yes

People care about national defense and their wallets.

see clinton 1996

If you can’t beat the Rs on policy, and you usually can’t, you adopt the policy then start the “but we can do it better” mantra. Then you keep the Stupid Party talking about how to do it better until the next election cycle and attack them for not doing anything at all. It’s a hit formula!

Now I agree that the first liar probably doesn’t have a chance in this whodunnit, and both the Halcro and ADN Blogs are mostly populated by nuts and lefty Palin haters, but something ain’t right here.

But I believe that many of the stretched stories about Palin are orchestrated by Andrew Halcro himself. Those who fell grace from Palin’s administration are lining up (both republicans and dems) to the office of Halcro to support his own twists. For one, it was Halcro who earlier brought the idea that Walt might have been pressured by Palin. Now here comes Walt providing all the so-called evidence that Halcro needs to malign the Governor (actually it’s Todd, not the governor himself).

Even the State Senate President is openly opposing Palin, not just on the issue of Monegan. In fact, it’s Lyda Green who is shouting over the roof to hire a special investigator on the firing of Monegan under the guise of “unbiased truth and facts” and speculations. But Lyda is calling for the investigation to “know why Monegan was fired”.

But ADN, Halcro, Lyda and Walt dismissed a major fact in this issue: The position of Commissioner of Public Safety is just an appointee of the Governor. If the Governor loses confidence of his/her appointee, he has the authority to immediately fire him/her. It was Palin who appointed Walt. It’s also her prerogative to fire/retain him. Walt is sour graping. He is just similar to those whining WH appointees fired by the Bush Administration.

Lyda and many of the Republicans just can’t get over with the fact that one of their Republican comrades (Stevens) has to go down due to corruption, disregardin the fact it was Steven pleaded guilty.

Conclusion: Instead of supporting the Governor, each of them are trying to bring her down. We, the Republicans, must be the ones cleaning our ranks. If it is done by the other party, it will be very damaging. We must clear that policy and implementation issues are two different animals. Yes we strongly agree on policies. But when it comes to implementation, the party and principles should not be an excuse to corruption and inefficiency. That also applies to Sarah and the rest of the Republican leaders and nominees.

Now here comes my real issue on the post. Am I missing something here? Is RS directly supporting one VP candidate already? Is it Romney?

My problem is this: What if McCain selects Palin as his VP? Should we retain this post here at RS? Same issue applies to Romney, Jindall and other VP candidates who may also have problems of their own.

I dunno. I welcome your advice here, guys.

I’m winging this from memory from a conversation with the AG back when Gov. Murkowski had heart surgery, so it might be a little off.

In the extraordinarily unlikely event that happened, she would resign first so that Parnell could become Governor. He would designate his successor from the Cabinet officers and then resign. The Lt. Gov. would remain vacant for the remainder of the term. Alaska would have an appointed governor, quite possibly one who has never run for or held public office. There is no similar provision to the federal scheme which reaches into the Legislative Branch.

I’m not defending him, I think he, like most top cops in a unionized city or state was way too cozy with the union, as was his predecessor. Much of this happened on my watch, and the DPS kept the dirty laundry so well hidden that I only knew about any of it from a very off the record conversation over drinks.

Wooten had been disciplined for those acts the Palins and others complained about which could be substantiated. There isn’t a formal double jeopardy rule in labor arbitration but the principle certainly attaches. So long as he didn’t do something to initiate new charges, there was nothing to be down with Wooten. I don’t know whether it was Monegan or his predecessor who reduced the discipline from ten days down to five. If it happened before July 1 of ’06, to be legal it would have had to have my signature and I damn well know I didn’t do it.

Since you’re so convinced that she’s completely reformed that nasty, corrupt bureaucracy, perhaps you can point me to one concrete step she has taken in doing so. I will give you that she removed almost everyone that Murkowski appointed, but that was only the thinnest veneer over the State’s appointed management. So, other than a few of her own appointees, she basically has Tony Knowles’ appointees or their proteges running things.

And I don’t think this recent whining by Walt will do any damage against the Governor. Let me quote some of the comments on the said ADN article:

It sounds like another case of someone (Gov Palin) having to do a bureaucrat’s (Monegan) job. Monegan didn’t do his job of keeping bad cops off the job (tasering an 11 year-old!), so Palin took a bad commissioner off the job instead. Good for you, Sarah, if it really happened this way…And shame on the civil service for keeping a bad cop on the job.

If a commissioner won’t do the job then they need to be replaced. If Monegan did not investigate Wooten then he did not do his job. If the troopers rules and regs won’t allow for an investigation then the whole trooper program needs to be terminated and then restarted from ground up.

I don’t agree with some of the governor’s policies and ideas, but a bad cop has to go. If these allegations are true, Wooten should be in jail and Monegan should have been fired.

Walt is using the case of child abuse case as the main reason of his firing. Truth be told, Walt’s office has been battled by hundreds of past alleged errors and inefficiencies. This custody battle of the Palin’s is just the icing in the cake. And many have welcomed the decision of throwing Walt under the bus.

If Walt really thinks he is sidelined and he’s a victim, he should go to court and sue the Governor. ADN (for me a biased news agency) is not the proper venue to air his grievances. Doing the same makes Walt like an unprincipled Democrat. In fact, here’s one sympathetic comment from Walt’s supporter suggesting the same:

walt, you should sue, just cause your going by your rules and regulations and not her pleasures is no reason to get her fired. that is sad for her to do that.

His silent supporters (because of self interests) couldn’t single out any thing that will directly incriminate the seating Governor.

In just less than 2 years, Palin has turned the corrupt Alaskan bureaucracy up side down. That’s the real change we can expect from Sarah. She has a spine that many of our current leaders don’t have.

Besides Walt’s craps about procedures and ethics, the question remains the same: Did Walt perform his duties according to the standard expected of him by the people? Is he really willing to be subjected to the scrutinity of the Alaskan people?

When it comes to inefficiency and corruption, Democrats and Republicans are just the same. They are politicians and public servants that deserve the scrutinity of the people.

Instead, the budget issue of the Governor is really a good topic that you should have brought here. It will show us a different perspective from a Republican Governor.

If the Government has extra money, bring it back to the people.

And that’s the real essence of energy card bill being proposed by the Governor.

For me, you’ve just highlighted the toughness of this woman. McCain will need this woman to do the same with many of our lameduck federal agencies, and with the enemies of the Government.