Read a Pacific Northwest, liberal perspective on world, national, and local politics. From majestic Redmond, Washington - the Northwest Progressive Institute Advocate.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Palin as a disciple of Bush/Cheney/Rove

Further proof that McCain-Palin would be a four year extension of Bush Administration policy: Sarah Palin gets by with a little help from her friends.

So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.

Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages.[emphasis mine]

A love of cows and a connection to the Governor apparently qualifies one to be the head of the State Division of Agriculture in Alaska. Sounds a lot like Mike "Heckuva Job" Brownie to me.

But cronyism isn't the only lesson Sarah Palin learned from the likes of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records. [emphasis mine]

So much for the open government that true conservatives claim to want. Practicing as Karl Rove preaches, Palin and her staff take sensitive or potentially embarrassing conversation off the state system into private e-mail so as to circumvent the public's right to know. Conducting the business of the Alaskan people in a cloak of secrecy smacks of the very same Potomac fever that infests Washington, D.C. right now. It's what McCain and Palin purport to clean up, if elected.

As Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden says, "That's not change. That's more of the same."

I suppose all we have left to find out is that Sarah Palin had energy companies write energy policy for Alaska, that she believes the Constitution is merely a suggestion, and that she, too, shoots her hunting partners in the face when she goes in for the kill.

Regardless, it appears that Sarah Palin has learned their lessons well.

Update - One more lesson Palin has learned: refusing to cooperate with official government investigations.

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