Legal Commentary

Non-scandal involving Gov. Palin: Even though he's an admitted child-abuser who Tasered his own step-son and used a deadly weapon to break the law, Trooper Wooten still has a job

By Beldar

I'm republishing as a post in its own right what I wrote in a comment on July 21 on my post describing Gov. Sarah Palin as the "Most popular politician in the country" ? which she indeed is among her own constituents in Alaska, and, I predict, will soon become around the rest of the nation.

Commenter Sam D had written: "Folks..you need to go to www.andrewhalcro.com to see what our Governor Palin has been up to. Her political career is all but over. She has been caught in many lies in the last few days. Read for yourself." Here's what I wrote in response (reprinted here with minor editing but without blockquoting; most links in original):

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Andrew Halcro, who runs a rental-car business, is a colorful crank who placed a distant third in the gubernatorial election that Palin won. He's devoted his life since then to trying to discredit her; her constituents see through it.

I take it you're referring to the possibility that she and members of her family may somehow acted improperly ? through a complaint she filed before she was governor and through later expressions of disapproval and concern when she was briefing the head of her gubernatorial security detail ? in the firing of the boss of an Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten, who was previously married to Palin's sister. (Wooten's been married and divorced four times, in fact.) In response to the complaint, Wooten was found in 2005 to have shot a moose illegally and to have used his Taser on his own ten-year-old stepson, "just to show him what it would feel like to be Tasered." (To work up a righteous furor over this, the Left will be obliged to pivot from its stance in the Andrew Meyer Tasering incident at the John Kerry speech in Florida last year, and to instead wear "Please Tase Me, Dad!" tee-shirts.) The trooper apparently was also photographed by the governor's husband while riding a snowmobile while off work on a worker's compensation claim for a supposed back injury, and the governor has reported that he's made death threats against her and her father.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on August 29, 2008 (boomark / email).