The Enlightened Despot

Sarah Palin doesn’t understand why people won’t accept her stated reasons for quitting at face value. Kevin Drum is somewhat sympathetic. Stanley Fish thinks the pundits searching for an angle are more dispicable than Palin herself. They are all way off the mark.

Human interaction would be pretty difficult if it weren’t the default assumption that most people were telling the truth most of the time. Most utterances are fairly trivial; we can generally assume that people aren’t lying to us about the weather, because even the slightest inclination toward honesty would be sufficient to outweigh any possible incentive to lie about such a thing.

Of course, it is customary to give people the benefit of the doubt even when they do have a tangible incentive to lie. Our attitudes toward lying and liars make even this a good bet under many circumstances. Since we tend not to associate with people who have proved to be dishonest in the best, our odds get better with time. And since people are generally rational enough to save their lies for situations in which they are unlikely to be found out, a ceteris paribus assumption of honesty works out fairly well.

If, however, we are concerned only with figuring out what is actually true about the world, and have no interest in common courtesy - as we shouldn’t in analyzing the public actions of political figures - there is no reason whatsoever to make this assumption. That a politician says that x is true when the stakes are high and the chance of being proven a liar are essentially zero (even if a scandal breaks, no one can prove she was lying about her motivation here) should barely count as prima facie evidence for the actual truth of x. When the politician in question is Sarah Palin you can drop the qualifiers: that Palin is quitting for the reasons she gave is no more likely than if she had said nothing at all. Which is to say, not very likely at all.

As always, a little David Hume is instructive:

It is, therefore, a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

Every woman, too. And in Palin’s case, it isn’t just a supposition.

That new Palin scandal I promised has been announced, and it has to do with the sponsorship of Todd’s snowmobile team:

Arctic Cat really wanted to sponsor team Davis-Palin this year. For obvious reasons that go above and beyond Todd’s defending champion status, they knew that “Team Palin” was getting lots of attention from Alaskans, and the national media. All eyes would be on that bright green Arctic Cat logo.  Turns out there was even a photo shoot and article in Sports Illustrated this year focusing on the “first dude.” That’s some nice exposure; exposure that was worth $5000 for Arctic Cat to get permission to “brand” Todd Palin and his team.

But, as anyone who has taken time to consider “conflict of interest” or anyone who has read the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act (like, hopefully, our governor) knows, there’s a line that can’t be crossed.  If the governor’s family benefits directly from a private sponsor, (like getting a $5000 check from them) and the governor shows up to take an official role at an official event, representing all Alaskans, it’s a big fat no-no to show up plastered like a billboard with the official “gear” and giant flaming logo of the company that’s been paying you money.

The only shocking thing here is just how little this impresses me. Sure, allowing corporations to pay politicians for sponsorship rights to official functions is obviously illegal, and for all the right reasons. Another ethics complaint has been filed against Palin, and presumably the charge will stick. That’s 11 complaints thus far for the Barracuda. And therein lies the rub: if she’s still standing at this point, what’s one more moral and legal lapse going to do? Anyone crazy enough to still see her as fit for any sort of office at this point isn’t going to let this be the last straw.

Call me when she kills somebody.

Over at Mudflats, a list of bad recent developments for Sarah Palin ends with this tantalizing item:

And finally, implosion #5…….   I can’t tell you.  Sorry to do it to you Mudflatters, but trust me when I tell you, it’s a good one. Well….unless you’re Sarah Palin.  A press release is imminent in the next day or so, so I’ll let you use your imagination.  It’s like a blog cliffhanger!  Tune in tomorrow when Sarah Palin is stunned by

What’s it going to be? Is someone else in the clan pregnant? Have they found that Bridge to Nowhere? Are they releasing those emails I’m always going on about? Stay tuned.

Looking back at my post making fun of Andrew Sullivan for his obsession with Trig Palin, I figured I should make it clear that, while I find the obsession absurd, I don’t think his point is absurd. I feel that it’s safe to stop wondering about the manner of Trig’s birth, since, you know, the election is over. And while it’s definitely worth holding Palin-apologists accountable, we don’t really need a lot of new data to do that. There’s already enough out there to disqualify her as a serious candidate for public office in the eyes of any one susceptible to reason. That said, I don’t buy into the moral outrage at his daring to ask about this for a minute. She was a nominee for vice-president, and she made a point of turning her(?) son into a political football, so this issue is 100% fair game. It’s a tough break for Bristol, no doubt, but she’ll have to take that up with her mother.

And Andrew is right that the whole story is absolutely bonkers. A few days after the nomination, in an informal poll of six or seven women who had given birth, one of whom was a doctor, I was unable to find anyone who even believed me that someone had claimed to have gotten on a plane in her condition. Either the woman is totally out of her mind, or she is lying, or both. But then, we already knew that she is constantly lying and is out of her mind, so, really, what’s the point?

Ok, that’s the last I’ll have to say about Trig. I promise. At least until they announce Bristol isn’t pregnant after all, or the kid is born and given a funny name.

From Steve Benen:

Do we have to exclude Spitzer from addressing the issues on which he has considerable expertise? Issues that have nothing to do with an unrelated sex scandal?

Yep.

I’m all for legalizing prostitution. I also don’t have any objection to people breaking existing laws concerning prostitution; following the law gets more credit as a policy than it deserves. The hypocrisy bothers me a bit, and he generally seems like a pretty nasty guy, but, overall, I wouldn’t have all that much against Spitzer-for-something-or-other on the merits. But is he so unbelievably qualified that he’s worth the political headache? No, no he isn’t.

Don’t think the end of election season will stop him. Andrew Sullivan still really, really wants to know the scoop on Trig Palin:

We only have a letter released a few hours before voting began from Palin’s doctor, Catherine Baldwin Johnson, asserting that Palin was the biological mother of five. That letter could have been released in August, but wasn’t. Why? Then we have three photographs showing Palin somewhat pregnant but certainly not seven or eight months pregnant.

I’m not sure who Trig’s parents are, but I do know that ’somewhat pregnant’ is a terrific phrase.

I wasn’t going to bother posting about the refusal of Bailey, Frye, and the rest of Palin’s aides to honor subpoenas issued by the legislature’s ethics investigation into Troopergate. I hadn’t expected them to go in smiling, and since I haven’t seen any clear reporting on what the legal status of this showdown is, I figured this was essentially non-news at this point. It has been getting more play than I expected, however, so here goes:

In a letter to state Sen. Hollis French, the Democrat overseeing the investigation, Republican Attorney General Talis Colberg asked that the subpoenas be withdrawn. He also said the employees would refuse to appear unless either the full state Senate or the entire Legislature votes to compel their testimony.

Colberg, who was appointed by Palin, said the employees are caught between their respect for the Legislature and their loyalty to the governor, who initially agreed to cooperate with the inquiry but has increasingly opposed it since McCain chose her as his running mate.

“This is an untenable position for our clients because the governor has so strongly stated that the subpoenas issued by your committee are of questionable validity,” Colberg wrote.

Pretty astonishing reasoning. They’ve been subpoenaed to testify in an investigation into their boss, but their boss would rather they didn’t, so what are they to do? There hasn’t been an announcement yet as to whether Todd will show up to testify tomorrow (I’m guessing no). At the same time, Republicans are suing to halt the investigation altogether. McCain has also dispatched a lawyer to Alaska to help keep Palin out of trouble.

Finally, Michelle Malkin (I never thought I’d link to her, but here it comes) has a good summary of how Palin’s email account was hacked. I feel justified for my long term hatred of password-retrieval security questions. The answer to every one of these I’ve ever had to provide is a string of profanity-laden invective against the jerks who are subjecting me to the process. As it turns out, allowing a password - which, they insist, should not consist of actual words or references to public information about yourself - to be circumvented with the answers to easily researchable trivia isn’t such a hot idea. Who knew?

UPDATE: Todd Palin will not testify. It’s unlikely that anyone will show up to testify today.

Well, at least until something new happens. First, a recap:

You can read about all of this in more detail in our archives, but, in short, there is very good reason to suspect that two of the 1,100 emails Sarah Palin has refused to release to private citizen Andree McLeod under Alaska’s version of an FOIA request discuss the now famous phone call placed by Frank Bailey to Rodney Dial in which he reports that the Palins would like Trooper Wooten fired. Palin has denied any knowledge of this phone call, so - while it is certainly possible that Wooten is mentioned explicitly in these emails, and even possible that Todd Palin ordered the call in conversations with Ivy Frye - any mention of a forthcoming conversation between Bailey and Dial would be proof that Palin has lied directly and repeatedly about an issue with regards to which she is currently being investigated for ethics violations. This would be a very, very serious blow both to Palin personally, and to John McCain’s campaign.

Last Tuesday, McCleod submitted an appeal to the governor’s office for 40 emails - including the two in question - to be released on the grounds that, since they were sent to or from Todd Palin, a private citizen, they are not eligible for protection under executive privilege. Palin is required to respond to the appeal within 10 business days (which would mean by a week from tomorrow, I believe), but her response can be a request for an extension of 30 more business days, meaning that she could wait until around October 28th to formally refuse to release these messages. It is hard to imagine that any legal challenge initiated at that point could be completed in time to influence the election; furthermore, McCleod is a private citizen acting without assistance, so there is no reason to believe she has the resources to engage in a legal battle with Palin.

The upshot of all this is that there may well be a smoking gun in the Troopergate scandal, but one that Governor Palin can easily keep hidden away until after the election if she is left to her own devices. If, on the other hand, the media were to catch on to this story, it would be very politically costly for Palin to do this, since, while she is allowed to take the next month and a half to rule on the appeal, it is not remotely plausible that she needs the next month and a half to make her decision. If the contents of the emails are very damaging, she will no doubt stall as long as she is allowed, but if there is media scrutiny of the issue, everyone will know that she is stalling. Her guilt will be assumed, and her party’s chances in November will suffer.

As we have noted elsewhere, stories about her penchant for lying have already started to pile up, but this could constitute proof of the most salient lie of her governorship and vice-presidential candidacy. There isn’t much more extant information that I am in a position to acquire, so I won’t have anything more to say on this issue, except, perhaps, to repeat this: this would be a very serious issue for the McCain campaign if anyone was reporting on it. They aren’t. Tell your friends. Email your favorite blogger. Get the word out.

While I’ve had a lot to say about the emails Sarah Palin has refused to release, I haven’t paid much attention to the emails that have been released, something I plan to rectify. Here’s a pretty significant excerpt from Palin foe Andrew Halcro:

On February 29, an email was sent from Frank Bailey to Ivy Frye just after Bailey’s recorded phone call to Alaska State Trooper Rodney Dial.

“Leaving pretty quick for the airport…call me though I need to give you a heads up. Spoke to Rodney and he doesn’t get that kind of stuff since he’s a Lieutenant, but he’d definitely pass it on.”

Phone logs have also been released, and they don’t help the Palins’ case either. From the same article:

However according to phone logs, Todd Palin called Ivy Frye three times between 1:45pm and 3:50pm on the afternoon of February 28, the day before Bailey’s call to Dial.

So, a quick recap to put these points in context: On the afternoon of the 28th, Todd Palin makes three phone calls to Ivy Frye. That night, Frye sends an email - which the governor’s office has refused to release - with the subject heading ‘PSEA’ to a group that includes both Palins and Frank Bailey. The next morning (the 29th), Sarah Palin sends an email - also withheld - with the same subject to the same group. At around the same time, Frank Bailey places the famous phone call to Rodney Dial, which begins with a discussion of PSEA negotiations and moves on to the subject of Wooten. Finally, there is the email from Bailey to Frye quoted above. For more detail on PSEA and the phone call, read my initial post on this issue, but the comment “Spoke to Rodney and he doesn’t get that kind of stuff” is a direct reference to the phone call. And this comment establishes pretty definitively that Frye, at the very least, knew that Bailey was going to call Dial, and what he was going to ask him, because he didn’t need to specify what ‘kind of stuff’.

So Frye knew Bailey was going to speak to Dial about PSEA, and Frye sent Bailey an email about PSEA the night before. It’s far from definitive, but at this point there is a great deal of circumstantial evidence that the phone call would have been mentioned in one or both of the two emails. This is significant, because even if there isn’t a word about Wooten in either email, and nothing damaging was said about PSEA, this would constitute a very direct lie on Palin’s part. Under fire over the Wooten issue, she has said repeatedly that she knew nothing about the phone call in question.

I’ll have more on the details and timing of the appeal later, but for now I’ll just say this: it is absolutely amazing that more attention isn’t being paid to this. Even if there were no chance of the Palins being legally forced to make any more information available before the election, there is more than enough meat here for the media to put pressure on them about these two messages. So far, no major news outlet has even mentioned that they exist.

I can now say with reasonable certainty that Andree McLeod’s current appeal will be denied. (If you’re not following me, catch up here and here.) This has nothing to with the merits of the argument, and everything to do with the fact that the appeal is being considered by… wait for it… Sarah Palin. The first recourse for someone whose request for public records is denied is an appeal to the agency that did the denying, asking them to reconsider. In this case, I’m guessing not too much deliberation will be required.

There is, of course, another level of appeal once this falls through, though I have not yet figured out what the details of that are. I’m also not certain how long Palin gets to pretend to deliberate before rejecting the appeal, but the time limit for responding to the initial request for documents is ten business days; if the limit for responding to an appeal is the same, she would have to say ‘no’ a week from Tuesday.

Kevin Drum has a copy of the appeal. Though I am by no means a legal expert, I haven’t found someone who is one talking about this, so I muddled my way through it and looked up some of the relevant laws. Here is a very rough outline of the argument:

1.) First off, the Freedom of Information Act isn’t directly involved at all. The documents were requested under an Alaskan law which serves the same purpose.

2.) As it turns out, there is nothing like executive privilege anywhere on the books in Alaska. There is, however, a list of exceptions included in the FOIA-like law, one of which is the following: “(4) records required to be kept confidential by a federal law or regulation or by state law”. An Alaskan court ruled that an executive privilege should be understood as assured by the seperation of powers embodied in Alaska’s constitution. A later ruling held that this ruling should be considered a state law for the purposes of (4) above. (This is unrelated, but note that the Alaskan courts did a nifty bit of legislating on the grounds of the seperation of powers. But don’t get me started.)

3.) There are apparently no relevant precedents in Alaskan law concerning executive privilege being invoked with regards to a document that was sent to a private citizen.

4.) The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that federal rulings on executive privilege with regards to the FOIA are “instructive” as to how Alaska’s executive privilege non-law should be interpreted.

5.) There are relevant precedents in federal law. There, the courts have ruled that voluntarily granting access to someone who isn’t an employee of the executive constitutes waiving executive privilege.

QED. Or so it would seem. It would be great if someone were reporting on this in a substantive way, so that legal experts could evaluate this, but no one is, so that will have to do for now.

Following up on an earlier post about Todd Palin and the Troopergate emails, the story has finally started to make a little headway in the MSM with this article. On Tuesday, Andree McLeod, the Anchorage native who first made the FOIA request for the emails, formally appealed the withholding of 1,100 emails, and especially those few that Todd Palin received (for more on their possible content, check the earlier post).

The article still doesn’t mention what any lawyers not involved with the case think about the merits of the claim. I’m doing my best to find someone qualified to have an opinion on this, and also to contact some of the principals. But it seems clear to me that the outcome of this private citizen’s appeal is much more important than anything currently going on with the much more widely reported government ethics investigation, though the progression of the former will no doubt affect that of the latter.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that McLeod - unlike many of the other people coming out of the woodwork to attack Palin - is not a long time foe with an axe to grind. In fact, she was once a Palin supporter, and Palin had a lot of nice things to say about her, though she immediately turned very nasty when McLeod began investigating her. She is just a private activist who has a lot to say about corruption, of which the governor seems to be a dedicated producer.

UPDATE 4:44 PM: It’s worth mentioning that none of the articles on this issue say anything about the two emails that could very well be related to the Bailey phone call, let alone that these are amongst the Todd-emails for which the legal case is presumably stronger. As far as I can tell, this aspect - which is what makes this story so significant - has been relegated to obscure blogs. Also, the only lawyer quoted on the merits of the appeal is the one handling the case for McLeod; that he thinks they’re on to something doesn’t strike me as newsworthy.

Palin scandals are a dime a dozen these days. The sheer number of them, the fact that many have proved to be nonsense, and the lack of a smoking gun in any of them have led (I feel) to a consensus that there is quantity but no quality, that nothing but a few quasi-lies and position reversals (I hate the term ‘flip-flop’) is likely to emerge. This is wrong. There is still a very real chance that a game-changing - if not game-ending - piece of evidence will emerge. Here, as I see it, is the GOP’s biggest liability:

One of the less discussed scandals concerns the role Todd Palin’s role in his wife’s administration as governor of Alaska. A number of Palin-opponents have levelled the charge that Todd - who had no official connection to government - played an inapropriately active part in running the state. A summary of these charges can be found here.

As the article mentions, a seperate group of Palin detractors, looking into Troopergate, requested a huge number of emails from the governor’s office under the FOIA. Many of those messages were denied based on executive privilege, usually under the heading ‘Deliberative Process / Executive’. The denied emails include messages sent to or from Todd Palin. Some have argued that this is damning in and of itself, as it shows that Todd was involved in matters he should not have been; I doubt that this line of attack on its own has legs.

What should have the McCain camp worried is the attempt to revoke executive privilege for all emails for which Todd was the sender or one of the recipients, on the grounds that he is not a state employee. I have no idea how clear cut the laws on this are, but I do have the very strong sense that if these emails are released, Palin will be, in both a legal and political sense, completely fucked.

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