NYT: In office, Palin hired friends and hit critics

[liberal N proud]

Interviews indicate a governing style that uses loyalty and secrecy


updated 7:17 p.m. ET, Sat., Sept. 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 one of her qualifications 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.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26691018/

[PBS Poll-435]

1. I am just shocked.

Abuse government power?

Her?

Really?

:cry:

[midnight]

2. I love that this women's affection towards cows is being cited as

a qualification to run a two million dollar agriculture budget.