Sunday, October 12, 2008

Really? Are you serious?


On Friday the Alaska Legislature released its "Troopergate" report finding that Governor Sarah Palin had abused her power. Finding Number One of the Commission's report reads:



Finding Number One:


"For the reasons stated in section IV of this report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her powers by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."




Saturday, in response to a question about the legislature finding explicitly that she had abused her powers, Governor Palin insisted that the investigation found “no unlawful or unethical activity on my part,” and added that “there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired.”




Really? Because I'm pretty sure it found the exact opposite of that. Good one though. Liar.




4 comments:

Warm Apple Pie said...

Fair and balanced retort: "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."

Finding 2, brother. Give some context. You still have the higher ground on this issue without making it worse than it is.

Defective Pants said...

Jack didn't claim that the actual firing was an abuse of authority, and Palin's statement does not limit her claimed absence of wrongdong to that same firing. There is no basis for Palin's statement that there was "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part" or that "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired." Those are simply not true, are directly contradicted by the investigation, and no amount of softening or contrarianism will change that.

A lie is a lie is a lie. http://danquaylespotatoe.blogspot.com/2008/10/dont-take-this-out-of-context-palin-is.html

Jack Knowledge said...

Warm Apple Pie, even you can't spin this one. Finding #2 has no bearing on Finding #1 because they focus on two different questions. Finding 2 asks whether she was within her authority as Governor to fire the Commissioner, and concludes that she was. That, however, does nothing to change the fact that Finding 1 explicitly states that she abused her authority by violating the ethics rules.

It is thus both factually wrong and totally insane for her to state that she was cleared of "any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that."

That's just not the case. It's also really odd of you to suggest otherwise. Read Finding 1 and read her statement. ABCnews has a great analysis of the story here:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/palin-makes-tro.html

Warm Apple Pie said...

But it has to be about job creation also and the Asian countries.