Sunday - September 07, 2008

Palin’s Alaska aides will be forced to reveal her office secrets in Troopergate inquiry .

OK, I know things like this are part of the game.  Doesn’t mean I have to like it or watch the play by play.
And yeah, I know our side does it too.  Doesn’t mean I have to like that either because what goes around comes around as they say here.

I want the election to be over sooner. Do we really have to wait if everyone already knows how they’re gonna vote?
Lets hold it tonight and inaugurate Mrs. Palin and her friend tomoro morning first thing.

Sarah Palin’s Alaska aides will be forced to reveal her office secrets in Troopergate inquiry
Senior aides to Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to be compelled to reveal the inner workings of her state office in an ethics probe that could be highly embarrassing for the new Republican vice-presidential candidate.

By Philip Sherwell in Wasilla, Alaska
Last Updated: 10:26PM BST 06 Sep 2008

Alaskan legislators have raised the stakes in their investigation of John McCain’s newly anointed running mate by declaring their intention to subpoena key members of her staff, obliging them to give evidence.

Mrs Palin, 44, who has electrified the race for the White House, denies claims that she abused her powers by dismissing an official who refused to fire her former brother-in-law, Mike Wooten, as a state trooper.

The cross-party judiciary committee also said it was bringing forward the date for its report into the woman who has electrified the by three weeks, to October 10. That is seen as a rebuff to attempts by the governor’s newly-hired legal team to stall an inquiry which she had said she welcomed before her surprise nomination to the Republican ticket.

Separately, Mr Wooten’s police union has filed an ethics complaint against Mrs Palin and her administration, claiming that his personnel files were viewed unlawfully.

“Troopergate” has its roots in a long-standing and bitter feud between the Palin family and Mr Wooten, who underwent a messy divorce and custody battle with Mrs Palin’s sister. In his first public comments on Friday night, Mr Wooten denied allegations that he threatened to shoot his then father-in-law during the acrimonious split.

The controversy is among many elements of Mrs Palin’s life in Wasilla that is now under the political and media microscope after her stunning debut on the national stage.

In the last few days, video footage of her describing the Iraq war as “a task from God” and urging trainee pastors to pray for a new gas pipeline as “God’s will” has been unearthed and posted on YouTube. As a fundamentalist Christian who advocates the teaching of intelligent design (a form of biblical creationism) in schools and opposes abortion even when a mother was raped or her life is at risk, her beliefs certainly appeal to the hardline Religious Right but may deter more mainstream swing voters.

Although she enjoys an 80 per cent approval rating in Alaska for tackling corruption and taking on her own party hierarchy and “Big Oil” companies, Democrats are contesting her claims to be a fierce foe of fiscal excess and are highlighting an allegedly abrupt management style and “body count” of dismissed staff.

Left-wing blogs are meanwhile buzzing with further unsubstantiated personal claims about the Palin family following last week’s disclosure that the governor’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol was pregnant.

The welter of publicity may only bolster Mrs Palin’s support among conservatives and some independents if she seems the victim of a witch-hunt. But it also illustrates the merciless scrutiny that the once-obscure governor of America’s least densely populated state now faces.

Significantly, Mrs Palin has avoided taking reporters’ questions since her nomination and there are no plans for any press conferences as McCain aides leave her to rev up the conservative faithful on the stump.

The governor’s former public safety commissioner Walt Monegan claims that she fired him in July because he ignored pressure to sack Mr Wooten for prior misdemeanours and the alleged threat against her father.

The claims are denied by Mrs Palin who insists that she never pressured Mr Monegan to dismiss Mr Wooten or asked her staff to do. She counters that her husband and aides merely raised concerns about the trooper’s record with the commissioner, and says she dismissed him over budgetary and policy issues.

Mr Wooten was suspended in 2006 for five days for using a Taser on his stepson in a home trial and illicitly killing a moose under his wife’s permit. But he denies claims that he drank on duty or said that his father-in-law would “eat a f****** lead bullet” if he intervened in the divorce, as Mrs Palin says she heard.

“Trooper Wooten was punished for his infractions and that should be the end of the story,” John Cyr, the state police union chief, told The Sunday Telegraph. “But unfortunately for Mike, he married into a family that has since acquired vast political power.

“It is very sad that a family dispute is now receiving worldwide attention. I believe that this governor has used her bully pulpit to demonise Trooper Wooten. That is not only unfair; it is unconscionable.”

Mr Monegan said that he repeatedly told Mrs Palin’s staff that Mr Wooten had already been disciplined so the matter was closed. “I think there are some questions now coming to light about how transparent and how honest she wants to be,” he said.

It has emerged that he was contacted more than 20 times by phone or email by her office about the Wooten case. Hollis French, the Democratic senator who chairs the judiciary committee, stoked the furore when he predicted last week: “It’s likely to be damaging to the Governor’s administration.”

Steven Blanchflower, the independent prosecutor conducting the investigation, was originally due to deliver his report on Oct 31, just four days before the presidential election. But the judiciary committee brought the probe forward to change such a politically-loaded schedule.

Barack Obama’s campaign has been in touch with Mr Wooten, according to CNN which interviewed him on Friday night. The trooper acknowledged making mistakes but said he had been punished and learned from them. He said he did not wish his former in-laws “any ill-will” and described the governor’s nomination as “wonderful” for Alaska.

The Obama camp is expected to leave “Troopergate” to play out for now without comment. Instead, it will direct its fire at Mrs Palin’s previous pursuit of the federal grants known as “earmarks” that she and Mr McCain have fiercely decried on the campaign trail.

The intense focus on her roots in Wasilla will do nothing to undo her popularity in her home town where her jubilant parents, husband and children arrived back from the Republican convention on Friday evening.

“We’re very proud of our daughter and very honoured,” a beaming Chuck Heath told The Sunday Telegraph in his living room adorned with a moose’s head, furs and antlers. “I’m really sorry but that’s all I am allowed to say.”

http://tinyurl.com/5tq2u5

Posted by Drew458     on 09/07/2008 at 11:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats • Politics • Republicans •  
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