Northern Exposure
Sarah Palin is supposed to have a lot of appeal to your more rightward-leaning libertarians. But while watching an endless, boring "Wooten-gate" video that the Poorman Institute pressed on its readership I learn that Palin’s official reason for firing her former state police commissioner is that he was soft on "alcohol bootlegging in rural areas." That’s not change we can believe in!
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
August 29, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
Prohibition is never the answer.
Now, pass me a Schaffer*.
*”The beer to have, when you’ve having more than one”.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 29, 2008 @ 8:56 pm
I don’t claim to know much about firing of the state police commissioner, but from what little I’ve heard some of her defenders are saying that she wanted the guy to fire a cop who had beaten up her sister. Now, I’m all in favor of cracking down on cops who beat people, but the way to do this is to bring charges through the normal processes. Saying “I’m the Decider, and I know this person did it, so I’m going to order the punishment myself” is a dangerous way to go. It reminds me of recent trends…
Even if the guy that she wanted him to fire was every bit as bad as claimed (and, for all I know, he may be) there’s still a right way and a wrong way to deal with it.
Comment by Matt Weiner —
August 29, 2008 @ 10:27 pm
The cop was her sister’s ex-husband. Not that it changes the rest of the point — the accusation is still that he’d beaten her, and the rest of the post is correct — but that’s part of the story.
Anyway, the Public Safety Commissioner seems to be contradicting some things she’s said.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 29, 2008 @ 10:52 pm
Be that as it may, there is a way to deal with these things. When I hear a person in executive office say “Oh, I’ll just use my own authority to punish this person, because I know for a fact that he’s guilty” I get scared.
Comment by Fraud Guy —
August 29, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
I’ll bite on the other interpretation:
Palin takes us back to the values of the Founding Fathers, a mirror to George Washington when he had to fight against the domestic insurrection of the Whiskey Rebellion.
Isn’t that where we want to go?
Comment by Andromeda —
August 30, 2008 @ 4:23 am
You’re living in rural Alaska, and you’re not allowed to bootleg? Man, that must be depressing.
Comment by Matt Weiner —
August 30, 2008 @ 6:38 am
Be that as it may, there is a way to deal with these things.
Right right, I’m in total agreement about this, it’s just that I thought “cop who had beaten up her sister” didn’t tell the whole story. In fact this reflects worse on her, since his firing would presumably help the sister in the custody battle.
Comment by Thomas Allen —
August 30, 2008 @ 9:33 am
I would add that, by all appearances, the person she ultimately used her power to punish was not the person accused of wrongdoing. Wooten’s guilt or innocence is not at issue –Monegan is the one who lost his job.
Comment by joe —
August 30, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Idi Amin’s Last Meal,
I actually attended a couple games at Shaeffer Stadium back in the day. Both the facility and the football were as crappy as the beer.
Thoreau,
Saying “I’m the Decider, and I know this person did it, so I’m going to order the punishment myself†is a dangerous way to go. It reminds me of recent trends…
You’re written before about the “anti-government” philosophy leading people to two possible outcomes, “let’s clean this up” and “sweet!” This is another example here.
Just how far apart are contempt for bureaucracy and contempt for the rule of law, really?
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
August 31, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Yes, Sarah Palin stood up to Frank Murkowski — but, pointedly, not to Ted Stevens (& Andrea Mitchell, for someone as respected in journalism as you are, & married to an economist, to boot, you should have gotten that fact correct; as it stands, you have less of grasp of what the facts is than my boy, Steve Miller) — but she is as corrupt as anyone else in Alaska. Just, less so monetarily & moreso personally.
ALASKA: AMERICA’S VENEZUELA. Petrolocracy with an heady dose of kleptocracy — it’s great.
Mc Cain might as well have doctored a birth certificate & picked Hugo Chavez.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 31, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
Good point, joe.
I think that a certain amount of healthy contempt for the bureaucracy is a useful thing. We should never trust it. We should, however, realize that it’s better to have (some of) it than not have any. Of course, if you don’t trust it, but you need it anyway, the solution is transparency, not “Let The Decider Decide.”