichick]

2. We need to keep saying it: BUSH-STYLE CRONYISM, BUSH-STYLE CRONYISM, BUSH-STYLE CRONYISM!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

3. Equally disturbing is Palin's behavior towards the investigation of her alleged abuse of power

Whether or not the Alaska legislative committee investing her behavior over the firing of her public safety commissioner makes any findings that are damaging to her, I'm really troubled by how she has reacted to the investigation itself.

She previously stated that she would fully cooperate with the investigation. Now, she's invoked executive privilege over her e-mails and memos, her appointees are refusing to honor subpoenas, and she's hired an attorney not just for the purpose of representing her during the investigation, but who is attempting to undermine the existence and authority of the investigation itself. In addition, the Assistant Attorney General of Alaska is promising to quash those subpoenas and her attorney is alleging a lack of jurisdiction. Her attorney states that the legislature has no authority over this investigation and it properly belongs before the three member panel of the State Personnel Board, all of whom were appointed by Republicans and who are part of the Palin administration itself. Her attorney is threatening to take the issues of the authority of the legislative committee and their subpoena power all the way to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Now that really reminds me of the most secretive and uncooperative administration in American history, Cheney and his criminal gang. And populating her administration with cronies and former friends reminds me of the incredible appointment that Shrub made with Alberto Gonzalez and his attempted nomination to the Supreme Court of Harriet Miers. Maybe John McCain has voted 90% of the time with Bush in the last 8 years. But Sarah Palin looks just like the Chimp's understudy.

And strangely enough, Bush had a similar scandal hanging over his head while he was the Texas Governor in 1999, on the eve of his campaign for president. It was called Funeralgate. One of Bush's cronies ran one of the country's largest funeral service companies. A whistleblower in the Bush Administration blew the whistle on the fact that dead bodies were being dumped to make room for new bodies. This was going on in several states. Bush fired the whistleblower because the CEO of the giant funeral company was his friend and she sued for wrongful termination. Bush stonewalled the investigation into both her firing and the investigation of the funeral company and the case was finally settled without all the facts coming out. More abuse of power and Palin sounds like she's hoping to get adopted by the Bush crime family.

[Blondiegrrl]

4. Five words: George Bush in a skirt. n/t