The beginning of the divorce proceedings set off a chain of bizarre and chilling events that has continued through today. During that time it has resulted in the governor and her family trying to ruin the career of an eight year Alaska State Trooper that has served his state on the SERT Team, Motor Unit and DUI Team.

Beginning in spring of 2005 and for the next ten months, over 25 formal complaints were filed by Palin and Heath family members against Trooper Mike Wooten. From drinking while driving his patrol car to making threats to shooting a moose without a permit.

According to Trooper records, Sarah Palin said that in January and February of 2005, Wooten was drinking while driving. After investigating the complaint, the investigator found that Palin never actually saw what she reported.

In another complaint, Sarah's father said that Wooten made threatening remarks. Again, the investigator found there was no probable way that it could have happened.

In all cases except one, the charges were ruled unfounded after an internal investigation. And the one charge that was valid, Wooten immediately admitted to.

In 2003, Wooten, his wife and a friend were moose hunting. Upon spotting a moose, Wooten instructed his wife to shoot the moose since she had the permit, she refused so Wooten did.

After carting the moose back to town, Sarah's father actually butchered it in his garage, and Wooten shared the meat with both Sarah and Todd Palin as well as her parents. Two years later, during the divorce battle, the family filed a complaint alleging that Wooten had taken that moose illegally. At least they waited until they finished the meat to file the complaint against Wooten.

But it didn't stop there. Threatening phone calls, private detectives that were hired to follow Wooten, notes left on windshields, Todd Palin taking pictures then submitting them to Wooten's supervisor, all designed to intimidate Wooten into backing off from demanding equal child custody rights.

But every time they filed a spurious complaint, the Troopers would bring in an Administrative Investigator who after seeing more than two dozen of these ridiculous and time consuming complaints stated that in all his years he had never seen such a shotgun pattern against one officer.

Meanwhile in court, Wooten prevailed at every turn as Judge Suddock quickly realized there was a concerted effort to damage Wooten. Finally the judge warned that if any of their actions caused Wooten to lose his job or pay in anyway, Molly and her family would be held liable.

After the divorce was final in late 2005 things settled down, until last fall.

At the request of the court, Wooten and his ex-wife were instructed to return to re-visit the custody schedule. Once the paper work started in April of 2008, the complaints and the intimidation started all over again.

Palin's political finesse
failed her this time

One thing that came out of recent political maneuvering by our governor is a dramatic demonstration of how flawed her political judgment can be.

Why, in the world, would Gov. Sarah Palin fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, one of the state's best-liked police officers, at a time when her gas pipeline scheme was in such a delicate situation with the Legislature?

A seasoned politician just wouldn't do such a thing. The stuff about her sister's ex-husband and even the juicy news about . . .

Monegan's replacement, Kenai Police Chief Chuck Kopp, is great gossip.

But the Kopp problem can't be laid directly at her doorstep, since vetting appointees is generally a staff responsibility. Somebody goofed, but not necessarily Sarah Palin.

The sexual harassment complaint against Kopp, regardless of its merit or lack thereof, makes him politically radioactive, too much so for a high-level state job right now.

But the whole mess resulted from a foolish Palin move, one a skillful leader would never have made with the AGIA cake almost ready to take out of the oven.

She is not the state's first ham-handed politician, but she seems to be outstanding in that field.

I'm with her. Pass the cookies
By PAUL JENKINS

Reading what passes for a newspaper in this town, it’s clear to me that I’ve been wrong, dreadfully wrong, about our photogenic, cookie-baking governor, the lovely and very vice-presidential Sarah P.
mug shot
Jenkins

It’s clear to me that instead of poking fun at her administration's foibles, and they are legion, I should work for her. Really. And apparently just about anybody can, given some of her recent hires, but that’s another story for another time.

To get a job as an insider, and a member of the circle, I’d even be willing to sign a loyalty oath to prove I’m a team player. That would help dodge in the future at least one of the several different reasons Palin has given for sacking Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

The oath: “I swear to tell the truth, or Sarah’s version of it, and support her as long as I can, or until they buy me off or threaten me with the slammer, or send in feds with suits. I mean it. Mostly. Unless there is money or cookies involved. Oh, and did I tell you I’m a team player? Really, I am.” They could change the wording if they wanted, except for the feds part. Signing would be easy if that old investigator, Talis Colberg, says it’s OK.

Imagine. It would be like being handed the keys to the kingdom. A guy from the inner sanctum could . . .

(cont'd from front page) call up people and give them the business. “Do you know who I am?” he could ask. “Do you know who I’m calling for?”

When working as an insider for Palin, instead of applying pressure, which is for losers, I could be the pressure. And I could suck up to reporters and hire them after they do really cloying, kissy-face pieces on the governor. But that would only be part of the grand scheme. I would be, behind Palin’s husband, of course, the shadow governor. Numero Threeo.

“Listen,” I’d tell some bureaucrat schmoe, “the governor and her lovely family do not much like the idea of you parking in the first spot in the parking lot. What can we do about that?” Or, “Sarah thinks you are out of line by not giving me that top floor office with the really cool desk and a bodyguard and a new, black Yukon.” Or hiring my friends. Or giving me nifty gifts. Or whatever.

I could, just for yuks, dig into a trooper’s confidential records and try to get him fired or smear him or demand a television station be rightly humble and much, much nicer to the governor and her 14 different stories. I could even try to arrange affairs of the heart between media types and members of the governor’s staff and then redact their e—mails sent on state equipment and claim executive privilege. There is nothing I could not do. Nothing.

The benefits and possibilities of such a job are boundless. Use of state equipment for political and private purposes, sowing fear among my underlings — Do you know who I am, I’d ask — and pull, no, yank, strings from the shadows. A king-maker. Appointments here. Jobs there. Promotions, Firings. Transfers. I could arrange it all. I would be a god. I would be pressure.

And the very best part? When I’m caught red-handed going over the line, as admittedly I’m wont to do given the opportunity (Ask any credit card company), I will get off because I will know much, too much. Much, too much. Do you hear what I’m saying. Untouchable. It’s beautiful. The ultra-super-best part? For doing all those terrible things — and I’ll be sorry, honest — I’ll get leave with pay. With pay, do you hear? Until the investigation concludes. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink. That’s a paid vacation in some languages. Hallelujah! Then, because I’d have free time, maybe I’d go work on a political campaign for awhile. Maybe Sean Parnell’s.

It is too good a deal to pass up. Here and now, I renounce my past and my previous wrong-headed criticism of Palin’s policies. I was wrong. Sarah is the future. Where can I sign up?

Most important, where are the cookies?

Oh, and if I get the job, don’t screw with me.

Palin has a difficult
time keeping
her story straight

GOV. SARAH Palin’s antics just get curiouser and curiouser. She cannot seem to get her story straight on exactly why she unceremoniously and without warning dumped Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan.

She has offered a bunch of them. Monegan was not a team player, she said. He was not taking the department where it needed to go, she said. His talents were needed more at the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, she said. Or he was not filling vacant positions, she said.

It had nothing to do with his not immediately firing a trooper . . .wrapped up in a nasty divorce with her sister. Nothing at all.

Now comes this: The administration, it turns out, is busy trying to figure out whether to eliminate Alaska State Troopers staff, specifically temporary positions which could cause all manner of changes at its headquarters.

The deadline is Sept. 15 for the department to justify the positions. Just routine, the administration says, just routine, even in a time when filling agency positions is tough.

Apparently, when it comes to the troopers, who have yet to bend to her will, Palin’s gloves are coming off.

Palin economics
need a shakeup

IT'S ENCOURAGING to see ExxonMobil and its partners moving ahead with development of leases at Point Thomson despite state government's attempts to interfere and to see ConocoPhillips and BP continuing their efforts to build a gas pipeline and disregarding similar problems from the state.

Under Gov. Sarah Palin, Alaska's government is engaged in a kind of fiscal lunacy designed to discourage private enterprise in favor of state-controlled efforts to launch competing projects.

Such state-imposed control of the private sector should not be allowed to stand. Going ahead under such circumstances . . .

(cont'd from front page) is an obvious risk, but the companies presumably have good legal advice and are confident they are on solid ground.

If they aren't — and the redneck socialism of the Palin administration should prevail — Alaska could have a very limited economic future. The private sector's ventures here could be important to determining just how much misguided state leadership can interfere with the economic foundation on which the American system is based.

We hope Palin and her people go down in flames on this issue. They need an unprecedented dose of economic reality. Let's hope their wakeup call isn't too painful to the working people of Alaska.

Palin e-mail sins
top Randy Ruedrich's

HERE’S SOMETHING interesting.

An astute reader points out that about four years ago Republican Party chief Randy Ruedrich paid a $12,000 fine for using a state computer to send 22 private e-mails.

His case was much overblown in the media, which at various points hysterically claimed he had sent hundreds and hundreds of e-mails. The case, it turns out, amounted to not much. In fact, the attorney general’s office said in its settlement with Ruedrich that “The state agrees that it found no evidence . . .

(cont'd from front page) during its Ethics Act investigation that Mr. Ruedrich used his status as a public officer to raise funds for any partisan political activity.”

Now, Gov. Sarah Palin — who made bales of political hay with Ruedrich’s case — responds to a public records request for e-mails by redacting most of the information in something like 1,100 of them. She makes the bogus claim that the messages are covered by executive privilege, even though some of them were sent to her husband and others discussed media celebrities. Hardly the stuff of important policy decisions.

Which is worse? Sending a handful of e-mails or depriving the public of a clear and transparent view of what we are spending our money on in this administration? To us, it is the latter.

It seems to us that Palin’s arbitrary withholding of e-mails by using a bogus excuse, in violation of the law, should be fined at the same level. Mind you, we went to public schools but, using the same formula, it appears that she could owe something like $3.3 million.

Pay up.

Depending on Palin
to tell the truth
is a waste of time

THERE IS A problem with Gov. Sarah Palin’s spin on the mess surrounding the firing of Public Safety Commission Walt Monegan. The problem is this: It stinks. To high heaven.

Listening to the governor and her attorney general, Talis Colberg, in a news conference detail what the governor knew and did not know about whether pressure was brought on Monegan to fire a trooper involved in a nasty divorce with Palin’s sister was like a quick dose of “Alice in Wonderland.”

Let’s see, Palin, after taking time to yet again trash the trooper involved, says that only now does she realize members of her administration were bugging the troopers, trying to pressure them . . .

(cont'd from front page) into sacking the trooper. She knew nothing, nothing at all — at least until just recently.

Who called? Well, of the few dozen calls made, Palin aide Frank Bailey (he had the misfortune of being recorded saying he was calling for the governor and her husband, Todd) made one, which the governor said she heard for the first time this week. Bailey is spending time today looking at the underside of a bus, where Palin threw him after saying his calling the troopers was unauthorized.

Other callers? Husband Todd Palin, Attorney General Talis Colberg and Mike Tibbles, then-chief of staff for Palin.

According to Palin’s story, we are to believe that some voice spoke to the various callers and said, independent of Palin, “Call the troopers, and get rid of this guy” and that the voice did not speak to Palin — and she had no idea anything was going on. Why in the world would a trooper, the head of the Public Safety Department, or anybody, feel pressure under those circumstances?

This is the same woman who earlier swore that nobody in her administration pressured Monegan to fire the trooper, and who says that — surprise! — she just found out that statement was incorrect.

Her story stretches credulity to the breaking point. The investigation that the Legislature has ordered should get to the bottom of this. Depending on Palin for the truth apparently is a waste of time.

Palin shrugs off
ethics charge

THE MORE YOU know about the administration of Gov. Sarah Palin, the more you are left scratching your head.

Now, political activist Andree McLeod has filed an ethics complaint against Palin, along with her acting chief of staff and others, claiming the governor’s office broke ethics and hiring rules by getting involved in landing a Palin supporter a state job.

McLeod’s complaint is based on e-mails among Palin’s staff . . .

(cont'd from front page) that she received as part of a public records request. Palin says there were no favors; that her office simply addressed problems in the hiring process that involved surveyor Tom Lamal, who eventually was hired for a Department of Transportation job in Fairbanks.

Lamal, it turns out, once co-hosted a Palin fundraiser and was having difficulty landing a state job.

"This was a long battle but (Kevin Brooks, deputy commissioner of Administration), pushed it through the road blocks to get Tom Lamal hired into a classified (position) in FAI with DOT," writes Frank Bailey, the Boards and Commissions director and a Palin campaign worker.

From the raft of e-mails, clearly the administration was involved in Lamal’s hiring, but perhaps the ugliest thing about all this is Palin’s reaction.

Again, as she repeatedly has done with critics, the governor simply shrugged off the allegations. In the past, she has blamed her problems on “just politics.” This time she claims McLeod is just disgruntled because she wanted a state job with the Palin administration and has not gotten one — the same rejoinder she has used on critic Andrew Halcro. It is becoming Palin’s trademark. “It’s not me, it’s them,” she says. In a television interview broadcast Wednesday night, Palin even went so far as to refer to her critics as “haters.”

Good grief.

None of that is healthy. If there is an ethics problem it should be addressed, and quickly. The rules, as Palin surely knows, apply to everyone.

Even her and her staff.