When I was in Alaska last month, several people told me they were afraid to speak about Sarah Palin on the record, lest they invite retaliation from the governor's office or, God forbid, from the next vice-president. At the time, I didn't take such worries too seriously. As abominable a candidate as Palin is, it was hard for me to imagine vice-presidential staffers trying ruin the lives of private Wasilla citizens just because they had displeased her. But reading the official report of the investigation into the Palin abuse-of-power scandal known as Troopergate, it seems that perhaps her critics were being more prudent than paranoid.
As scandals go, Troopergate is absurdly picayune. According to the report, released Friday by the bipartisan legislative council that authorised the investigation, Palin and her husband tried to use their political power to have her sister's ex-husband, state trooper Michael Wooten, fired from his job and investigated for workers compensation fraud. They also pressed authorities to prosecute him for a moose shooting that was unlawful because of a technicality (the permit had been issued to his then-wife, who was with him at the time, rather than to Wooten, who pulled the trigger). The governor then fired Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner, because he refused to get rid of Wooten, something he could not legally have done. This stuff is so ridiculously small it seems silly to even be writing about it, especially at time of multiplying global emergencies.
Yet given that there is still a chance - albeit a diminishing one - that Palin could soon be in a position of national political power, it's worth looking at how she has exercised power in the past. As a window into how Palin might rule, Troopergate's very pettiness is what makes it so troubling. We're used to politicians who do favours for campaign contributors, who are too cozy with lobbyists and who resort to underhanded tactics against political foes. What we are not used to are politicians who use their offices to intervene in family quarrels and punish their relatives' personal enemies. For the last eight years, we've suffered under an administration that sees no difference between politics and governing. Palin is something arguably worse, a person who sees no difference between her private life and her public duties. Even Dick Cheney, after all, hasn't used his office to torment disfavoured former in-laws.
Jon Stewart's take on the unethical behavior of Sarah Palin during Troopergate:
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