Sunday, August 31, 2008

Understanding "Troopergate"

Josh Marshall summarizes several weeks of research into one of Sarah Palin's scandals in her home state of Alaska. I fully recommend reading the entire article, but the summary of the summary is as follows:

We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It's called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired his boss. She first denied Monegan's claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

These are, to put it mildly, not the traits or temperament you want in someone who could hold the executive power of the federal government.

2 comments:

Beth Fish said...

My real problem with this, is that there are many competent Republican women who would have made a great running mate. I mean, I would have been pulling for them to lose, regardless, but he could easily have found a woman who wasn't a joke.

Eclecta said...

Hey Beth! Thanks for the comment! I feel so honoured!!!!! :)

I would agree with you 100% AND the truly scary part is that there will be quite a few people who will look at her and somehow believe that she is ready for the role. That's SCARY.

:)