Sarah Palin Abused Power: Ethics Report

[FanIn80]

It's not about what she did.

When your campaign is built on a foundation of incorruptibility and "not playing ball with the big boys," then you better make sure your own closet's clean.

I realize, in the grand scheme of things, that what she did was fairly trivial. It doesn't matter though, since her entire campaign was based on the fact that she was isolated from corruption.

If she's lying about that, what else is she lying about?

[Dion]

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Flame Of Liberty

She unjustly fired a state trooper? Please. That's got to be the least damage any politician has ever done in the history of mankind.

The trooper never was fired. She complained to the commissioner in charge of the State troopers. Later on she fired the Commissioner and replaced him. She says she did so for other reasons. The problem with the whole investigation is that the Commissioner's position is a political appointment. By that I mean the Governor as every right to replace the commissioner without any cause. It's like Obama or McCain becoming president and replacing the Secretary of Defence or the Press Secretary. More often than not they get replaced by someone you personally trust.
Even your hand picked replacements are there at your pleasure. If you lose confidence in them you replace them; No questions asked.

The reason why this became an issue was because Palin vetoed over 300 bills this legislator placed on her desk. You don't do that in a little over a couple years without annoying plenty of people. Much like the American Congress the legislator can hold hearings on pretty much anything they chose. They chose to go after Palin. The testimony becomes part of the public record and could be used in a court of law if any laws were broken. There wasn't any laws broken.

[Bobblehead]

Time magazine's assessment

But even though she won't likely face any legal repercussions, the amateurism and cronyism of her brief administration hardly leaves Palin sitting pretty. Troopergate's final verdict may be even more damaging than a rebuke: her administration was, at least this regard, just as self-motivated as the Washington fat cats and lobbyists she hopes to unseat.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...9399-2,00.html

[Phanuthier]

Well it doesn't look good for average joe "say it ain't joe" Sarah Palin, but really I don't think this effects her image in my eyes. Every politician in some way has pulled some strings. I think there are bigger issues at the heart of this election then things like this.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Well it doesn't look good for average joe "say it ain't joe" Sarah Palin, but really I don't think this effects her image in my eyes. Every politician in some way has pulled some strings. I think there are bigger issues at the heart of this election then things like this.

Absolutely.

But when you were brought in as someone who fights to clean up corruption, then your own corruption is exposed, then credibility takes a big hit.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Absolutely.

But when you were brought in as someone who fights to clean up corruption, then your own corruption is exposed, then credibility takes a big hit.

Something i'm sure Obama will hammer on in the weeks leading up to the vote.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Absolutely.

But when you were brought in as someone who fights to clean up corruption, then your own corruption is exposed, then credibility takes a big hit.

yup it sure does

This was just my opinion anyways, I actually don't care about government corruption and never take that into account in politicians anyways. Its just sort of one of those things I accept; every election, politicians promise an end to it, but it happens anyways.

But, I do understand that this is an issue with voter and this will likely hurt Palin and the Republicans.

[onetwo_threefour]

I'm sure there are people here that understand what I am about to say, but nobody has mentioned it yet. The conservatives are still lying about this, even in this thread. The report specifically found that she did break the law but the right wingers claim otherwise. Her firing of Monegan wan't illegal although, the report says that personal reasons appeared to have been significant in his firing. The illegal part was the pressure that she and her husband exerted on and through numerous civil servants to have Wooten fired. That was a violation of ethics laws according to the report, so she did 'break the law' notwithstanding assertions to the contrary.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by onetwo_threefour

I'm sure there are people here that understand what I am about to say, but nobody has mentioned it yet. The conservatives are still lying about this, even in this thread. The report specifically found that she did break the law but the right wingers claim otherwise. Her firing of Monegan wan't illegal although, the report says that personal reasons appeared to have been significant in his firing. The illegal part was the pressure that she and her husband exerted on and through numerous civil servants to have Wooten fired. That was a violation of ethics laws according to the report, so she did 'break the law' notwithstanding assertions to the contrary.

And what you fail to mention is that this opinion was written by enemies of Palins in her legislator. No one in Alaska expected the decision to be any different. These politicians were already accusing her of these ethics violations publicly before they started the show trial. They also made the decision to publish their report a month before the fall federal election after they found out Palin was on the ticket.

Before you accuse Palin of breaking the law perhaps you should wait until she has been charged with a crime and has has had a chance to stand before an unbiased judge and jury.

[troutman]

If this campaign was a boxing match, the ref would stop the fight. TKO.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by troutman

If this campaign was a boxing match, the ref would stop the fight. TKO.

It ain't over till the voters say it's over.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by peter12

It ain't over till the voters say it's over.

It's over.

[FanIn80]

To steal a page out of troutman's playbook...

I hope you're with me, I hope you're with me when it's over
I hope you're with me, I hope you're with me when it's over
You wont be lonely, you wont be lonely when it's over
You wont be lonely, you... when it's over

It's over, it's over, it's over
It's over, it's over, it's over

[Titan]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

And what you fail to mention is that this opinion was written by enemies of Palins in her legislator. No one in Alaska expected the decision to be any different. These politicians were already accusing her of these ethics violations publicly before they started the show trial. They also made the decision to publish their report a month before the fall federal election after they found out Palin was on the ticket.

Before you accuse Palin of breaking the law perhaps you should wait until she has been charged with a crime and has has had a chance to stand before an unbiased judge and jury.

bipartisan committee of the state legislature that had more republicans than democrats. Voted 12-0 in favour of the report. Hired a former prosecutor, who is widely respected in Alaska to investigate. She agreed to cooperate and then did not and encouraged her staff not to cooperate.

She had a chance to tell her story, if not to a judge and jury then to a fact finder made up of the state's lawmakers. Also, could have defended her actions in public. Also, could have made herself available to the press to sell her side of the story. Did none of that. All pretty damning.

[octothorp]

The question continues to be more about why McCain picked Palin than about whether there was any bias in this committee or not. I was able to predict a month ago exactly what the committee's findings would be: that it would be found that she was within her right to fire the commissioner, but would be found in violation of ethics rules. I'm sure that a lot of pundits predicted that this would be the conclusion. So either McCain hadn't properly looked into this inquiry and understood the likely outcomes, or he decided from the outset that they'd make charges of bias to discredit the report. Neither reflects well on the McCain campaign.

[Itse]

Agree Octo, I'd file this under the question "McCains judgement?". Picking his VP candidate was one of the more important decisions he had to make during this campaign, and Palin was the best he could do? That's just pathetic.

What made the Bush government so terrible was for a large part their way of picking completely incompetent people into positions of power for completely political reasons. It seems we would be seeing a lot of that from McCain too, which is really really bad. It seems he puts policies before qualifications. This is not always bad, but when you take it into extremes like this, it tends to lead to really bad things. (See: Bush regime 2000->)

If a politician can't find competent people with reasonably similar policies to work with, it's usually because his or her policies are not something competent people would agree with.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by Itse

What made the Bush government so terrible was for a large part their way of picking completely incompetent people into positions of power for completely political reasons. It seems we would be seeing a lot of that from McCain too, which is really really bad. It seems he puts policies before qualifications. This is not always bad, but when you take it into extremes like this, it tends to lead to really bad things. (See: Bush regime 2000->)

What do you base this comment on? There definitely can be criticism of the decisions made by the people Bush appointed to his administration but to say they were unqualified is a stretch to say the least. GWB's administration is (soon to be 'was') a VERY qualified and experienced administration. The people in his administration have had decades of experience.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Titan

bipartisan committee of the state legislature that had more republicans than democrats. Voted 12-0 in favour of the report. Hired a former prosecutor, who is widely respected in Alaska to investigate. She agreed to cooperate and then did not and encouraged her staff not to cooperate.

She had a chance to tell her story, if not to a judge and jury then to a fact finder made up of the state's lawmakers. Also, could have defended her actions in public. Also, could have made herself available to the press to sell her side of the story. Did none of that. All pretty damning.

Palin has made just as many Republicans mad as she has Democrats in her State legislature. The only people who like her in Alaska are the people of Alaska. They can see she has been working for her.

Palin's decision not to testify is the right one. It would have taken away from the campaign.

[flylock shox]

I heart Sarah Palin.

She's the best thing to happen to American politics since Obama gave his coming-out speech X number of years ago now. I almost wish there was a way she could stay in the lime-light even with Obama winning the White House. At the very least, I think she's destined for Dan Quayle's level of fame.