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12 Oct 2008 12:03 pm

"Truly Peculiar And Creepy"

Hilzoy has a useful and devastating post on the Alaska legislature's finding that governor Palin abused her power to go after and ruin a former family member against whom she had a grudge:

The Palins really seem to have had it in for Wooten. This was obvious before -- most people don't try to get someone fired just for kicks -- but reading all the details makes it really clear. The report lists nine people whom Todd Palin contacted about Wooten; two say that he had "numerous conversations" and "10-20x", respectively, and the report lists nine contacts with the other seven. Sarah Palin contacted Monegan three times and another person twice; and her Chief of Staff, Commissioner of Administration, Attorney General, and Director of Boards and Commissions all contacted people about Wooten.

That's a whole lot of contacts. Enough to make this claim by Governor Palin seem not just false, but absurd:

"Governor Palin says, "All I know what the facts are and what the truth is. And the truth is never was there any pressure put on Commissioner Monegan to hire or fire anybody.""

It also makes it very hard to believe Palin's claim that she only became aware in mid-August that people in her administration had contacted Monegan and others about Wooten. That might be true if all the contacts had come from Todd Palin. But the idea that she was unaware not just that her husband was calling people, but that her Chief of Staff, Commissioner of Administration, Attorney General, and Director of Boards and Commissions were doing so, defies belief.

Moreover, the Palins seem to have had access to a private investigator's report on Wooten (p. 18). And Todd Palin called people on several occasions to inform them of something Wooten seems to have done wrong that, absent a whole lot of coincidences, he could only have known if he was having Wooten followed, or if he was himself stalking Wooten. Once he called to say that Wooten, who had been injured, was riding his snowmobile, that he (Palin) had pictures, and that he "thought there might be some workers' compensation fraud issues." (p. 29.) It turned out that Wooten had consulted with his doctor before going snowmobiling. Another time, Todd Palin called to say that Wooten had been seen dropping his kids off at school in a marked police vehicle. It turned out that Wooten had his supervisor's permission to do so. (p. 32.) It's pretty strange.

Generally, the report makes it sound as though the Palins, especially Todd Palin, were just obsessed with Wooten, in a truly peculiar and creepy way.

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