"I did nothing wrong" Palin insists after a bipartisan committee created by a Republican-controlled committee of Alaskan legislators published a 263-page report declaring that she "abused the powers of her office." and violated "the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."
According to the Washington Post, the Republican-appointed Investigator Steven Branchflower, "found that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin abused her executive power when she and her husband engaged in a campaign to oust her former brother-in-law from the state police force." (James V, Grimaldi and Kimberly Kindy),
The Alaska Legislature’s bipartisan Legislative Council unanimously commissioned the investigation in July, a month before Palin was chosen as John McCain's running mate.
According to the New York Times, "In the report, the independent investigator, Stephen E. Branchflower, a former prosecutor in Anchorage, said that Ms. Palin wrongfully allowed her husband, Todd, to use state resources as part of the effort to have Trooper Wooten dismissed." (Serge F. Kovaleski)
Although he was never elected to any public office, apparently the "First Dude" thinks he has a say in how the government is run?
The report says Sarah Palin knowingly “permitted Todd Palin to use the governor’s office and the resources of the governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired.”
But the report doesn't just blame the unelected spouse of wrongdoing. The report accuses Gov. Palin of violating a statute (39.52 110(a)) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act which reads:
"The legislature affirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."
The report found that Palin abused that public trust and acted unethically for personal gain. Sounds a lot less like "maverick" or reform behavior and a whole lot more like "the old boys network" where even unelected boys have power.
Palin is un-phased by this legislative condemnation. She has decided she is not to blame and guess who is?
In a desperate move to avoid taking responsibility for her actions Palin has gone to the extreme of blaming Obama for the findings of her own state legislature.
Really?
Really! There seems no limit to what the McCain/Palin ticket is willing to blame on others, especially their opponent.
The McCain/Palin campaign spokeswoman explained that " the report showed that the investigation was a “partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters." And Palin has been stumping claiming this investigation is an Obama-pressured plot against her.
Really? Are they really trying to claim that Obama's reach is that far? That he controls the Alaskan legislature? Really?
But why not when according to McCain and Palin, Obama is also responsible for:
1) the decline of the entire economy (because, like McCain, he has worked with Fannie May lobbyists?)
2) the injuries faced by American troops in Iraq (like McCain, he voted against body armor. Cindy McCain has amnesia about the fact that McCain voted against another version of the same bill, thus denying troops body armor the same year)
3) Palin's inability to answer simple questions posed by the press (the liberal gotcha media composed entirely of Obama supporters who puppet-like he also apparently controls?)
Now Obama is also responsible for Palin's abuse of power. Really? Are they serious?
We don't need a woman who lets her husband control her even after she is elected to a major public office, representing women in the white house. We don't need a "first dude" in the White House.
We don't need a liar, who when caught lies more and blames others for her misdeeds, to be one heartbeat away from running the country.
