BeldarBlog

A plea to John McCain: Find and expose the anonymous sources telling lies about Sarah Palin and use the McCain temper to "make them famous"

In the many hours I spent online doing background research on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin before I wrote my first post about her on June 8, 2008, I read many dozens of newspaper stories about her, dating back to her time as mayor of Wasilla in the late 1990s, in the state's largest newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, as well as in some of the smaller Alaska newspapers. I was specifically looking for negatives: I knew that the Democrats would be too, in the (then unlikely) event that Gov. Palin became a serious possibility as the GOP Veep nominee.

The single most frequently recurring theme was that Sarah Palin's political opponents underestimated her. In every campaign, her opponent attacked her as inexperienced. None of them argued, however, that she was stupid. The closest any opponent ever came to that was one of her two opponents in the 2006 gubernatorial race, Andrew Halcro, who claimed that she didn't immerse herself in the minutia of policy detail in which he himself reveled. Halcro is a wonk, and an annoying, patronizing twerp, and a sore loser, and the people of Alaska recognized that by leaving him an embarrassing distant third in that race, with less than 10% of their votes. But even Halcro didn't claim that Sarah Palin was stupid.

Nor did anyone else of consequence make that claim during Gov. Palin's first year-and-a-half as governor. She was criticized for having "sharp elbows," for holding political grudges, and for disfavoring those who'd crossed her — complaints leveled by losers left behind in the wake of every successful politician, because that's the loser-side view of being held accountable for ones actions and positions. But dim? Provincial? Uneducated? Nobody in Alaska had ever seriously charged Sarah Palin with being an airhead — not even the political enemies she'd left bleeding in the dust.

Because she was relatively unknown outside Alaska, however — and, very frankly, because she is an attractive woman who could therefore be easily tagged with the most cruel and sexist of stereotypes, the airhead — from the day John McCain announced her as his vice presidential nominee, her political opponents simply began manufacturing lies about her, many of which were designed to reinforce that airhead stereotype.

It did not surprise me that partisans opposed to the GOP ticket would believe these lies. But it very much surprised me that some smart centrists and even nominal conservatives did too.

I'll give you an example — one that makes me sick at heart. I've read Dr. James Joyner's blog, Outside the Beltway, regularly since before I started blogging myself in 2003. I regarded him as one of the most articulate, knowledgeable, and reasonable right-of-center bloggers around. I was tickled to be invited to participate by telephone in his podcast immediately after the Palin announcement in late August, and I agreed with him and the other participants that Gov. Palin was an exciting choice. Some time shortly after that, however, something changed Dr. Joyner's mind about Gov. Palin. And he now seriously purports to believe, for example, that Gov. Palin "couldn't even name a newspaper she read." That's not an isolated or snarky comment; that's consistent with everything he's written about Gov. Palin for weeks in perfect seriousness. And it's no different than if he were to insist that really, seriously, Joe Biden can't count to four because he claims "J-O-B-S" is a three-letter word. People joked about "Bush Derangement Syndrome," and about "Palin Derangement Syndrome" as its successor. But at some point this kind of thing stops being a joke and becomes a genuine cognative disability — an inability to process and deal in a rational fashion with objective data because of a bias that is so intense that it blocks out reality.

I can't explain it. I just hope it's a temporary, acute problem rather than something long-term or possibly organic, like the sort of brain tumors or lesions of which Dr. Oliver Sachs writes in his book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat." I'm not being at all snarky here. Rather, I'm entirely serious, because I have considered Dr. Joyner a friend, and I am genuinely concerned for his mental health. He, Andrew Sullivan, and others in their camp are completely persuaded that they can see a degree of ignorance in Gov. Palin which is utterly inconsistent with anyone's ability to function as the governor of any state, but to which hundreds of thousands of Alaskans were absolutely blind for many years despite a much better opportunity to assess Gov. Palin first-hand. That kind of thinking represents a break with reality, one that's not funny at all, but genuinely sad.

The latest of the deliberate liars — the people who are inventing stuff out of whole cloth, maliciously and without any pretense of a factual basis, without any regard for their utter implausibility — are the cowardly, sniveling pieces of garbage who've been masquerading as "campaign aides" for the McCain-Palin campaign. They are the worst kind of traitors in politics. Like the scumballs who invented the list of books that Sarah Palin had supposedly wanted burned when she was mayor of Wasilla — and who included in the list Harry Potter books that hadn't even been written when Gov. Palin was mayor — these anonymous assassins don't even bother to come up with plausible lies: Why bother, when mainstream publications like Newsweek will uncritically regurgitate them to millions without doing the most basic fact-checking?

It's time for this to end. It's time for the liars to be identified to the public and held accountable.

To Carl Cameron and others at Fox News: Shame on you for granting these people anonymity. There is no basis in journalistic ethics for you to do that. Shame on you for reporting this garbage at all.* With the exception of a few there like Greta Van Susterin who've refused to buy into this nonsense, you are rapidly eroding such credibility and respectability as your network had earned among Americans disgusted with the mainstream media in general. Stop what you're doing immediately.

To Sen. John McCain: Although you were far from my first choice as the GOP nominee, I've spent hundreds of hours working on your campaign's behalf, as have many others who were thrilled by your selection of Gov. Palin as your running mate.

I never thought I would have cause to label you, of all people, as a coward or dishonorable. You're acting in a cowardly and dishonorable fashion, however, by permitting people identified with your campaign to make these anonymous attacks on Gov. Palin. Identify them. Make them famous. If what they say is true, then make them back it up. If it is not — and I believe it is not — then expose them as liars so that no GOP politician will ever again dare hire these sniveling worms. They have no honor, but they are besmirching yours. And your silence is compounding this problem with every hour that passes. It's time, and past time, finally, for your long-suppressed temper to be unleashed, because you finally have targets who deserve the worst public tongue-lashing you can deliver.

To any and every potential GOP leader, including Mitt Romney: If I ever learn that you are knowingly employing any of these traitors, I will oppose your candidacy for any office, and do everything within my power to persuade others to oppose you too. Gov. Romney, you need to be heard on this matter too, immediately and forcefully, regardless of whether those responsible are in fact, as is being widely reported, former or prospective aides of yours.

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UPDATE (Sat Nov 8 @ 2:05pm CST): It's helpful for other campaign aides to go on record, by name, denying these things (see, e.g., here, here, and here). But that's not remotely adequate. McCain needs to be personally involved — on the record, on video that will be carried by the national media. The exposure and discrediting of these traitors needs to replicate as closely as possible the opening scenes with Chuck Conners in "Branded" — except these people are not innocent, and none of them is a real man:

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UPDATE (Sat Nov 12 @ 4:30pm CST): I embrace and adopt the sentiments of Allahpundit and Michelle Malkin: John McCain has failed this test of his own character.

The would-be commander-in-chief surely still had the clout to summon the top twenty-five or so campaign aides into a room for a "Come to Jesus" meeting, a "we aren't any of us leaving this room until I know who leaked those comments" meeting, a "you aren't any of you ever going to work in politics again until we find out who's to blame for this" meeting.

Instead, he goes on Lenno and shrugs his shoulders, minimizing the whole episode. That didn't make anyone famous. That affirmatively encouraged this crap to continue, not just in this campaign but in future ones.

I practice a profession in which secrets are important. I understand the concept of fiduciary duty. I've employed people, professionals and staff alike, who — simply by virtue of working for me — have been made subject to the same bright-line, absolute standards that I'm subject to. Very, very rarely, someone in my employment has breached that trust — and my reaction has been ruthless and thorough and instantaneous. Yes, there have been a few times when I've enjoyed firing someone, and have gone out of my way to make sure that anyone who cared to make future inquiries about hiring that person would find out exactly why they were fired.

McCain's background as a military officer ought to have acquainted him with high ethical standards and the need for their consistent and vigorous enforcement. He almost flunked out of the Naval Academy at the end of every year he spent there, based on conduct demerits, but he never once had an Honor Code violation.

Senator, this was an Honor Code violation by someone on your staff. And you just blew it off. There was no shame in losing the election. But there is definitely shame in this.

Yard sign, remodeled

Dave from Sugarland sent (and gave me permission to republish here) a photo of his yard sign — which is not the product of vandalism, but rather, of his intentional remodeling:

Simple. Energy-conscious (re-cycling). Works for me.

Palin voting

Mark Stein also found a photograph of Sarah Palin voting that I like. Thank you, Mr. Stein.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

 

I want to definitively associate myself, on the record, with the remarks of Goat-Hate-Speech Defendant Mark Steyn, who, on NRO's The Corner, links to the picture below (from a Tim Blair blog post in Australia's Daily Telegraph, hiya Tim!) with this comment:

I like this picture of Sarah Palin voting. Heavy on the Caribou, light on the Barbie. She didn't need to be dunked in RNC bling. And the more the campaign went on and the more she wiggled free of her minders, the better she sounded. If you've got organic style, you shouldn't be shoehorned into generic campaign issue. If the night goes the way it seems to be heading, the differences between the Governor and the campaign will be one of the most interesting parts of the GOP post-mortem.

Amen, Brother Steyn. I'll write later, and much longer, about Gov. Palin, this campaign just passed, and her incredibly bright future on the national political scene. But I emphatically agree that this picture — not that it's cheesecake, which it's not (no more than any picture of her is, which is a little, because yes, she is nice looking), but that it's bluejeans on Election Day! — is the future of the GOP and conservatives in the 21st Century.

(I'll let the elite folks at Slate diagram that sentence if they feel the need.)

— Beldar

New report from Alaska State Personnel Board concludes that there is no cause to believe Gov. Palin violated the state ethics law

The more closely I read it, the more convinced I became that the Petumenos Report adopted by the Alaska State Personnel Board put a fitting end to Tasergate, conclusively in Gov. Palin's favor, as I wrote in a guest-post and series of updates at HughHewitt.com.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Encouraged by the Obama-Biden campaign, Democratic state senator Hollis French of Alaska masterminded the October 10th release of the so-called Branchflower Report, in which one guy — a lawyer hired by French's committee to conduct a charade of an "investigation" into the Tasergate (a/k/a Troopergate) matter — came to inconsistent conclusions, one of which was unfavorable to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The Alaska Legislature is not in session, and has not approved or adopted that report in whole or part. Rather, the only official action yet taken with respect to it was a noncontroversial vote by French's committee to permit the first volume of the report to be released to the public.

Nevertheless, the Obama-Biden campaign and all of Gov. Palin's elitist enemies went into a feeding frenzy, gleefully lining up to support an admitted child abuser and lawbreaker, Trooper Mike Wooten, in one of the most shamefully thuggish incidents of modern American political history.

Today, however, the entity actually charged by the Alaska state constitution and laws with enforcing that state's ethics laws — the Alaska State Personnel Board — has released its own investigator's report on the matter. As reported by the Anchorage Daily News (boldface mine):

Both investigations found that Palin was within her rights to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

But the new report says the Legislature's investigator was wrong to conclude that Palin abused her power by allowing aides and her husband, Todd, to pressure Monegan and others to dismiss her ex-brother-in-law, Trooper Mike Wooten. Palin was accused of firing Monegan after Wooten stayed on the job.

The Palins have argued that Wooten was a loose cannon who had tasered his stepson, drank beer in his patrol car, and threatened Palin's father, and that their complaints that he shouldn't be on the force were justified....

The report, released at a Monday afternoon press conference at the Hotel Captain Cook, presents the findings and recommendations of Anchorage lawyer Timothy Petumenos, hired as independent counsel for the Personnel Board to examine several complaints against Palin.

Petumenos wrote the Legislature's special counsel, former state prosecutor Steve Branchflower, used the wrong state law as the basis for his conclusions and also misconstrued the evidence.

His findings and recommendations include:

• There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in deciding to dismiss Monegan as public safety commissioner.

• There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in connection with Wooten.

• There is no cause to believe any other state official violated the ethics act.

• There's no basis to conduct a hearing to "address reputational harm," as requested by Monegan.

• The state needs to address the issue of using private e-mails for government work and to examine how records are kept in the governor's office. Palin used her Yahoo e-mail account for state business until it was hacked.

I'll be studying the executive summary and the report itself in more detail in the next few hours.

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UPDATE (Tue Nov 4 @ 4:25 a.m. CST): I'm still working my way through the Personnel Board's report, but in the meantime I commend to you this link-filled analysis by Dan McLaughlin.

It's also worth noting right away, as Power Line's John Hinderaker has, that the Personnel Board's independent counsel, Timothy J. Petumenos, is a registered Democrat who donated money to Gov. Palin's opponent, Tony Knowles, in 2006 — certainly no crony of Gov. Palin's.

At his news conference in connection with the release of the report, Mr. Petumenos noted the peculiar circumstance that French's committee had gone to the Alaska Supreme Court to confirm its right to issue and serve subpoenas in connection with its investigation, but that after having won in court, Branchflower proceeded to make up his mind, and issue his report, without having serving a subpoena on, or otherwise considering any testimony from, Gov. Palin herself. Mr. Petumenos, by contrast, spent three hours questioning Gov. Palin under oath, and also redressed other huge gaps in Branchflower's massively flawed and one-sided investigation.

Finally (for now), it's also worth noting right away that in contrast to the French Committee's vote to release the Branchflower Report (which had not been approved or vetted by that committee, much less by the entire Alaska Legislature, and with respect to whose conclusions some committee members indeed expressed their substantive disagreement), the Personnel Board has actually made a substantive decision that's consistent with and reflected by this report, a decision that effectively ends the inquiry before it under the relevant Alaska statutes (boldface mine):

As for the last-minute timing — Petumenos gave out his report hours before the polls opened on Palin's bid to become vice president — the investigator said it wasn't ready until now.

 

"If you think this is being done to favor the governor politically, it certainly would have been much more favorable for her to receive this days before now," Petumenos said.

He'd hoped to release it Thursday, but it wasn't finished, he said. Personnel Board chair Debra English got her copy at about 4 p.m. Sunday.

The board voted to accept the report Monday, ending the investigation.

Unlike the Branchflower Report, in other words, this isn't just "one guy's opinion." There being "no probable cause" to find any statutory violation, there's no need for further gathering of evidence, taking of testimony, or deliberation by the Board. It's finished. Short of impeachment proceedings (for which there's no possible basis, there now having been a finding by the competent state agency that no law was violated), there's nothing further the Legislature could do either.

UPDATE (Tue Nov 4 @ 6:15 a.m. CST): I really hadn't planned to spend the night before Election Day reading a lengthy report on Tasergate, but it's probably just as well that I did.

Steve Branchflower's report was, frankly, one of those bloated documents that make one sorry for the invention of word processors. It was cobbled together from assorted parts of an investigation that was half-cocked to begin with, and that got worse as it went along. Not only did Branchflower's report suffer from bad writing and muddled thinking, but it was based on a process that contained no passing resemblance to due process. And its two key findings — that it was okay for Gov. Palin to actually fire Monegan, but that it wasn't okay for her to supposedly have merely threatened to fire Monegan — were logically inconsistent with one another. It was, in short, a mess — and an obvious political hatchet job.

The State of Alaska and, indeed, the people of the United States owe thanks, by contrast, to the Personnel Board's independent counsel, Timothy Petumenos, for his thorough investigation, clear thinking, and comparatively crisp 58-page report (125 pages when exhibits are included). It deals comprehensively with both facts and law. The bottom line is this: The report Mr. Petumenos has prepared for the Personnel Board, and that it has accepted on behalf of the State of Alaska, is as thorough and persuasive an exoneration of Gov. Sarah Palin's actions as can possibly be imagined.

The bullet points I've quoted above from Mr. Petumenos' executive summary are accurate. I don't want to re-argue the fine points of statutory construction that I've already gone over in my previous critiques of the Branchflower Report, except to note that in my previous analyses, I missed an important point which, fortunately, Mr. Petumenos caught — which is that the specific provision which Branchflower argued that Gov. Palin had violated is not a substantive description of a possible violation of the law, but rather part of an introductory overview stating the entire statute's general purpose. That further reinforces my own conclusions, to which Mr. Petumenos came independently, that Gov. Palin couldn't have been promoting a "personal interest" within the meaning of the statute so long as her concerns about Wooten even arguably paralleled those which the general public might have about such a rogue trooper. Simply put: Even if she was personally horrified that a child-abusing thug like Wooten was still on the job, that wouldn't have made it legally or ethically improper under Alaska law for her to express concerns about that to Monegan.

I will mention that Trooper Wooten comes off looking even worse in Mr. Petumenos' more detailed and better-organized summary of the total universe of evidence (which includes materials and testimony from witnesses whom Branchflower entirely ignored). How that miscreant still has a badge — indeed, why he's not in prison for defrauding the State of Alaska on a bogus workers compensation claim! — remains the lingering mystery of this entire controversy. (Mr. Petumenos is restrainedly but appropriately skeptical of Wooten's chiropractor's clearance of Wooten to ride his snowmachine for long periods while he's supposedly too disabled — and therefore off work at full pay — to remain seated for more than a few minutes on the job.)

Whatever happens on Election Day, there will be those who will try to resurrect this controversy in the future to besmirch Sarah Palin's reputation. If this report and the Personnel Board's decision based upon it are given their due, however, those folks will have less credibility than the so-called "9/11 Truthers" — crazed conspiracy nuts impervious to being influenced either by evidence, law, or rational analysis.

Tasergate is over, and Sarah Palin has been vindicated.

— Beldar

ChiTrib's Kass seeks fresh answer to question whether Obama would fire U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

Of everything I've written in the last couple of months, what I cross-posted at HH.com under this title is a post I think I might have occasion to refer back to again.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass asks a question that Hugh Hewitt has frequently asked here and on his radio show during the past few weeks: Would a new President Obama fire Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney who indicted and convicted Tony Rezko, and who's continuing his probe into related criminal activities in Obama's hometown? Kass writes (h/t InstaPundit; links in original):

Readers keep asking me the same question: Will the next president keep Patrick Fitzgerald as the U.S. attorney in Chicago?

I really can't say. What are political promises worth from politicians with debts to pay?

But here's what I do know. There is no story more important to the people of Chicago and of Illinois than the future of Fitzgerald, who has systematically hunted down the corruption.

Corruption the Chicago Way doesn't only waste money and burden taxpayers. This isn't only about isolated instances of graft and amusing, earthy rapscallions. That is a cartoon. The reality is that Illinois political corruption is an infection that spreads. The people either are numbed and deny it, or they feel pressured to suck up to their overlords. That's not American. That's positively Medieval.

That's how important this is. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have promised to keep Fitzgerald here.

"If we lose him, we lose everything," said a Chicago FBI agent wise in the ways of Chicago politics and its symbiosis with the Chicago mob. "I can't imagine it happening. He's the guy who pulls the trigger on all these investigations. If it happens, if they get rid of him, forget it."

Kass goes on to write in more detail about how definitive Sen. McCain has been in his commitment to keep Fitzgerald on the job, with quotes that leave no doubt and no wiggle-room.

Unfortunately, however, both of the links in the block-quote just above are busted as of when I write this, and I can't find on the Tribune or elsewhere (and neither do I recall having seen) any independent confirmation that Sen. Obama has ever made the promise which Kass attributes to him. Of the original making of that promise — which Kass clearly at least suspects that Obama might be pressured to break — Kass writes:

Back in March, Obama visited the Tribune's editorial board. He said that if elected president, he would keep Fitzgerald in place.

"I still think he's doing a good job," said Obama. "I think he has been aggressive in putting the city on notice and the state on notice that he takes issues of public corruption seriously."

I have no reason to doubt Kass' description. But the promise he describes appears to have been only verbal and before a small (albeit important) audience.

More significantly, that promise was made before Rezko was convicted on June 4, 2008. Rezko still hasn't been formally sentenced, and there are rumors that Rezko may be cooperating now with Fitzgerald in hopes of obtaining a more lenient sentence. Just last Thursday Fitzgerald's office announced the indictment of "William F. Cellini, an Illinois Republican Party leader, ... for his alleged role in the fraud scheme that led to the conviction of [Rezko.]" And Kass also makes the excellent point that there are other big political fish in Illinois besides Rezko — some of whom, like mayoral brother Bill Daley and U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, might be potential Obama Administration appointees — who could find themselves in Fitzgerald's net, if he's allowed to continue casting it.

Thus, what Kass credits Obama as having said to the Tribune in March — before Obama even had the Democratic nomination wrapped up — is now so stale as to be long past the normal "expiration date" of anything said by the Obama campaign. This question needs a fresh answer, made on the record and without wiggle room.

Even with only a day left until the election, I have no doubt that word will get to Sen. Obama of Kass' column. But I will be stunned if Obama either answers it, or permits any reporter close enough access to even ask it. And without such a fresh answer, I suspect Sen. Obama's "promise" to the Tribune from last March isn't worth even as much as Mr. Kass' busted hyperlink.

— Beldar

The Palin plus

I liked and linked Byron York's NRO article about how Sarah Palin was playing in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Alas, not quite well enough, as it turned out, but without her, those states would have been Obama blow-outs.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Byron York's latest piece about how Gov. Sarah Palin's being received in Ohio and Pennsylvania rings true to me. Key sentence:

Following Palin around Ohio and Pennsylvania in the last days of the campaign, you meet a lot of Republicans [who] don’t hate McCain — they have too much respect for what he’s done in his life — but they felt a distinct shortage of enthusiasm for his candidacy until he picked Palin.

I haven't been traveling, but I've sure met a lot of Texas Republicans whose exact sentiments are captured by that sentence.

By contrast, every person I've spoken with who's been opposed to Sen. Palin — when I've had at least three minutes to probe their reasoning — has relied on falsehoods about her manufactured by the Hard Left and spread by their mainstream media stooges (e.g., rape kits, book-burning, dinosaurs-and-cavemen, blah-blah). And inevitably, they are completely clueless about the details of the rascals she threw out of power to get into office and her accomplishments once there. I try to fill them in, to which the usual reaction is a raised eyebrow and silence.

Then I ask them which of Barack Obama's two pieces of legislation that he actually wrote as a Senator has made more difference — the one for aid to the Congo or the one to ban exports of elemental mercury? And I ask whether it troubles them that he hasn't managed to get anything else he's actually written and been the principal sponsor for enacted into law.

At that point, I'm inevitably confronted with a counter-argument about George W. Bush. Like clockwork.

Now, I could take the further time to respond to most of their arguments about Bush, but at this point, it's just not worth the effort — not for those folks. They're completely invested in the irrational, and rational arguments cannot dissuade them, but only enrage them. Mind you, I'm not saying they're stupid — many of these folks are extremely bright. They are, however, being willfully naive, and they've been deliberately deceived, and no one can cure them of those problems without their cooperation.

— Beldar

Palin's public call on Stevens to "do the right thing" may mean "publicly commit to resign if the trial judge upholds the jury's verdict"

My latest guest-post at HughHewitt.com hazards a guess as to what Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is saying privately to just-convicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. It involves a resignation letter.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

I was amazed earlier this year, in trying to educate a friend about the record of Gov. Sarah Palin as a reformer who'd taken on her own party's most powerful politicians in Alaska, when he poked a finger in my chest and said, "Yeah, but what about Don Young and Ted Stevens?" He was referring to the remaining two senior and powerful members of the "Alaska GOP Troika" that had dominated Alaskan politics for many years before 2006. "They're still representing Alaska in Congress!"

I calmly pointed out to my friend that Gov. Palin had already defeated the third member of the Troika, former Gov. Frank Murkowski, in the 2006 GOP gubernatorial primary, and that she then went on to win the general election and take over the Governor's Mansion in Juneau. "She can only defeat them at the polls one at a time," I said, "because even as terrific and courageous a reformer as Sarah Palin is, they just won't let her run for Governor, Congressman, and both Senate seats all at once!"

Over a year ago, in September 2007 — long before he was indicted, or before she was on anyone's mind as a vice presidential nominee — Gov. Palin publicly called upon Sen. Stevens to come clean and explain for Alaskans in much more detail the series of transactions between him and an Alaska energy company, VECO, that had come into serious question. Relations between them have been cool and distant since then. And Gov. Palin has been very circumspect and scrupulously appropriate in declining comment on the charges against Stevens since his indictment.

In response to Sen. Stevens' conviction today on seven counts of making false statements on ethical disclosure forms, however, Gov. Palin has issued the following statement on the Alaska gubernatorial website:

October 27, 2008, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin today released the following statement on the felony convictions of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens:

“This is a sad day for Alaska and for Senator Stevens and his family. The verdict shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company that was allowed to control too much of our state. That control was part of the culture of corruption I was elected to fight. And that fight must always move forward regardless of party or seniority or even past service.

“As Governor of the State of Alaska, I will carefully monitor this situation and take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system. I'm confident Senator Stevens will do what is right for the people of Alaska.”

Several points ought to be noted on this.

First, even though the jury has found Stevens guilty on all seven counts, that verdict has not yet been reflected in a formal judgment of conviction. (To answer the silly question posed by ABC News' Jake Tapper on his blog, that means that yes, Stevens can still vote for himself next week, but I don't think one vote is going to decide the election.) The trial has been anything but smooth, however, with prosecutors having to admit to repeated blunders throughout. So there are obvious and non-trivial grounds for Stevens' very capable legal team to urge in seeking a new trial rather than the entry of a judgment of conviction. (Please don't mis-read me here: I think it's more likely than not that the jury verdict will indeed be upheld, both by the trial judge and on appeal. And I'm personally unpersuaded by Stevens' defense and impressed by the evidence, at least as summarized by the press, which the prosecution presented. But I do believe in due process, and Stevens hasn't yet had all the legal process that's due to him under the Rule of Law.)

Second, keep in mind that these were convictions in federal court for violations of federal laws, but the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prevent Stevens from also being prosecuted for violations of Alaska state law based on the same or similar conduct. As such, it would still be inappropriate for Gov. Palin to be commenting in depth on the merits of Sen. Stevens' guilt or innocence under either state or federal laws: Doing so could jeopardize any future state prosecution of Sen. Stevens under Alaska state law.

Third, it's reasonable to assume that what Gov. Palin is saying to Sen. Stevens in private is more pointed than anything she's permitted to say for public consumption. And indeed, the last sentence in Gov. Palin's public press release today — "I'm confident that Senator Stevens will do what is right for the people of Alaska" — is what we might call "pregnant with implication." Here's my guess as to what Gov. Palin saying privately, because it's what I would say to him if I were in her position:

"Ted, for now, I'm going to continue to be restrained and appropriate in what I say in public. But you owe it to your party, and to the people who've voted for you in years past, not to take everything down with you in flames.

"Accordingly, now — before Election Day — you need to hand to me, as the Governor of Alaska, a formal, irrevocable letter of resignation which is automatically effective as of the instant that your post-verdict (pre-appellate) motion for new trial in the federal district court is denied (even though you may still have appellate avenues open at that point to challenge that judgment).

"Having made that commitment and signed that binding letter, Ted, then you can again ask the voters of Alaska to give you their votes — and they, in turn, can vote for you secure in the knowledge that one of either two things will happen: (a) The jury's verdict will be overturned, your presumption of innocence will be restored, and you'll have another day in court. Or else: (b) As Governor of Alaska, either I or perhaps Sean Parnell (as my successor) will appoint a qualified, honest Republican who will carry forward the Republican Party's best policies and ideals in the U.S. Senate seat you have occupied for so long."

With due respect to my friends at RedState.com, the response of principled conservatives to corruption in our own party ought to be to work to replace the corrupt actors with honest Republicans — not to endorse Democrats! Character is critical, but party policies are too, and we ought not throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater. Or to use a different metaphor: There are more ways to skin this cat, which I agree needs skinning, and there are better ways for Sen. Stevens and the voters of Alaska to "do the right thing" without handing the Democrats a larger legislative majority in 2009.

— Beldar

Former editor-in-chief of "Ms." magazine reports on her first-hand exposure to Sarah Palin

In a guest-post at HughHewitt.com this evening, I linked to a pro-Palin analysis from a surprising source.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

I did not much expect to be linking to Tina Brown's new hybrid, The Daily Beast, in this election season. But then again, former Ms. magazine editor in chief Elaine Lafferty — a pro-choice Democrat — probably didn't anticipate that after spending time with Sarah Palin on the campaign trail, she'd be writing the post I'm linking to: Sarah Palin's a Brainiac.

An excerpt (emphasis by Ms. Lafferty):

Now by “smart,” I don't refer to a person who is wily or calculating or nimble in the way of certain talented athletes who we admire but suspect don't really have serious brains in their skulls. I mean, instead, a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernable pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had. Palin is more than a “quick study”; I'd heard rumors around the campaign of her photographic memory and, frankly, I watched it in action. She sees. She processes. She questions, and only then, she acts. What is often called her “confidence” is actually a rarity in national politics: I saw a woman who knows exactly who she is.

Follow the link; it's short, and I assure you that it's worth your time to read the whole thing.

Bravo to Ms. Lafferty — bravo to her for having the intellectual flexibility and honesty to recognize that one can be simultaneously a feminist and pro-life, and bravo to her for speaking out on what she's perceived based on first-hand exposure (instead of merely repeating the tired, nasty, and fantasy-based ranting of closed-minded anti-Palin bigots on the left).

— Beldar

Politico-sports metaphor for the day

Sarah Barracuda to Barack Obama, re basketball nets, in one of my guest-posts today at HughHewitt.com.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

"Barack Obama and I both have spent quite some time on the basketball court," Palin told a raucous crowd of more than 5,000 at the convention center. "But where I come from, you have to win the game before you start cutting down the net."

GOP Veep nominee Sarah Palin, campaigning today in Tampa, Florida.

— Beldar

AP, mainstream media, use misleading headlines to falsely impute to Lieberman doubt about Palin's readiness

AP this year isn't "Associated Press," it's "Anti-Palin." One of the latest examples is detailed in a guest-post I made yesterday at HughHewitt.com.

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[Copied here for archival purposes on November 5, 2008, from the post linked above at HughHewitt.com.]

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Here's Joe Lieberman — the Democratic Party's own vice presidential candidate in 2000 — as paraphrased and then directly quoted in an Associated Press story early Saturday:

Lieberman said he was confident that Palin, whose foreign policy background has been questioned by Democrats, could step in and handle the chief executive's job.

"If, God forbid, an accident occurs or something of that kind, she'll be ready," Lieberman said. "She's had executive experience. She's smart and she will have had on-the-job training."

Does Joe Lieberman want his good friend, John McCain, to drop dead on or before inauguration day? No, of course not:

Lieberman, I-Conn., who has helped prep the Alaska governor on foreign policy issues, said his pal and GOP presidential nominee, John McCain, is in good health.

"Thank God, she's not gonna have to be president from day one, because McCain's going to be alive and well," Lieberman said in a conference call with reporters.

So what is the logical headline for this story? The accurate one? The non-lying one? I would say something like, "Lieberman confident of both Palin's readiness and McCain's health."

What's the actual headline in the online version, as it appears not only in the AP's own online version via Google but also in the Washington Post, USA Today, ABC News, CNBC, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other old-media outlets that picked up the AP story?

"Lieberman skirts issue of Palin's readiness."

Bullcrap! Lieberman addressed Palin's readiness directly, without "skirting" anything! He said he was "confident" that she could "step in and handle the chief executive's job," or words to that direct effect, because that's exactly what the text of the story says. And unless the AP simply fabricated the quote, we know for sure that Sen. Lieberman said that if she needs to step into the job, quote, "she'll be ready," unquote.

This sort of headline, ladies and gentlemen, is another bald-faced lie brought to you by the Associated Press and by mainstream media editors across the country. They are so cynical that they're willing to completely prostitute their journalistic credibility — by using headlines to tell obvious lies contradicted by the very stories they accompany — because those headlines fit their pre-existing pro-Obama narrative. They're willing to live with the likelihood that most people will either just read the headlines or won't read the actual text closely enough to spot the lies.

A couple of media outlets appear to have at least skimmed the story, since they deviated from the AP's own headline. The Boston Globe's headline, for example — "Lieberman says Palin ready, but he hedges a bit" — is better, but still inaccurate in suggesting a lack of confidence nowhere implied by Lieberman's words.

 

And of course, the Huffington Post shamelessly picks out of context the one phrase best calculated to convey the exact opposite of what Lieberman actually said in context: "Lieberman On Palin: 'Thank God She's Not Gonna Have To Be President From Day One'" — thus turning a reassurance of McCain's good health into a condemnation of Palin's readiness. That, of course, is beyond sleazy and well into pond-scum territory.

— Beldar