While holding the $125,000-a-year chairmanship of the Alaskan commission overseeing oil and gas drilling, Ms. Palin discovered that state Republican leader Randy Ruedrich, a commission member, was conducting party business on state time and favoring regulated companies.
When Palin couldn’t get Gov. Frank Murkowski, who appointed her to the commission, to do anything about Ruedrich, she quit and went public. It will be fun to watch if she ever gets a chance to do that to Sen. McCain’s longtime political cohorts, embarrassing him in the process.
Palin already had agenda around longtime U. S. Senator--now governor--Murkowski. She wanted the U. S. Senate seat he vacated upon becoming governor. He gave it to his daughter.
Whoops, Here Comes the Double Standard
In the middle of Palin’s primary campaign for governor, conservative columnist Paul Jenkins unearthed e-mail messages showing that Palin conducted campaign business from the mayor’s office. Ms. Palin handled the crisis with a street fighter’s audacity.
“I told her it looks like she did the same thing that Randy Ruedrich did,” Mr. Jenkins recalled, “and she said, ‘Yeah, what I did was wrong.’ ”
Jenkins decided not to write about it. His phone rang a bit later. A Fairbanks reporter, reading from a Palin news release, demanded to know why he was “smearing” her. “Now I look at her and think: ‘Man, you’re slick,’ ” Jenkins said.
Oh No, Not Secrecy
While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device,” like a BlackBerry, “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.” Translate that as not being legally liable.
Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”
These are but two of many available examples showing that journalists think Sen. Palin is not up to speed when it comes to truth telling and not fudging about what happens in her adminstration around secrecy policy.
SOURCES: “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes,” New York Times article by Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell, Sept. 13, 2008; “Truthiness Stages a Comeback,” by Frank Rich, Sept. 21, 2008, New York Times; “Blizzard of Lies,” by Paul Krugman, New York Times; “My Favorite Veep.” by Maureen Dowd, Sept. 10, 2008, New York Times.
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