Palin: What ‘Troopergate’ revealed

It wasn’t much of an “October surprise,” said Jim Tankersley in the Chicago Tribune. Still, the struggling McCain campaign could hardly have welcomed a 263-page report last week that concluded that Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin abused her power as Alaska’s governor. The report, issued by an investigator for the Alaskan legislature, details how Palin and her husband, Todd, broke ethics rules by repeatedly trying to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was embroiled in an ugly divorce and custody battle with the governor’s sister. When Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan wouldn’t allow the Palins to browbeat him into sacking Wooten, Palin fired Monegan. Palin, the report declared, “knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda.” So much for Palin’s claim to be a reformer out to “clean up Washington cronyism,” said Gary Kamiya in Salon.com. Her conduct in “Troopergate” reveals her as little more than a petty and vindictive political hack.

Don’t be fooled by this “bloated and redundant” report, said Bill Dyer in TownHall.com. It reflects the opinions of “exactly one guy”—retired prosecutor Steve Branchflower, appointed by a Democratic state senator who happens to staunchly support Barack Obama. Besides, while Democrats are spinning the findings as a major blow to Palin, Branchflower found that as chief executive, Palin was within her rights to fire the safety commissioner. And who can blame Palin anyway, said John McCormack in TheWeeklyStandard.com. An administrative hearing found that Wooten “physically abused his 10-year-old stepson by Tasering him. He also threatened that he would make Palin’s father ‘eat a f---ing lead bullet’ for meddling in the divorce proceedings.” No wonder Palin fired Monegan; he refused to throw “a child-abusing, violent trooper off the force.”

Even if this affair “is not a mortal wound to Palin,” said Nathan Thornburgh in Time, it still reflects poorly on her judgment. Her aides repeatedly e-mailed and called Monegan during the dispute, despite warnings that such contact was “inappropriate and probably unlawful.” Todd Palin played a particularly “ham-handed” role; he “spent about half his time in the governor’s office” petulantly pursuing this vendetta. And Palin didn’t exactly distinguish herself by refusing to cooperate in the investigation. Altogether, the Palin administration comes across as “shockingly amateurish,” filled with “childish impetuousness and a sense of entitlement.” The report was not the knockout blow Democrats had hoped for, but “it hardly leaves Palin sitting pretty.” And this close to the election, it’s just about the last thing John McCain needed.

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