On Those Allegations Against Mike Wooten
Governor Sarah Palin is accused of abusing her power as governor and lying about the whole reason why she had Walt Monegan fired. Monegan refused to buckle to Palin’s pressure to have Mike Wooten fired for what appears to be personal reasons. Palin’s sister was in a bitter divorce with Wooten. In classic slime and defend style, Team McCain’s minions are now saying we Democrats don’t care whether Wooten threatened to shoot someone. Talk about changing the issue. No one is defending Wooten and maybe Palin’s sister is smart to end her marriage with this fellow. But let’s take a look at those charges as provided by Alan Suderman:
Grimes suspended Wooten for 10 days. He also was punished for illegally shooting a moose and using a Taser on his 10-year-old stepson. The trooper admitted to using the Taser on his stepson in a “training capacity” and said he shot a moose on his wife’s tag, but didn’t think the act was illegal.
Shooting a moose may be grounds for a temporary suspension but only the most anti-Cheney leftwinger would have a policeman fired for this. The stepson apparently asked Wooten to taser him but let’s be clear – only an idiot would have honored such a request. OK, Mike Wooten is an idiot.
But what about those other charges?
A former top official of the Alaska State Troopers reversed a finding in a 2005 investigation of the conduct of trooper Mike Wooten, the former brother-in-law of Gov. Sarah Palin, a step that’s unprecedented, according to the head of the trooper’s union. John Cyr, executive director of the Public Safety Employees Association, said former Alaska State Trooper Col. Julia Grimes punished Wooten, who has a rocky relationship with the Palin family, for drinking beer before and while operating a marked patrol car even though there was no “just cause” to do so. An earlier internal investigation done in 2005 by Sgt. Ronald Wall, who is now a lieutenant, found that those claims were unsubstantiated. Cyr said it was the first and only time he’d seen the findings of an internal investigation in a trooper’s conduct revised by a top agency official. “It’s totally outside the expected norm,” Cyr said. Cyr said when he asked Grimes why she had reversed the agency’s own findings, she said: “Are you going to call Sarah Palin a liar?” Wooten has become a key figure in a political imbroglio for Palin that began when she fired former Department of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan on July 11. Monegan said he was pressured by members of Palin’s family and administration to fire Wooten after Palin took office. Palin has denied those claims and said Monegan’s dismissal was the result of her seeking a new direction for the department.
In summary, Governor Palin had the findings of the investigation changed, fired Monegan for not going along with her plans to abuse her office to help her sister, and then lied about the whole incident. For Team McCain’s minions to use this revised set of findings as evidence that Wooten is even more of a creep is sheer dishonesty. And I find it interesting that Suderman didn’t even list that allegation that Wooten threatened to shoot someone. But this issue here is not whether Wooten is some sort of saint – he’s not. The issue is the unethical behavior of Governor Palin.
Update: Let’s add Mayor Palin’s firings of Irl Stambaugh and Mary Ellen Emmons:
It seems that John McCain’s vice presidential pick Sarah Palin is not squeaky clean. In fact, she may be as corrupt as pretty much every other still living Alaskan Republican to have held statewide office (the Murkowskis, Ted Stevens, Don Young pretty much covers it) … So for Sarah Palin, security does not come first. Like George Bush, it takes a backseat to personal loyalty and cronyism.
Sarah Palin is the perfect VP pick for McBush!