Monday, November 03, 2008
Palin cleared, but where does she go to get her reputation back?
I am agog, I am aghast: the New York Times is actually reporting that Sarah Palin has been cleared of the ethics charges against her.
A report has cleared Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of ethics violations in the firing of her public safety commissioner.
Released Monday, the report says there is no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with the firing. The report was prepared by Timothy Petumenos, an independent counsel for the Alaska Personnel Board.
It is too late to matter this year, and coming as it does on the Monday night before Election Day most Americans will only remember the charges, not the exoneration. Where does Sarah Palin go to get her reputation back?
16 Comments:
By 
Larry Sheldon, at
Mon Nov 03, 09:50:00 PM:
I don't think her reputation has been damaged at all certainly not in any place that matters.
The grace under pressure displayed has got to be a big plus among people smart enough to matter.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Nov 03, 11:00:00 PM:
"Where does Sarah Palin go to get her reputation back?"
She has my support if she runs for President in 2012.
By 
, at
Mon Nov 03, 11:40:00 PM:
Okay, if that's settled, then why won't she release her medical records? As promised?
It's because she faked her last pregnancy. When the truth comes out, I will tell you all I told you so.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Nov 04, 12:03:00 AM:
You know, I forgot about the original Squealer until now. I haven't looked at the book "Animal Farm" for decades.
From Wiki: "In the allegorical form chosen by Orwell for 'Animal Farm,' the pigs are easily identified with the Soviet leaders of the time. Napoleon and Snowball clearly represent Stalin and Trotsky, respectively. However, for those unfamiliar with the Soviet hierarchy in the 1930s and 1940s, Squealer's human counterpart may be obscure. However, there is merit in the interpretation of Squealer being a representation of propaganda overall. Squealer certainly was the key spokesman for the pigs."
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 12:17:00 AM:
She won't have a positive reputation with a large fraction of the electorate so long as she comes across as oblivious and aggressively anti-intellectual. "Real America?" Really? 90% of the things said about her can be rumors, but it's the scary ten percent that matters in judging her; the other 90% only matter in judging the rumormongers.
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 12:42:00 AM:
so long as she comes across as oblivious and aggressively anti-intellectual.
And of course aggressively edited interviews would have no part to play in that equation.
Meanwhile Joe Biden can be as oblivious and aggressively stupid in real time as he likes and no-one in that same media three-ring circus will notice. Or at least won't deign to say that they do.
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 01:51:00 AM:
Okay, if that's settled, then why won't she release her medical records? As promised?
It's because she faked her last pregnancy. When the truth comes out, I will tell you all I told you so.
You mean this?
Now, in the spirit of disclosure....
Where are Obama's medical records? School transcripts? His dissertation from Columbia? Application to the Illinois state bar? His client list from Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Gallard? Harvard Law School records? Offical papers as state senator for Illinois? Names of small donors giving $200 or less?
Anything?
No?
Why am I not surprised?
By Escort81, at
Tue Nov 04, 02:06:00 AM:
Squealer -
How's the view from Andrew Sullivan's rectum? Getting pretty crowded in there? Watch out for the felchers!
Well, at least you're just a random blog poster like most of the rest of us -- we're supposed to be foolish at times. Sullivan, in theory, had an actual reputation to look after.
It is secondary what one's opinon of Gov. Palin's politics or knowledge of foreign policy may be -- accusing her of not giving birth to her child is just nuts.
Hopefully, the link that DL Sly provided above to the McCain website showing a .pdf file with a letter from Gov. Palin's doctor will help you come to terms with your insanity. I read somewhere that admitting your problem is the first step on the road to recovery.
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 02:10:00 AM:
The U.S. Doesn't Know How Alone It is in Iraq
Friends Like These
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Over the past five years, America and its Iraqi allies have pointed triumphantly at a series of spurious milestones meant to mark turning points on the road to stability and security. But the ongoing stalemate over a new Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which the Iraqi government refuses to sign despite intense American pressure, marks a true turning point in the conflict: it is a clear sign that American political influence in Iraq is weaker than ever.
It is the first time that an Iraqi government has rebuffed the US on a crucial issue since the invasion of 2003. The agreement, the subject of prolonged and divisive negotiations since March, was rejected by the Iraqi cabinet and is unlikely to be submitted to parliament in its present form. The Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, who could not have obtained nor held his job without American backing, says he will not sign it as it is.
Meanwhile the US is increasingly desperate to conclude the status agreement before the UN mandate that legalises the US occupation runs out at the end of the year. The US ambassador Ryan Crocker petulantly threatened that without an agreement “we do nothing – no security training, no logistical support, no border protection, no training, equipping, manning checkpoints, no nothing.” President Bush has himself pushed hard for the accord over the last eight months without success. His failure to secure the pact shows that the US is unable to get its way despite exaggerated claims of military success by the White House and the Pentagon.
The accord that has been rejected is markedly less favourable to the US than the original draft that was first discussed in March. The Americans, who could have presented the agreement to the Iraqis as a means of bringing the occupation to an end or eliminating its most objectionable aspects, instead produced a blank cheque that suggested no limit to the number of American troops in the country and no date for eventual withdrawal.
The March draft was a typical example of the US tendency to overplay its hand in Iraq, where the agreement was denounced as a successor to the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi treaty that gave Britain de facto control over a nominally independent Iraq. The draft provoked a nationalist backlash, and many Iraqi politicians who supported the agreement did so covertly for fear of being labelled American pawns.
The final draft of the accord agreed by negotiators on October 13 was very different. By then the Bush administration had been forced to concede a timetable for an American military withdrawal: combat troops were to leave Iraqi cities, towns and villages by the end of June 2009, and all American forces were to depart by the end of 2011. Contractors lost their immunity from Iraqi law. The US tried to make the military retreat from Iraq conditional on the security situation at the time, but by the end of the negotiations even this had been conceded.
Nothing better illuminates the real political landscape in Iraq – and the absurdity of the fantasies pumped out in Washington and broadly accepted in the US – than the concessions forced on the Americans. The American problem in Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein has always been political rather than military. Simply put, the Americans have had too few friends in Iraq, and their allies have sided with the US for tactical reasons alone. The majority Shia community initially co-operated with the US in order to achieve political domination, and it needed American military force to crush the Sunni Arab uprising of 2004-7. But the Shia leaders always wanted power for themselves and never intended to share it with the Americans in the long term. The Sunni guerrillas did surprisingly well against the American army, but their community was decisively defeated in the bloody battle for Baghdad fought by government death squads and sectarian militias. It was this defeat – and not simply hostility to al Qa’eda in Iraq – that led the Sunni rebels to seek their own alliance with the US.
I was in Baghdad during the first half of October and then flew to New York. Never has there been such a deep gap between what Americans think is happening in Iraq and the reality on the ground. Senator John McCain keeps celebrating the supposed triumph of the “surge”, and seems to imagine that “victory in Iraq” is now in sight. His exotic running mate Sarah Palin sneers at the “defeatist” Barack Obama. And Obama, afraid to appear unpatriotic, has recanted his earlier doubts about the surge and attempted to avoid discussion of Iraq in general. With American voters understandably absorbed by the financial crash and coming depression, attention to events in Iraq has evaporated: the American media have barely mentioned the rejection of the SOFA.
In New York I found it strange that so many people believed the surge had brought an end to violence in Iraq. It was a curious sort of military victory, I observed, that required more troops in Iraq today – 152,000 – than before the surge began. The best barometer for the real state of security in Iraq, I kept telling people, is the behaviour of the 4.7 million Iraqi refugees inside and outside the country. Many are living in desperate circumstances but dare not go home. Ask an Iraqi in Baghdad how things are, and he may well say “better”. But he means better than the bloodbath of two years ago: “better” does not mean “good”.
Driving around Baghdad I tried to avoid particularly dangerous areas like Tahrir Square in the centre of the city. This turned out to be very sensible: a few days after I left, a suicide car bomb attack there on the convoy of the Labour and Social Affairs minister killed 12. The suicide bomber had reached Tahrir Square despite the fact that there are military and police checkpoints every hundred yards and gigantic traffic jams throughout the city. There is now a little more activity after dark, particularly in Karada and Jadriyah districts, but Baghdad is still the most dangerous city in the world.
The government should be able to do better. It has money. Reserves total $79 billion. The state is vast and employs some two million people. But it is also dysfunctional. Government employees like teachers and army officers are better paid but half the population is unemployed. The Labour and Social Affairs Ministry, the head of which was so nearly assassinated, is meant to help millions of impoverished Iraqis but has only spent 10 per cent of its budget. The private sector is languishing. One sure sign of economic activity is cranes, but in Baghdad I do not recall seeing a single one of them aside from those rusting beside Saddam Hussein’s uncompleted mosques.
The inability of the Iraqi government, many of whose members have long co-operated with the US, to reach a new accord with the US underlines a simple truth about Iraqi politics. The occupation has never been popular. The only part of the country where it is acceptable is Kurdistan, which has never been occupied by US forces. Some Sunni Arabs, under pressure from the Shia, may now look to the US as their protectors, but overall Iraqis blame the occupation for their present miseries. Dislike of the occupation is so great that many Shia politicians think they would be signing their political death warrant to go along with it – though they are also nervous about coping without American military support.
The Kurds say privately that Maliki is overconfident. This may be so, but he has a strong hand. It is too late for the Americans to try replace him. He owes his greatest triumph – facing down the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr in Basra, Sadr City and Amara earlier this year – as much to Iranian restraint of the Sadrists as to American military support. It would be dangerous for him to make an enemy of Iran by signing a deal to which they are vehemently and openly opposed.
Maliki seems to have been of two minds about the SOFA: uncertain whether the greater danger is signing or not signing. He is looking ahead to the provincial and parliamentary elections next year when he will want to present himself as a patriotic Iraqi leader who stood up to the Americans. If he does not then the Sadrists and possibly the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq will denounce him as an American pawn.
The danger in Iraq is that neither McCain nor Obama seem to understand how far the US position in Iraq has weakened this year or why Iraq refuses to sign the security accord. The overselling of the surge as a great victory means that few Americans see that they are increasingly without allies in Iraq. The US no longer makes the political weather there. No matter who inherits the White House, American military retreat is now inevitable. The only question that remains is who will hold power in Baghdad after they have gone.
Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.
By davod, at
Tue Nov 04, 04:46:00 AM:
"Meanwhile Joe Biden can be as oblivious and aggressively stupid in real time as he likes and no-one in that same media three-ring circus will notice. Or at least won't deign to say that they do."
You can be as dumb as a post providing you have the right bits of paper.
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 06:16:00 AM:
DL Sky ... took the words out of my mouth!
And yeah, Davod ... Biden just amazes me, and the way the media's run this one merits intervention from the Feds on the airwave usage. It's just nauseating.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 04, 09:31:00 AM:
Squealer: Wow. I'm never going to take another one of your comments seriously, ever.
Congratulations.
Oh don't bitch. I'm not partisan. That's exactly how I treat flat earthers, people who claim that the moon landings were faked, and other idiotic conspiracy theorists.
It's perfectly fair.
By , at
Tue Nov 04, 11:42:00 AM:
Sorry conservatives but the report clearing Palin was done by her political appointees. Sorry to shed some truth and facts on the situation because it will be a little harder to delude yourselves:
Troopergate Report Assigned By Palin Is In
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on November 4, 2008 at 7:02 AM.
Three weeks ago, an independent investigation launched by the Alaskan legislature into Sarah Palin's abuse-of-power scandal wrapped up with a fairly devastating report -- Palin violated the public trust, violated state ethics laws, and lied about it. (Soon after, Palin, driven either out of ignorance or illiteracy, said the report had cleared her of "any hint of any kind of unethical activity," which is the opposite of reality.)
Palin and the McCain campaign decided it didn't like the independent investigation, and preferred a different probe, run by Alaska's personnel board, which is made up of members who answer to Palin.
And wouldn't you know it, on the night before the election, the board sided with Palin in a hastily released report.
A report released on Monday by a state board found that Gov. Sarah Palin did not apply improper pressure to try to dismiss a state trooper who was her former brother-in-law and did not violate state ethics laws in the firing of her public safety commissioner.
The report by the Alaska Personnel Board contradicts the conclusions last month of a separate inquiry into the matter overseen by a bipartisan legislative panel. The earlier inquiry found that Ms. Palin had breached a state ethics act by pressing to have the trooper, Mike Wooten, fired.
It appears that, as far as Palin's Alaska Personnel Board is concerned, this was a he-said, she-said situation. Walt Monegan described discussions he had with members of the Palin administration about the governor's ex-brother in law, while Palin and her aides said those conversations hadn't taken place. As far as the board's investigator was concerned, he believed the aides.
By Dawnfire82, at
Tue Nov 04, 12:29:00 PM:
Do you honestly think that you're persuading people with this pseudo-report spamming?
Because this is what happens: "Oh look, more spam." *skips to next comment*
By davod, at
Tue Nov 04, 12:40:00 PM:
The rabid attacks on Palin and her family are testement to how scared the Democrats and their sycophants in the media are of Palin.
It seems clear that this was an attempt to drive Palin out of politics alltogether.
What they may have done is drive a lot of moderate Democrats out of the party
By , at
Wed Nov 05, 06:10:00 PM:
DEC, that's fascinating about the etymology of "Squealer", I had not remembered (or maybe I had in some unconscious way heh-heh) that reference in Animal Farm. Not that it's bad for me. Kind of like "Little John".
Sirius, Escort, You will notice that my comment was written on the same date as the letter from her doctor. Do not any of you find the timing of the letter strange? Why wait until the day before the election? Frankly, I do not find the letter convincing. It's just one person's word and there's nothing to corroborate it with.
DL Sly, I may be wrong about the specifics about what happened, but there is definitely something being kept from view. Obama, McCain, and Biden have done a better job of releasing medical records.
