NOW, NOW, NOW, THERE THOSE LIBERALS IN THE MSM GO AGAIN......
Posted on 09/20/2008 5:48:28 PM PDT by Starman417
I swear, I'm not sure why I'm wasting my time, or yours, with this post. Took about 24 hours off to be with my granddaughter, and re'entered the news world to find the media and Palin hater dogs are off, chasing a new bone of contention on the Trooper'gate/Monegan angle.
First, let me say this in no uncertain terms. I don't care if Sarah Palin didn't like which side of his head Monegan parted his hair... she had a right to terminate him for any reason she wished because he served at will.
Now, is this a scandal that she fired him for some personal vendetta, or not? And apparently, it's becoming more than clear that it's not. So now the media is off on another entrapment tangent, trying to play the "gotcha" game as to even her legitimate reasons for firing an appointee for sundry differences.
Case in point, Justin Rood at ABC news, whining over Monegan's planned lobbying endeavor to the beltway to secure funds for an anti-sexual violence program. ABC triumphantly lauds it as "new doubt"...
And what's the new bru ha ha? Is it related to Wooten? But no....
Instead it is questioning one of Palin's reasons - citing an event that happened 4 days before she fired him, and he refusal to take another position.
Palin called it an "unauthorized lobbying trip", and the liberal/progressives, desperately seeking anything to tank Palin's numbers, point to a travel authorization signed one of Palin's staff, Mike Nizich. The authorization states the purpose of the trip is "to attend meeting with Senator Lisa Murkowski."
Now all you "gotcha" types out there, I wouldn't get too excited. Let's follow once again the timeline.
The Palin campaign released many emails... and one of them, dated July 7th (pre'Veep era), from the Governor's Special Counsel, John Katz, cited two great reasons why the lobbying trip in question would not have been approved by Gov. Palin:
In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: the governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request "is out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. Stevens."
The travel authorization is dated June 19th, and a noted purpose only to meet Sen. Murkowski... Monegan had to have known Palin was not seeking the money, nor sanctioned a lobbying trip for that purpose.
It appears that Monegan may have been trying to pull a fast one to advance a pet project, over Palin's objections.
17 days later the General Counsel sent the email recommending *against* any lobbying trip, (this is still pre'Palin Veep). Obviously written after they found out Monegan's purpose for the travel was more than stated on the authorization.
What was it Palin said? "Mr. Monegan persisted in planning to make the unauthorized lobbying trip to D.C." Certainly appears that, despite the Palin's lack of support for a lobbying trip, Monegan "persisted" in putting in a travel authorization request anyway with a vaguely stated purpose. Hummm... so far, looks like she was right.
The plot thickens in that this was an attempt by Monegan to mask his true intent for the beltway visit... as Hot Air's Allahpundit points out, the date of Nizich's signature is June 18th. But the travel authorization is actually dated a day later... June 19th.
Either Nizich did not know what day it was, or he signed a blank authorization document for what he believed was a standard visitation to an Alaskan Senator. So why would he do that? Apparently, the purpose of meeting Murkowski for was not made clear on the authorization (if he just dated it wrong), or the verbal intent gave him the impression it would be a generally authorized trip.
While it's quite normal to readily approve official travel to meet with Alaskan legislators in Congress, officials are not free to do anything they like while on the taxpayers dollar. And lobbying for a project that Palin was against was not the stated purpose on this travel authorization.
According to Ruaro, Monegan asked for -- and received -- approval for the travel without telling Palin's staff his reason for going. "As a matter of routine, the travel was approved by Mike Nizich ... weeks before the actual purpose was made clear by former Commissioner Monegan," Ruaro wrote."When you receive permission to travel, it does not mean that you receive blanket authorization to discuss or do whatever you would like on that trip," he added.
BTW, Nizich is one of those on the Legislative Council's.... er Steve Branchwater's... list of witnesses. And he is also one of those who will be cooperating with a Personnel Board investigation, and enjoying the Alaskan AG's office advise that showing up is not mandatory...
In fact, with these released emails, Thomas Van Flein has used them as further evidence in his plea to the Personnel Board to find "no probable cause" for further investigation. Per an AP/Google article:
The e-mails made clear that some Palin staffers believed Monegan and the Department of Public Safety worked outside normal channels. One was written in May by Randy Ruaro, then a special assistant to Palin, to the governor's budget director, and concerned efforts to pay for and build a crime lab."I FEEL YOUR PAIN! DPS is constantly going off the reservation," he wrote.
In February, Monegan signed a public letter of support for a $3.6 million project designed to keep troubled teens off the street in Anchorage — even though the governor had vetoed the project last year and hadn't included money for it in her budget this year.
"I am stunned and amazed — do you know anything about this?" budget director Karen Rehfeld wrote to two other high-level staffers when she learned of the letter.
"Think about that:one of the governor's own cabinet members publicly contradicting her veto decision," Stapleton said.
Monegan acknowledged he shouldn't have signed the letter, because it put the governor in the awkward position of defending her veto decision. But he said he thought of the letter as simply making another run at getting funding for a worthy project.
Uh... now how was it Palin described Monegan? "rogue mentality" and "outright insubordination". Apparently, quite fitting a description.
This latest media nonsense, suggesting Palin lied about her reasons for firing Monegan is nothing more than a switch and bait - parsing words to muddy the scandal's origins. Remember, this whole mucky muck started with Monegan publicly complaining (with Andrew Halcro's dutiful aid) about being fired because of retaining Trooper Wooten, Palin's ex-brother in law. This despite being on the record, under oath, plus in other media reports stating:
(Excerpt) Read more at Flopping Aces ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
To heck with the so-called “troopergate.” Let’s start calling it TAZERgate.
Why should the left define what it is, or I should say, isn’t.
TAZERgate!! TAZERgate!! When you taze a ten-year old boy - it’s TAZERgate!!!!
They are trying to turn her into the heir apparent to VP Cheney.
The only thing they can point to that he dis’d them was when first in office he convened a meeting with the top movers and shakers in the energy fields and did not invite the Sierra Club and ever since then they have done every thing possible to vilify an honorable man.
We can not allow them to do the same to Gov. Palin!
Democrats running the MSM look desperate, weak and stupid, especially supporting Obama who is a Socialist.
Shows how stupid the press whores AND the Democrat Party are. They simply cannot understand this.
[quote]she had a right to terminate him for any reason she wished because he served at will.[/quote]
NO NO NO! The fact is, such rights are only granted to a Democrat governor. Republicans have no right to fire anyone under any circumstances.
You want proof? Just look at Bill Clinton firing 93 attorneys and nobody made any noise about it. But when it comes to George Bush firing 8 attorneys - all hell broke loose - even until today the RATS in congress/senate still haven’t given up on the case yet.
Putting Monegan in charge of an anti-sexual violence program is like putting 0bama in charge of an anti-voter fraud program.
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