The Mudflats

[A similar article is posted at The Huffington Post]

“All things Palin?”  “Start acting like a mother?” You mean Stapleton thinks you can’t be an effective mother from your Blackberry?  But Palin even ran the state from her Blackberry during the campaign so she wouldn’t have to hand over power to Lt. Governor Sean Parnell!  A child shouldn’t grow up begging for a mother’s attention?  Hmmm. Perhaps some day we’ll learn the true story.  In the mean time, we can’t help but wonder what Sarah Palin will actually sound like now.  Farewell, Meg.  Don’t let the bus hit you on the way out of Dodge.

Let’s see.  Who’s left in that inner sanctum?  Kristan Cole, Kris Perry, and…. Todd.  And then there were three.

[Meg Stapleton chihuahua photo credit Dennis Zaki]

>>>>>>>SSSKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!<<<<<<<<<<<<<

That’s the noise of my fingernails dragging across the ground.  I’m trying to resist, and I don’t know if any of you noticed or not, but I have myself a little much needed hiatus from Sarah Palin.  The Alaska Legislature is in session, and matters of tremendous urgency have been going on on a federal level, and major environmental issues are bubbling up to the surface, and frankly, I just haven’t been that into her.

Yes, I heard all about the custody thing, and the McCain thing, and the Facebook thing, and at some point it just all turned into background noise.  The kind of background noise that sounds like a big cloud of Alaskan mosquitoes.

But, just as one cannot ignore a giant black cloud of Alaskan mosquitoes forever, so one cannot ignore the ex-almost-one-term-governor.  She simply won’t allow it.  And my fingernails are giving out.   But, to ease me back into “solid food” after my Sarah-fast, is Linda Kellen Biegel.  She’s here to talk about what’s going on with those infamous emails.  And the email issue at this point is really much more about transparency in government, and what the rules of the road are going to be for future administrations, than it is about Palin.  But the two are inextricably linked.

I like to think that if you’re going to try to find a rosy side of the Palin administration (or should we call that the Palin administr—)  you can look at it like this.  Have you ever had an energy audit done on your house?  They’ve got this thing that you attach to an open door that helps you find leaks.  It’s a big piece of plastic that fits over the doorway to the outside, and you open the door and turn on these giant sucking fans that blow from the inside to the outside.  They go to work, and you can walk around and feel cold air rushing in all the places that need extra insulation or weather stripping.  It’s really quite incredible.  You think you’re living in a nice energy efficient box, and then the sucking starts and you can feel ice cold air streaming in through light switches, and wall outlets and around windows.

That was Sarah Palin.  She was the giant sucking thing that showed us all the places we need to patch up government – all the places that need work.   The idea is that we then actually FIX the holes.  But that’s my perfect little world of accountability.  In reality things don’t always work out like that.  In reality, we say, “Wow!  Come over here and feel this little stream of air coming through the edge of the window!  Let’s throw a hammer through it!”

And with that, I give you Linda Kellen Biegel:

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Transparency in Public Records – The Legislature is Our Only Hope

The very same week we had a ruling that set back ethics 200 years coming out of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Alaska Superior Court delivered a set-back to government transparency:

“JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – An Alaska judge has sided with former Gov. Sarah Palin in a lawsuit over e-mail messages, finding that state law does not forbid the use of private e-mail accounts to conduct state business…
…The issue arose from a 2008 records request by Ms. McLeod that showed that Ms. Palin and members of her staff had been using private e-mail accounts. The traffic uncovered, though, was heavily redacted for what were deemed reasons of privacy. Ms. McLeod argued through her lawyer that use of private accounts obstructed the people’s right to inspect public records.”

(For those of you who have never seen a “redacted” public record, this is what one looks like:)

And Superior Court Judge McKay (yes, it’s the same one with 2 DUIs) was quite clear into whose lap he was dropping this:

[State Asst. Attny Gen.] Mr. Mitchell said last month that if the use of private accounts were to be banned for state business, the Legislature, not a court, should say so.
On Friday, Judge McKay agreed.

“The language in our case is clear – the Legislature simply chose to give state agencies some discretion in determining which e-mails are worthy of preservation and which are not,” he wrote. A records retention plan through the state archives also makes distinctions, he noted, and classifies messages not required to be retained as “transitory” messages, meant mainly for informal communications.

This is a blow to government transparency in Alaska…a State that may be one of the most corrupt/most secretive in the U.S.

So from this, we can determine three things:

1) The judge not only allowed state employees to hide records from the public by using private accounts, he also may have expanded the definition of “non-record” emails sent on state accounts. As it stands now, the policy the State adopts regarding archived emails seems to interpret much more narrowly Alaska Statutes guidance on what are considered records. Per the State policy:

What is Non-record e-mail?
Non-record e-mail does not meet the definition of Record in AS 40.21.150(6) or AS 40.25.220(3). Non-record e-mail includes personal messages, spam, extra copies of documents distributed or received for reference, listserv or bulletin board posts, and announcements unrelated to official business, like retirement parties or holiday celebrations. Personal messages constitute non-records as they are not accounts or writings “developed or received by a public agency,” and are not “preserved for their informational value or as evidence of the organization or operation of the public agency” under AS 40.25.110

I suspect the ruling will give folks more confidence in disposing of records that they may have previously questioned.

(I also find it interesting that this clearly positive ruling towards Sarah Palin occurred days after an Alaska judge warranted a security detail because of threats stemming from the Palin v. Levi custody case. Just sayin’…)

2) The judge was clear that he believes Alaska Statutes allow State employees to police themselves, and;

3) The Judge made it clear that the Alaska Legislature is the only vehicle by which this practice can be changed permanently (Gov. Parnell has forbidden his employees from using private accounts to conduct State business…that will only last as long as he’s Governor)

In the legislature, Rep. Mike Doogan’s HB 195 addresses the issue of private v public emails directly:

* Section 1. AS 39.52 is amended by adding a new section to read:
04 Sec. 39.52.135. State electronic mail delivery systems required for official
05 action by electronic mail. (a) When taking or withholding official action, a public
06 officer may not send or cause another to send information by electronic transmission
07 within a system for electronic mail delivery unless the system is operated and
08 maintained by the state.

It is currently sitting in the State Affairs Committee.

However, there is still one more lawsuit out there…the ruling I’m breathlessly waiting for:

In essence, McLeod is arguing that if Todd Palin was copied on the state e-mails, the governor’s office can’t keep them from the public for reasons such as “executive privilege” and “deliberative process.”

Does being the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin give Todd Palin special access to internal communications off limits to the general public?
Andree McLeod, a former state worker turned activist, has gone to court arguing it does not. She is seeking an untold number of state e-mails that were copied to Todd Palin but withheld from a public records request she made in June.

“This latest refusal by the governor’s office to hold back official state e-mails has left me no other choice,” McLeod said. “And this is real important: The state can’t cloak these communications in secrecy when the governor and her staff have broken the chain of custody by sharing them with a mere private citizen, who is not … a state employee. Therefore, that entitles all citizens the right to examine these documents in the light of day.”

As Attny Don Mitchell (McLeod’s attorney for the email lawsuits) reported in an article on Mudflats in November “The legislation is ongoing.”

I have a very good reason that I’m particularly interested in this second, yet-to-be-determined lawsuit. It’s one many of you will be interested in as well…the majority of the emails that “respond” to my email inquiry were redacted for “privilege.”

I admit that I expected a number of them to be redacted, but I NEVER expected this many…there are over 70!

They go from emails allegedly handling a “cleavage complaint”…something that was NEVER an official complaint but just an email to Annette Kreitzer used to try and discredit Andree McLeod…there should be no privilege attached (more news on this one later):

We have emails claiming privilege when they are discussing a “web column”–basically, the media and their coverage:

And then…my favorite…ones that claim “attorney-client privilege” when they are either missing an attorney, a client or both (between Linda Perez and Cheif of Staff Mike Nizich)! Also, some have people on the CC who are neither:

The reason this ruling is so important (and I believed we’d have it by now) is Alaska Law in the area of privilege is a little bi-polar.

–Fuller v. City of Homer which states in the court decision:

We have repeatedly held that the [Alaska Public Records] act creates a presumption in favor of disclosure and that the act’s implicit legislative policy of broad public access requires courts to narrowly construe exceptions to disclosure.10

 
–However, Gwich’in Steering Committee v. Office of the Governor states in its ruling that the “deliberative process” in the Governor’s Office should be protected, even when the decision was already made:

The privilege may protect any governmental decisionmaking function, including the governor’s policymaking and lobbying of either state or federal government.
Generally, it is difficult for a requestor to override a presumptive privilege. [Fn. 56]

For this reason, it’s unlikely that any attorney will take another case dealing with privilege until they see the outcome of the one Don Mitchell and Andree McLeod is pursuing now. This is true even though most people can look at this partial list of redacted emails and see the farce in claiming “privilege.”

One prediction I will make: I believe the unfortunate outcome of the first ruling may be that it effects the second–that the court defers to the Alaska Legislature.

Alright, you’re going to need lots of equipment for this one. Looking glass? Check. Time Machine? Check. Protective forehead padding? Check.

First, you’ll need to watch this:

“There were numerous instances where she said things that were not accurate that ultimately the campaign had to deal with, and that opened the door to criticism that she was being untruthful and inaccurate.  And I think that that is something that continues to this day.”

After an ethics investigation of Palin when the Alaska Legislature issued a report, Schmidt says she mischaracterized that report.

“She went out and said, ‘This report completely exonorates me’ and in fact, it didn’t.  You know…it’s the equivalent of saying ‘down is up, and up is down.’  It was provably, demonstrably untrue.”

And Schmidt said it just kept happening.

And now, you’ll need to climb in the time machine, back to October 12, 2008. If your time machine is giving you problems, I’ll try to assist. Here’s a post I wrote on that day entitled: “Through the Looking Glass with Sarah Palin.”  I don’t often repost my own material, but this one was too good not to share.

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Through the Looking Glass With Sarah Palin

October 12, 2008 (Reprinted from mudflats.wordpress.com)

If there’s anyone else left out there who doesn’t believe that Sarah Palin can look you in the eye and tell you black is white, I have a present for you. Here is the transcript of a five minute conference call with Sarah Palin, Meg Stapleton, the Anchorage Daily News, and local TV stations KTVA, and KTUU. The journalists got one question each with no follow up.

I’ve been struggling to find the right terminology for this. She has jumped the shark. She has landed on Fantasy Island. She has slipped through the looking glass. She’s Queen of Denial. She has become the Head of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth… choose whichever metaphor works for you.

Here is the transcript of Palin’s interview by these journalists, after the Branchflower Report on the Troopergate investigation was released, stating that she had abused her power as governor. As a matter of fact, let’s review Finding Number One as it is written:

“For the reasons explained in section IV of the report, I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.11(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act.

“The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.”

The second thing we should review before joining Sarah Through the Looking Glass, is that the Legislative Council, made up of TEN Republicans and FOUR Democrats voted unanimously to begin the investigation, and unanimously to release the results of the investigation. Ten Republicans, four democrats. Remember that, because it comes up later.

Alright. So here is the transcript. The emphasis is mine, and used on those passages that defy reality, and/or leave me speechless.

Palin: Hey, thank you so, Meg. Thank you so much. Thank you also to our local reporters up there in Alaska. Even hearing your names make me feel like I’m right there with you at home. It’s good to get to speak with you. Let me talk a little bit about the Tasergate issue if you guys would let me and, Meg, you want me to just jump right on in there?

Stapleton: Sure governor, go ahead.

Palin: OK cool.

Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that. Todd did what anyone would have done given this state trooper’s very, very troubling behavior and his dangerous threats against our family. Todd did what I think any Alaskan would do.

And he, Todd did what the state’s Department of Law Web site tells anyone to do if they have a concern about a state trooper. And that’s you go to the commissioner and you express your concern. And Todd did what our personal detail asked him to do. Bob Cockrell early on as I was elected and was asked are there any threats against ya, and Todd brought the concern as I did to Commissioner Monegan about the state trooper’s threats. He did what any – I think — any rational person would do so again, nothing to apologize there with Todd’s actions and again very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing.

(Stapleton invites the first question).

ADN: Governor, finding No.1 on the report was that you abused your power by violating state law. Do you think you did anything wrong at all in this Troopergate case?

Palin: Not at all and I’ll tell you, it, I think that you’re always going to ruffle feathers as you do what you believe is in the best interest of the people whom you are serving. In this case I knew that I had to have the right people in the right position at the right time in this cabinet to best serve Alaskans, and Walt Monegan was not the right person at the right time to meet the goals that we had set out in our administration. So no, not having done anything wrong, and again very much appreciating being cleared of any legal wrongdoing or unethical activity at all.

ADN: Have you read the whole report? (No response; Stapleton invites question from KTVA reporter).

KTVA-Channel 11: … The report that came out yesterday, do you think that the end result is partisan?

Palin: Yeah, I did think it did turn into a partisan circus to tell you the truth. Yes I did. You know from Day One it’s been the Personnel Board that clearly laid out in state statute there — Personnel Board deals with any issue of question regarding a governor, a lieutenant governor or an attorney general in the state of Alaska. What this legislative investigation — quote unquote — turned into was a political circus.

KTUU-Channel 2: Governor, so good to hear from you. Do you approve of the way that your campaign has handled themselves here in Alaska? We’ve had a lot of people voice concerns about what they call attacks of good people in our state while you are away.

Palin: Well I haven’t heard of any attacks on good people in Alaska from our campaign. If you have specifics there, maybe I could answer specifically. But no, in John McCain’s mission here, in taking the high road, as you’re going to see too with a lot of unfair shots he has taken in this campaign with some of his opponents’ supporters, McCain and I taking the high road, being positive. I wouldn’t support nor would I condone taking shots at any good Alaskans.

KTUU-Channel 2: Let me answer your question since you asked for specifics.

Palin: Sure.

KTUU-Channel 2: Walt Monegan was called “rogue.” How do you feel about that?

Palin: Rogue isn’t a negative term when you consider that in a cabinet you need a team effort going forward with a governor’s agenda. And our agenda has been to find efficiencies in every department and make sure that we are serving the people of Alaska to the best of our ability given the resources that we have. And remember I fought very hard to increase funding for state troopers so that we could fill positions there and goals not being met that included not being able to recruit and retain all the state troopers that I wanted to best serve Alaska. That could be characterized I think as a cabinet member who – it’s not a negative term I think — being rogue in terms of not meeting those goals.

Just for fun, let’s check out the definition of “rogue.” *clears throat*

Rogue. Adjective.

Vicious and solitary. Used of an animal, especially an elephant.
1. Large, destructive, and anomalous or unpredictable: a rogue wave; a rogue tornado.
2. Operating outside normal or desirable controls: “How could a single rogue trader bring down an otherwise profitable and well-regarded institution?”

He’s a vicious, solitary elephant who doesn’t meet his goals…in a GOOD way.

So let’s recap. The report states she has abused her power as governor, and she’s really glad she’s done nothing wrong. Todd did what any “Alaskan” would do. She thinks the mostly Republican legislative council has turned into a partisan circus, but she hasn’t heard anything about attacks on anyone in Alaska from her campaign. The McCain campaign is taking the high road and being positive. And being a rogue cop isn’t a bad thing. Any questions?

If you want to read Lisa Demer’s full account, and hear the interview in the Governor’s own voice: CLICK HERE. That way you can just, you know, hear her talkin’ to the people, and bein’ what she is, also, and gettin’ her statement out there and rufflin’ feathers so as to serve the people of Alaska there also.

This must be the sound it makes when a house of cards collapses.

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The only thing I failed to take into account back then was that it would apparently take one year and three months for the collapsing cards to actually hit the dirt, and get acknowledged by the McCain campaign as being “provably, demonstrably untrue.”   Gravity takes a while in Looking Glass world.

The thing that Steve Schmidt and others have failed to acknowledge so far is John McCain’s culpability in this near disaster.  Regardless of who supposedly vetted her, the buck stopped with him, and he chose a woman to be his potential Vice President – OUR potential Vice President – who is not only incompetent by his campaign’s own admission, but who does not tell the truth.  His decision was irresponsible, and absolutely reckless.  As much as we chuckle at Sarah Palin, his judgment put our country, and the rest of the world at risk in the name of his own political ambition.  History will not judge him kindly.

Yes, I read Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue – An American Life.  I read it from cover to cover, including all the words.  Why would I do this?  Am I an unabashed masochist?  No.  The answer, my friend, is that I did it so you didn’t have to. 

My own copy is marked up in various colors of highlighter and Sharpie.  I tore a page because I pushed to hard while I was making a big red circle with a line through it.  I refer back now and then making more notations.  I look at it like that girl in the “I made it through Marine boot camp” commercial.  I tested myself, and I won.  So, now you can look at me and say “Good morning, Marine!”

I’ve had a couple requests over these last weeks to compile the various posts into one place.  So, I’ve created a category in the sidebar, and will now post this comprehensive linky list.   

And while I’m at it, I thought I’d include some comments by various “debunkers.”  Below, see links for articles that call Palin out on her lies, delusions, and exaggerations.  I’ll just add to this as the list grows.  And you know it will.
Chapter One – The Last Frontier

Chapter Two – Kitchen Table Politics

Chapter Three – Drill, Baby, Drill (Part One)

Chapter Three – Drill, Baby, Drill (Part Two)

Chapter Four – Going Rogue (Part One)

Chapter Four – Going Rogue (Part Two)

Chapter Four – Going Rogue (Part Three)

Chapter Five – The Thumpin’

Chapter Six – The Way Forward
(Including Epilogue, A View from Alaska, and Acknowledgments)

Indeces (unofficial, because the actual book didn’t have one)

Index: Famous People in Going Rogue 

Index: Rose-colored Glasses Version From The New Republic 

Index: Amusing Version from Slate.com

Index: The Huffington Post

Rogue Links and Voices from Under the Bus:
John McCain Defends His Staff from Palin Barbs

Nicolle Wallace:  Palin Just Made Things Up,  ‘Bizarre Fixation’ on Campaign

Steve Schmidt Calls Palin’s Memoirs “Total Fiction”

Former friend and Legislative Director John Bitney talks about Palin’s Lies

Bitney calls Palin a “sociopath.” (Video)

Attorney Don Mitchell talks about Palin’s lies

Trooper Mike Wooten Breaks His Silence to talk about Palin’s lies

Andrew Halcro – Palin’s  “Unmitigated Lies and Narcissistic Delusion”

A Scrabble Player Speaks Out About Palin’s Lies

Andrew Sullivan: The Odd Lies of Sarah Palin (Comprehensive List)

Levi Johnston Says Palin is “Full of It.”

Palin’s Book Goes Rogue on Facts – The Associated Press

Chief Wooden Legs Dissed – Coach Wooden Misquoted

Palin Throws the Bus Under the Bus!

Palin Quotes Plato – NOT!

An American Life or An American Lie?  Richard Fineberg on ACES

Palin’s Former Ally Calls More Lies to Rogue – Andree McLeod on Palin’s lies

The New York Review of Books Tackles Going Rogue