MSNBC:
Alaska's investigation into whether Gov. Sarah Palin abused her power, a potentially damaging distraction for John McCain's presidential campaign, ran into intensified resistance Tuesday when the attorney general said state employees would refuse to honor subpoenas in the case.
For Republicans, government is no longer about law. It's about physics. Subpoena? Well, I'm not going unless you can actually drag me in there.
Hmm. It feels so familiar, too. If only this were happening on a national level instead of being isolated up in Alaska. Then we'd be paying attention to it! Hey, wait a minute...
But even if this weren't a direct parallel to the Bush/Cheney stonewalling of the U.S. Attorneys inquiry, we'd still be looking at another ridiculous case of Democrats bringing sporks to a gunfight. This is Florida 2000 for the Republicans. Remember when they were crying lying about Democrats airdropping lawyers into Alaska?
Also Tuesday, five Republican state lawmakers filed a lawsuit against an investigation they called "unlawful, biased, partial and partisan." None serves on the bipartisan Legislative Council that unanimously approved the inquiry. They want it pushed past the election or top Democrats removed from the probe.
Making clear the dispute has ramifications beyond Alaska, Liberty Legal Institute, a Texas-based legal advocacy group, was working on the lawsuit. The institute has taken on a variety of cases in defense of conservative Christian positions.
Yeah.
Of course.
And there's more:
A former top Justice Department prosecutor now working for John McCain's presidential campaign has been helping to direct an aggressive legal strategy aimed at shutting down a pre-election ethics investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
The growing role of Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, illustrates just how seriously the McCain campaign is taking the so-called "troopergate" inquiry into Palin's firing last summer of Walt Monegan, Alaska's Public Safety Commissioner.
But O'Callaghan (who resigned from the U.S. attorney's office at the end of July to join the McCain campaign) is doing more than just public relations when it comes to "troopergate." He told NEWSWEEK that he and another McCain campaign lawyer (whom he declined to identify) are serving as legal "consultants" to Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer who at state expense is representing Palin and her office in the inquiry. "We are advising Thomas Van Flein on this matter to the extent that it impacts on the national campaign," he said. "I'm helping out on legal strategy."
Same m.o. as always: accuse Democrats of doing what you're about to do, and hope no one notices.
In the meantime, where's your Democratic team, making sure people get the truth?
There is no Democratic team.
Florida 2000. No lessons learned.
Will this be the scene in some future Michael Moore film that sets Democratic faces burning with shame and embarrassment at their failure to act?
Gee, I hope we aren't headed for another "nice guy's finish" in this.