*This is an interesting process. When will it stop? Sarah Palin seems to imagine that when she returns to private life, nobody is going to legally and extralegally harass her. On the contrary: I'm rather imagining that the persecution of Sarah Palin intensifies radically once she leaves office. Nobody is harassing her *because she is Governor of Alaska.* She's catching hell for the stark fact that she is Sarah Palin, a polarizing hate figure.
*Let me use a sports metaphor here, for the Palin fans in the audience. This is like being catcalled while you've got the basketball, and then you pass the ball to somebody else and you flounce off the court *and walk straight into the enemy stands,* where you proceed to strip off your official uniform and try to put on a red-white-and-blue cheerleader outfit.
*Sarah is pretty creative, though... There may be an unexpected way out of this ugly situation, a bolthole... Maybe she could flee America, and ask for political asylum. Sarah could cross the Bering Straits and join the Russians. I bet she could serve the Russian people with profound effect as a democratically elected Mayor of Vladivostok; they've got oil, big fish, snow, everything she likes. And if she claimed persecution as the source of her need for political asylum, I think she's got a pretty good prima facie case. I'm thinking Putin would smile with open arms.
http://www.gov.state.ak.us/news.php?id=1964
Gov's Chief of Staff Releases Statement Printer Friendly
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 09-174
Governor’s Chief of Staff Releases Statement
July 10, 2009 Fairbanks, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin’s chief of staff, Mike Nizich, issued the following statement today on the occasion of the 19th ethics complaint being filed against the governor or a member of her staff:
“A week ago today, the governor told Alaskans that she was about to step down as governor in large part because of the campaign of harassment against this office, in which the Executive Branch Ethics Act has been repeatedly abused. Incredibly, since then two more ethics complaints have been filed against the governor, including one today.
“Typically, the first action by these complainants has been an illegal one – to announce the filing of the complaints to the news media, in clear violation of the mandatory confidentiality in the law. Unfortunately, unlike the legislative ethics act, there is no provision in the executive ethics act for a complaint to be automatically dismissed when it is publicized prematurely. Regardless of that, it is breathtakingly hypocritical for anyone to violate the ethics law in the very act of making an allegation against the governor."
“Although the governor would not have thought it possible, the latest complaint rises to a new level of absurdity in alleging that she has been paid for interviews that she has given to the news media. It is amazing to me that anyone could think that, let alone put their name behind it and once again seek to distract state officials and needlessly increase their work load. The state is losing the value of some of its expenditures when public servants are pulled away from important assignments to deal with far-fetched and mean-spirited allegations.”
Governor Palin issued the following statement:
“The only saving grace in this recent episode is that it proves beyond any doubt the significance of the problem Alaska faces in the ‘new normal’ of political discourse. I hope this will be a wake-up call – to legislators, to commentators and to citizens generally – that we need a much more civil and respectful dialogue that focuses on the best interests of the state, rather than the petty resentments of a few.”
Of the ethics complaints against the governor or her staff, 15 have been resolved without any finding of wrongdoing, and four are now pending.
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(((Noted Reagan optimist Peggy Noonan, on why Sarah can't be trusted with a burnt-out match in tomorrow's circumstances:)))
"Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.
"The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.
"It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way."
(((Got some New Normal there, right-wing sisters. Y'all enjoy all that.)))
(((Dark Euphoria," when you jump out of the window and plummet to earth and realize there is no earth there. Via NYT:)))
