Palin = A Sloppy Cheney?

To add more fuel to the Palin tries-to-fire-ex-brother-in-law fire...

One of the more interesting details of this convoluted mess, especially for all of us in the lower 48 who until yesterday had never heard about it, is the lengths to which Palin's office allegedly went to get the trooper fired and then bury the story.

In a recorded phone call from Palin's chief aide, Frank Bailey, to Alaska State Trooper, Lt. Rodney Dial, that Bailey claimed was at the behest of the governor, some interesting things were brought up. There was of course the desire to get the ex brother-in-law dismissed, but there was also a recitation of the ex's medical file and worker's compensation file. When Lt. Dial asked him how he got the file Bailey said, "I'm a little reluctant to say, but over in administration is where we hold the workers compensation files, right there." Both of those items are considered private and should be utterly inaccesible to anyone outside of the Alaska State Department of Labor. For Bailey to have had the file would not only be a violation of Alaska's state law but of the Federal HIPPA law as well. The independent investigator is tracing how he obtained the file, but a routing slip appears to indicate it was requested by and sent to the Governor's office.

When news of the recorded phone call came out and contradicted entirely Bailey's previous statements that he had never spoken to anyone regarding firing the trooper, he was placed on paid administrative leave. Yeah, a paid vacation.

Palin denies any knowledge of Bailey's calls or the entire fiasco for that matter, but there are an enormous number of emails and phone calls between Bailey, Palin's husband and Palin's staff before and after the recorded phone call. We would know more about what those emails contained but Palin's office is not releasing them citing - wait for it - executive privilege.

But here's the kicker. According to sources inside the Alaska Department of Public Safety, Palin has ordered the State Attorney General's office to interview any potential witnesses to "find out what they know" before the Special Investigator assigned by the Legislature gets to them. The legislature is now expanding its investigation to include possible witness tampering as a result.

This whole thing started out because she wanted to fire her ex brother-in-law after a messy divorce from her sister - pretty small town stuff. It has gotten uglier and uglier as the lies have gotten bigger and the abuses of power more substantial in an attempt to cover it up.

I say we could be totally wrong about her. She may be the perfect follow up for Cheney.

It's obvious the McCain campaign just didn't thoroughly vet Mrs. Palin. According to the fired Public Safety Commissioner no one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him to ask about the whole controversy. Yes, you read that right - McCain choose a running mate who was in the middle of a massive ethics investigation involving substantial abuses of power and possible violations of federal law and never once bothered to call the guy who got the ball rolling.
Hmmm.

Most of this info is courtesy of AndrewHalcro.com