Good Friday

 

The campaign got ever more interesting on Friday. The Troopergate report was released by the Alaska Legislative Council on a 12-to-0 vote. The report said that Governor Palin had violated the state Executive Branch Ethics Act by allowing her husband to wage a campaign to force the state’s public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law. Specifically she "knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda."

Ultimately, the report found, Palin fired the public safety commissioner at least in part for personal reasons; his refusal to fire the trooper who had been involved in a messy divorce with Palin’s sister. She was within the law, but she acted unethically. It will be up to the state legislature to decide whether to censure the governor. They may do nothing at all.

Her campaign handlers are deriding the report, scoffing at the failure of the investigator to interview Palin. That seems rather hypocritical, at best, since Palin refused to be interviewed. It should also be noted that Palin had originally agreed to cooperate with the investigation, but changed her position when John McCain named her to be his running mate.

The other interesting event was McCain himself. At a campaign rally in Lakeville, Minnesota, the GOP nominee told a raw-meat crowd that Barack Obama was a "decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." The crowd grew angry and demanded a fight.

McCain declared, "If you want a fight, we will fight. But we will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments." When the crowd people booed, McCain cut them off. "I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he said. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

Good for him.
 

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