Sarah Palin on the Branchflower Report: “Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that. … You got to read the report, sir.”
I’m not a sir but I read the report. It says Sarah Palin abused her power as governor and violated Alaska ethics law, trying to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired. It says she permitted her husband, a non-state employee, to afflict, for months on end, those who were state employees with the demands of the Palins’ “personal vendetta.”
“Governor Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda,” is what it says.
So I conclude that the woman is fullblown batshit crazy, as is anyone who believes one word out of her mouth.
More from Steve Benen:
ABC News’ Jake Tapper added that Palin made multiple claims about the Troopergate scandal over the weekend, all of which were patently false.
John Cole summarized the problem nicely: “I don’t know how to react to this. I really just don’t. When someone is that willing to look at you and just flat out make shit up and reject facts, there really is nothing you can do without driving yourself insane.”
I’d just add one other observation. On Friday, Palin was found to have violated the public trust in an abuse of power scandal. On Saturday, it was on the front page of the major dailies. And on Sunday morning, NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” and CNN’s “Late Edition” ignored the story altogether, despite lengthy discussions about recent political events, as if a major scandal involving a candidate for national office isn’t particularly interesting. I’ll simply never understand this.
“batshit crazy”
Is that about the same as crazy as a sprayed roach? F*d up as a soup sandwich?
Yuh, A1A, nigh-bout.
I stated a week or so back that the Alaska “incident” would unfold substantially the way it did. What is a governor?—One who wields power. What is power?—The ability and capacity for punishing one’s enemies and rewarding one’s friends. Can power be abused?—Of course it can, but “what good is power if I can’t abuse it?”
Palin committed an ethical breach. No crime was committed. If the PSD was wrongfully fired, let him pursue his remedies in court.
This dustup was merely a sideshow. Let Alaskans kvetch about it. There’s no national story—other than the fact that the governor’s ethics have challenged and been found wanting. Move on.
I think the national story consists of what the hell she would do with a David Addington type helping her in the VP’s office. The capacity for power abuse goes way up.
I’m with you, rogerwilco, and don’t really get the “Palin, (yawn) fiddle-faddle” argument because, even if she goes nowhere this year, she’s a-sp’ilin’ to try again later. We best be attending to and archiving her BS, therefore.
Excellent explanation of all this can be found at http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204, but the author has a name that plays right into the Rovian McCain-Palin strategy, which is to discount anyone with a name far removed from “Smith” or “Jones”.
3dS, check out this post on Zakaria’s usefulness to BushCo a few years back.
Oops, I missed that link before. As always, you’re way ahead of me, Lotus. Forgive the duplication, please.
What is, to me, far more alarming, or frightful, about the prospect of Sarah Palin being VP is the spectre of what her husband may busy himself doing and the communications they have with one another about things Mr. Palin has no business hearing … indeed, may be barred by law from hearing. Those people are just right for Alaska … a few political shenanigans that occur in every state to a greater or lesser degree, a little home-cooking on taking care of friends and punishing enemies, some padding of expense reports, some curious ways of awarding state contracts, etc. But they have no bidness in the national government, most especially at the highest executive levels.
Isn’t there a really amusing character on Scrubs called “The Todd”? I think there is. It’s worrisome to think about The Todd hanging out in the VP’s office simultaneously planning his next snow machine victory and how to get some righteous surveillance on Sarah’s pinko commie detractors.
“The Todd” is kinda, semi, sort of amusing, in a twisted banana hammock kind of way.
Ben, roger, and everybody else, you really need to see KagroX’s Todd Palin diaries over at Kos. This one on the post-moose-killing finagle with Monegan, and this one on “the First Stalker” — well, if you haven’t seen your daily quotient for vile-venal-and-STUPID yet, heck, these’ll do you for the whole week.
A1A, I plan to steal “in a twisted, banana hammock sort of way” as often as necessary, hope you don’t mind.