GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is effectively turning over questions about her record as Alaska’s governor to John McCain’s political campaign, part of an ambitious Republican strategy to limit any embarrassing disclosures and carefully shape her image for voters in the rest of the country.
Republican efforts include dispatching a former top U.S. terrorism prosecutor from New York, Ed O’Callaghan, to assist Palin’s personal lawyer working to derail or delay a pending ethics investigation in Alaska. The probe, known as “Troopergate,” is examining whether the governor abused her power by trying to remove her former brother-in-law as a state trooper.
O’Callaghan is just part of a cadre of high-powered operatives patrolling Alaska as reporters and Democrats scrutinize every detail of Palin’s tenure in government, plus her family and friends. One strategy: Carefully coordinate any information that’s released. The McCain campaign is demanding that it becomes the de facto source for answers about the operations of Alaska’s government during the past 20 months.
She still has not had a press conference or any contact with the media.
*** Update ***
I should read my own damned website. Michael covered this earlier.
Paul in Boca
It’s absolutely disgusting that the no balls Democratic Party allows the total control of this lightweight pretender to the VP position to remain hidden under a slimy rock. We all know that if the situation were reversed, the screech monkeys of the right would be nonstop in their ranting and raving. If the Democratic Party does not start playing fire against fire, we are doomed to another 4 years of madness. I don’t know if the Republic can survive 4 more minutes this, much less 4 more years.
Jake
Yesterday, the Alaska AG (third in line under Palin) said that none of the state employees who were subpoenaed under the probe would have to testify, unless the legislature unanimously approves it.
I really don’t think that investigation is going anywhere fast.
dmsilev
In a way, it’s pretty stupid of them to keep stonewalling. Because each time something ends up in the news along the lines of “Sarah Palin refused to answer questions about (insert scandal here)”, the “what are they trying to hide” theme gets reinforced. Seeing as McCain-Palin are already earning a reputation as shameless liars, that doesn’t help their credibility one bit.
And since they’re not running on the issues but their personalities and reputations, losing their reputation means that they’ve got nothing.
-dms
Punchy
Can a lawyer please explain this to me? In a system of checks and balances, doesn’t this move by the executive illegally usurp the power of the legislative? How can they legally issue subpeonas, but then have the executive turn right around and say “nope….not valid”? How does this not completely neuter the very power the legislative holds?
Serious question. Any constitutional lawyers out there?
Rick Taylor
It’s amazing how much this reminds me of George Bush and 2000. Back then I was amazed the GOP had nominated such a featherweight so obviously disinterested in foreign affairs. After his performance in the first debate against Gore, when he was like a deer in the headlights whne asked what he would do if there were an attack against the country, I was certain he couldn’t possibly win. I was amazed the Republican party would propose to trust the the country to someone so obviously unprepared. They limitted his exposure to the press as well.
So everything with Palin makes sense given Bush. If a featherweight is a viable candidate for President, why not for the VP? In entirely eliminating Palin’s access to the press, they’re just doing what they did with Bush, only to the extreme and without pretending they’re doing otherwise. Evidently they’re finally pushing thing’s so far the press is pushing back, but none of this is new.
Incertus
Look at the numbers–Obama has reversed the polling drop and has regained the momentum since they started ignoring Palin and refocused their fire on McCain. She’s irrelevant to this debate, frankly.
Napoleon
Huh? They reversed the numbers when they (or really more the press) were going after her. The more of a bozo pick she looks like the more McCain looks like he does not know what he is doing.
TR
Manchurian Candidate is right. If you’ll remember, the sleeper in the movie was the vice-presidential pick who was meant to succeed the elderly running mate when he died.
Incertus
That’s the thing, Napoleon–if anyone is going to go after Palin, it has to be the press. Obama diminishes himself if he attacks her, because he’s not running against her–he’s running against McCain, and now that he’s ignoring Palin and focusing on McCain, his numbers have turned around. I’m not saying that this is the only connection–I think that reminding everyone of McCain’s tone-deafness on the economy has had at least as large an effect, if not larger–but Obama is doing the right thing by ignoring her.
Incertus
You should not refer to that abomination as “the movie.” The movie is the one with Angela Lansbury and Frank Sinatra, not that p.o.s. remake.
Incertus
Please ignore my comment above–it was made in haste and without sufficient coffee to kick my memory into gear.
Ash Can
No, you did the right thing. This issue bears repeating — and re-emphasizing.
PeterJ
What’s up with her and her husband’s ties to the secessionist Alaskan Independence Party, a party that encourages it’s members to infiltrate other parties and work for Alaskan independence?
What’s up with her flying from Texas to Alaska after her water broke? Is it important for her or her husband that their children are all born on Alaskan soil?
Manchurian Candidate, yup.
jcricket
I work for a big law firm, and I know the answers to these questions, but it’s not what’s important. Bush/Cheney are pushing the limits of the law with refusing to compel Miers and Bolton to testify to Congress even after subpoena. Or when they make overly broad executive privilege claims.
With the exception of the fact the Supreme Court is now almost a majority-owned-subsidiary of the RNC, I’d say the courts would rebuke them.
But it’s a “run out the clock” strategy. Or it’s a SLAPP lawsuit, in effect. Every time someone tries to investigate, you bury them in paperwork, counter-suits, legally dubious arguments, etc. It takes years to unwind it all (because that’s how the courts work), and by the time you do, the statute of limitations might have run out, or the fine you eventually face is small penalties compared to what you got away with.
Palin is attempting the same thing – she’s clearly a quick learner (wouldn’t have anything to do with the army of McCain-funded lawyers roaming Alaska now, would it?).
If Republicans were smart, like they were back during Watergate, they would vote to compel the investigation and sweep out this cancer from their party (I’m referring in general to the corruption represented by resisting investigations into obviously illegal behavior). But Republicans don’t seem so smart, and are closing ranks, which means they are either geniuses (“shoot the moon” strategy reference) or doubling-down on the “grab the anchor while drowning” strategy. Enough of the truth will come out eventually to destroy at least the local GOP in Alaska, as the GOP is being destroyed in other places it didn’t care to root out corruption. National “narratives” are different, but that will catch up eventually too.
I look at it like the steel industry. We artificially propped up the industry for years, creating an ever-widening gap between the number of people employed and the number of people actually needed/supported by the fundamentals. When we stopped propping the industry up, the fall of the cliff was that much more severe.
The only question is where are we in that cycle for politics?
w vincentz
After spending some time over at mudflats, it seems that lots of Alaskans are on to her.
I’m really not worried about her and her family’s future survival. Not one bit.
She’ll hop on the snow machine, make sure the “track” hits the snow, follow the “track” of the moose, or caribou, or wolf, or whatever she spotted from the “piper” on the fly over of “bristol” bay (where there are also lots of salmon to illeagally catch in drift nets. She’ll follow the “track” into the “willow” (moose food), where she’ll drop bullwinkle with a heart shot when she pulls the “trig”-gerrr. (Hey, wasn’t that Roy Roger’s horse’s name too?
And…for those that might not know, moose tastes a lot like horse, but it needs porkfat on the grill.
Brachiator
Palin will have an interview with Sean Hannity, and the biggie will be the interview with Katie Couric, leading up to the VP debate.
What bugs me about this is that the interview will have to be Palin-friendly overall, since there is no way that CBS would allow any question that might bring this media extravaganza to a premature end. And, like the Gibson interview, CBS is more about shoring up Couric’s ratings, and that of other CBS news shows, than it is about doing real journalism.
And since this interview is coming close to the VP debates, I get the feeling that the Republicans are confident that Palin will do well enough against Biden. I’m not sure how past VP debates have done in the ratings, but this one will certainly attract a lot of attention. If Palin doesn’t do well, it will be tough for the GOP Spin machine to gloss over this one.
It amazes me that large numbers of voters are so taken with this reality show, “America’s Next Top VP,” that they are letting the GOP get away with this. Palin could sell “Official Moose-churian Candidate(tm)” t-shirts at campaign events and some people would just go “Cool!”
If McCain and Palin manage to win the election, they will simply declare that there is no point in continuing an investigation into Palin’s conduct as governor, and short-circuit the legal process. The press will get bored and move on.
D-Chance.
That’s OK. Those of us with the fabulous bjauthorkill script (thanks, ImJohnGalt) don’t read him, either… ;)
Ash Can
Boy howdy. How patriotic is THAT? After all that flag-pin/pledge-of-allegiance shit, yet.
Neurovore
I heard a rumor from somewhere that Sarah Palin is a flat-earther. Can anybody confirm or deny this allegation? If it is true, then we are in REAL DEEP SHIT if the McCain/Palin ticket wins.