The announcement this week about Sarah Palin abusing her power as Governor when she fired Public Safety Director, Walter Monegan, has the Democrats and their surrogates in the mainstream news media chirping. Their party line is that Trooper Mike Wooten was involved in a nasty divorce from Palin's sister, so the Governor and her husband, Todd, for personal reasons, put pressure on Monegan to fire Wooten. When he didn't, Palin fired the director.
On its surface, that sounds like an abuse of power-even though Palin, as Governor, had the legal right to fire Monegan, which was upheld by the investigating panel. Palin has cited other reasons for the firing including insubordination involving Monegan's going around her back to get funding she had disapproved. That would be a legitimate reason for the firing alone. Yet, the invesigative panel chose to focus on Palin's personal issue with Wooten. (Actually, the commission singled out Todd Palin as the main force in putting pressure on Monegan more than the Governor.)
What the media is downplaying is the fact (which Wooten has admitted) that he had tasered his 10-year-old stepson. The Palin family also claimed that Wooten had made threats against them. Thus, the Director of Public Services was repeatedly queried by Palin and others as to why Wooten was still a state trooper.
Perhaps, in a sense, Palin did overstep her bounds as Governor. Yet, I think I would have done the same thing in that situation. Wooten should have been fired for tasering a ten-year-old kid. As for shooting a moose from his patrol car, I could care less, but it sure sounds to me like this guy had no business being in law enforcement. I think it was entirely proper for the Governor to bring the incident to the attention of the Director and ask why Wooten was still in uniform. Certainly, she should have reined Todd in and kept him out of it. Unfortunately, first spouses do have power they should not have-like when Hillary Clinton orchestrated the firing of the White House Travel Office personnel so she could get her own people in.
In the end, I don't think this will be an important campaign issue, but it should serve as a lesson to public officials to tread lightly when personal issues and official business come together.
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3 comments:
Well said. This seems like another much ado about nothing situation.
But if you could care less, why don't you? Sorry, sorry...no more grammar - it's just a pet peeve of mine.
Well, I guess I could care less, if I wanted to care less.
Actually, I thought you were referring to Wooten shooting all those mooses.
Remember one thing Lance. In any language, rules must be followed by its speakers to have meaning. If the rule isn't followed, the rule eventually dies.
Here's an example.
I used to be famous.
Did you use(d) to be famous?
Since English-speakers use both forms-and probably don't know which is really correct, both are now acceptable.
Slipped out of that one, didn't I?
(And yes, I know it's meese-save your card and letter.)
Very clever. Just for that, I'm going to use a preposition to end this sentence with.
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