Troopergate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303210.html?hpid=artslot

He's a racist. He's a poacher. He's abusive. He drinks on the job. He makes death threats.

I'm supposed to believe that the police and the union "disciplined" this guy with a 5 day suspension and that should be the end of it?

I'm also supposed to be shocked and surprised to find out that Wooten is a regular subject of conversation for Palin? Really?! You mean she repeatedly talks about the guy that threatened her father? You mean she displayed outrage over the fact that this guy was still employed as a police officer, of all things? Outrageous.

The real problem here is that it looks like Palin is running some serious CYA, and that CYA does not appear to be totally honest. If Palin had been a bit more upfront, and said, "Listen, this guy was a bad cop, and the entire establishment was circling the wagons to protect him. My family has some personal history with this individual, but I think it's reasonable to say that the way he was disciplined was unacceptable. I dismissed Monegan for xyz reasons, but I'm not going to say that his failure to properly discipline an abusive state trooper wasn't part of my motivation." The problem with that, is while it might go over well with the public, and it might go over well in any other non-governmental organization, it wouldn't go over well with the unions and the lawyers they pay.

We have the same problem in Chicago with the same kind of corrupt and abusive cops with the same good-old-boy network defending them. What was the solution? Replace the police commissioner. It's called reform. It's what good executives do to clean up their organization.

I admit that the allegations against this guy Wooten seem to be a little trumped up. He's accused of tasering his stepson, but he claims his stepson asked to be tased to prove he wasn't a "mama's boy". He was hunting with his wife, who had a permit, but he was the one that shot the moose, without a permit. Obviously, it's a messy situation, and it's unclear exactly who did what to whom. But Palin's interest in Wooten's status as a state trooper is pretty justified considering the allegations against him, it shouldn't be surprising that she would bring it up, and it shouldn't be surprising that she disagreed with how the case was being handled.

The problem with holding government jobs, is that you are expected to completely separate your personal life from your professional life, which is virtually impossible to do. If you need to hire staff, and you worked with someone in the past that you think might be good for the job, hiring that person will be perceived as cronyism. If you received campaign contributions from a business, and you think that business would be particularly suited to some government contract, awarding that business with the contract is perceived as "pay-to-play". If you don't think your sister's no-good, abusive, poaching, racist ex-husband has any business being a state trooper, it's perceived as an abuse of power. Unlike a private enterprise, which has accountability built in (i.e. profits), accountability in government is makeshift and speculative.