Saturday, 11 October 2008
Sliming of Gov Palin Part II
The national media is having a field day. Why? Because Democratic state senator and staunch Barack Obama supporter Hollis French has delivered on his October surprise. Now we are treated to the following misleading headlines.
Panel: Palin abused power in trooper case
But when you look at the details of the Branchflower report you get the following.
Finding Number One
For the reasons explained in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides
The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."
Finding Number Two
I find that, although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.
Now, anyone who can read will see that these two statements are completely incongruent. How can the firing be "proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire" and still be illegal?
Let's assume for a moment that both of these findings are true. For the second finding to be true, she had legitimate reason for the firing. For the first finding to be true she had illegitimate reasons in addition to the legitimate reasons for the firing. Unless she came out and said that she fired him for personal reasons, then the author of the report is doing some serious mind reading.
At the end of the day, Gov Palin had legitimate reasons to fire Wooten and this report backs up those reasons. Any other conclusion is nothing less than pure speculation. Unfortunately, the media is in the tank for the Democrats and they have a chance to cut the knees out of a future star of the Republican party. Therefore this story will get tons of play over the next few days. What a joke.
