Dan Quayle fumbled his language and was the butt of numerous jokes, obviously. Nobody paid attention to the fact he actually did a fine job as VP. If he was as stupid as everyone thought, then the job can't be that hard.
The problem with troopergate, is she didn't fire the trooper, but fired the commissioner, affecting someone elses life over her personal grudge.
Almost $300K of those donations were for Obama's state senate campaign. Oops! Another $400K to purchase land next to a house Obama wanted but couldn't afford because the house and land were a package deal.
I still don't see what the big deal is over Obama buying a chunk of land LEGALLY from Rezko. My parents bought a chunk of land off our neighbors about 18 years ago. It's not a big deal at all.
Ok, so I've been reading up on this whole troopergate bullshit. It sounds like a lot of circumstantial evidence. She fires Walt Monegan and then it sounds like he's trying to pin it all on this troopergate thing. From http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/510080.html He feels? Really? Of course he feels that way. He was fired and he wants to try to pan it off as a grudge. So the Troopers did an investigation, they found the claims to be accurate, and only suspended the guy for 5 days? Is this the kind of guy you want as a police officer? does he set a good example? Who cares if Palin was related to the guy, she wouldn't be doing her job if she didn't ask Monegan to do further investigation into the matter. Monegan was fired. That's Palin's right as Governor. Was his handling of this matter part of the issue? Possibly. The LE community is very close. It's an old boys club. Go onto www.officer.com and look at the forums. It's an unwritten rule that "cops don't write cops." Some cops would even go as far as to let another officer off if they caught him driving under the influence. Does this sound like the kind of corruption Palin is talking about? Palin knew of a bad egg in the State Troopers. She talked to the guy who was in charge of handling that kind of issue. He did nothing. I would have fired him too. It's not like her brother-in-law was an angel, a model citizen. He was obviously a bad cop. Monegan should have fired him without Palin's urging. But she never actually said, "I want you to fire this guy." She merely pointed to him that Wooten was a guy that needed to be investigated. I really don't see the problem.
Nate, the problem is that Wooten was already disciplined for those actions, and Palin kept pushing for him to be investigated again and fired, even though the commissioner couldn't do anything vecause the guy was already punished.
Nate the problem is the congress reviewed all this and called for an investigation. It sounds like you are convinced there is no problem, but I say let congress do there thing (it's like me taking some time to read about and concluding this is all bogus she wrongfully terminated Monegan . . . that is why you have an investiagtion). And this decision to investiage was before the VP thing. But I can play this, I have read about these emails and looked at them. Congress asked for all gov't emails and Palin didn't turn over gov't emails from her yahoo account. She is hiding emails from the investigation. Sounds like a serious ethics problem to me. : )
So what are they looking for specifically with the investigation? Proof that Palin fired the commission because of Wooten?
They are investigating whether Palin abuse her power by using her title to first try to fire Wooten because of an ugly divorce with her sister and when Monegan wouldn't fire him, she fired Monegan for not firing Wooten. If it is true that would suck. You divorce someone and because the person you divorce has a sister who is powerful, you lose your job. If that is true, that shit ain't right. But again at this stage it is an investigation. We won't know what really happened, if ever, until after the election.
Well, that's really vague. What would constitute abuse of power? Putting in a phone call to Monegan to get him to look into Wooten? I don't think that's abuse of power. I think that's doing her job. If she ordered him to fire Wooten, then yes, it would be an abuse of power. If she merely asked him to look into the guy, then no I don't think it's abuse. Firing Monegan would not be an abuse of power. Firing Monegan entirely because he wouldn't fire wooten, abuse of power. Let me ask you this though, what if the Wooten thing was just the first issue that got her looking at replacing him? What if Monegan really isn't very good at his job? There just doesn't seem to be many facts going around right now. All we know is that Monegan was fired, that Palin had called him a couple times to ask him about Wooten, and that Wooten did in fact do some pretty shady shit.
Sarah Palin calls Monegan, telling him to investigate Wooten over so and so accusations. Monegan tells Palin he can't do anything because they've already punished Wooten for these accusations. Palin fires Monegan. This is no different than Palin trying to get the librarian who wouldn't remove books that conflicted with Palin's religious beliefs fired.
I don't pretentd to know what all the facts are, I just know congess was concerned enough to conduct an investiagtion. Palin's response was "hold me accountable" but she has done nothing but fight the process. Does that mean she is guilty of abuse of power, no. But I don't buy that she is different from all other politicians and is about reform of congress. (I also don't buy the idea that Obama is diffferent from all other politicians). They are all politicians and will say whatever to win an election. FYI-a starnge fact to me about this Palin thing is there is evidence that Todd Palin got involved and emailed and called gov't employees regarding this issue. What the heck is he involed for?
I agree, there is a pattern here . . . and I wouldn't want to be working for the state if I disagreed with Palin or was married to one of her family. I feel sorry for Bristol's fiance . . . didn't even want to get married and here he is at a shotgun wedding with Palin holding the shotgun. I would rather be a moose during hunting season.
Anchorage Daily News WWW site coverage of the whole thing. A lot better than reading partisan versions of the story with important info left out. http://www.adn.com/troopergate/index.html
^^^ I think he left out quite a few of the facts. She actually filed an ethics complaint against herself. She also claims Monegan was fired for insubordination - and produced a number of emails in the filing that showed he had been doing an end around her on some legislation that she had already vetoed. From what I've read on ADN.com, she never directly asked Monegan to fire the policeman but her staff did put pressure on him to do so. Not that there's anything wrong with any of it - see the cop's record. Looking to subpoena the husband sure looks like a fishing expedition. No wonder she's no longer interested in cooperating.
