The goofy thing is, “Troopergate” is extremely small potatoes. Yeah, abuse of power, yeah, lots of family bickering. But, bottom line, unless there’s “a dead girl or a live boy” lurking somewhere behind the scenes, Troopergate would not have sunk Sarah Palin’s career as Governor — nor, for that matter, for VP. Yeah, a few looks askance, some tut-tutting, maybe a need for a public apology, and, hey-presto, on to the next news cycle.
But, as they say, it’s not the crime, but the cover-up, that’ll get you.
In this case, it’s the super-tanker turning, slowly but inexorably, completely around. After promising cooperation to put it behind her, Palin, and her Alaska Republican cronies, are now doing everything they can to stonewall the investigation.
Palin, of course, has already done a 180 from her earlier promise to fully cooperate, now calling the investigation partisan and unfair. And now all communications and questions from the media about Palin’s career in Alaska are now being routed though the McCain campaign. To hell with “straight talk” — we need “spin talk,” right?
Next up, five Republican lawmakers in Alaska are suing the Alaskan Legislative Council that voted for the investigation — a bipartisan council made up for four Democrats and eight Republicans. But don’t worry — the law suit is just to avoid partisanship and — quite openly — delay any investigative results until after the election.
“There is no nonpartisan reason to complete this investigation until after the election,” said Anchorage attorney Kevin G. Clarkson. “We just want to take the politics out of it and bring fairness back into it.”
While that’s going on, the campaign — not Palin, or her lawyer, but the actual McCain/Palin campaign — have entered into Rovean character assassination of Walt Monegan, the guy who Palin fired for not firing her sister’s ex-husband, or whatever the hell the tangle was (see, I told you it was trivial). He’s gone from being a well-respected head of the state troopers to being a “rogue” and “insubordinate,” “brazen” and “obstructionist.” Soon we will learn that he eats kittens and spits in people’s soup.
These tactics follow Palin’s office filing an ethics complaint against … Palin herself. The idea is that the complaint would trump any investigation by the legislature, would last until well after the election, and would be handled by a board hand-selected by … Palin herself. Now, evidently either seeing that tactic is too goofy for words, or else relying on other plans, her office has now asked that the complaint her office filed against her be dismissed.
Of course, regardless of the suit, it all depends on calling people to testify. Which, demonstrating that Palin is already learning lessons from Rove and the Bush White House, will simply not happen.
The Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg (3rd in line for the Governor’s throne should Palin win the VP slot, and Lt. Governor Sean Parnell win the House seat) has announced that none of the 13 people state employees who were issued subpoenas in Palin’s ethics investigation into the “Troopergate” scandal will testify, unless there is a unanimous vote from the full Senate or the entire Legislature.
In other words, the Attorney General has stated that nobody who is subpoenaed will show up.
Delightful! If you can’t beat ’em in court, then simply thumb your noses at them. That just last week (well after the Palin nomination) the AG was saying (obviously off-message) that everyone would comply with the subpoenas makes all the political shenanigans all the more jolly.
But remember — Palin and McCain are Agents of Change!
Stay for more from McCain’s Campaign for “Change.” They’ve tried to change the truth. They’ve succeeded at changing Governor Palin’s promise to comply with this investigation. Let’s see what they’ll change next.