Alaska's "First Dude," the once-and-possibly-future secessionist Todd Palin, has provided an affidavit to the state legislature's Troopergate investigators explaining his role in the firing of former Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. In it, he offers yet another excuse for Monegan's firing, a never-before-told tale of poor Sarah Palin's mistreatment which manages to bring resurrect one of the McCain/Palin campaign's earliest lies, the one about the state jet Sarah Palin supposedly sold on eBay.
A quick recap to the Troopergate story can be found here. The short version: Sarah Palin and her husband tried, directly and through her staff, to have their former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, fired. Wooten had been embroiled in a nasty divorce from Palin's sister prior to Palin's election as governor, and was investigated based on claims they made against him. He was cleared of many of the allegations, but was given a ten-day suspension (later reduced to five days) based on some of the other claims. When Monegan, as the state's top cop, refused to take any further action after a supplemental inquiry requested by Todd Palin turned up nothing new, the governor fired Monegan.
Palin initially denied that there was any action by her or her staff to have Wooten fired. That lie was exposed when tape recordings surfaced of one of her aides doing just that.
Palin claimed that she fired Monegan because of his failure to recruit new troopers. That lie fell apart quickly, too, because the state trooper academy graduating classes had been larger under Monegan than under his predecessors.
Next, Palin said that Monegan hadn't actually been "fired" -- he was just removed from his post and offered a position as the state's alcohol control czar, a job paying some $10,000 a year less ... a job Monegan did not accept, and which Palin then left vacant.
After Palin's selection as McCain's running mate, the campaign released a statement saying that Monegan was guilty of "egregious insubordination" for planning an unauthorized visit to Washington DC. That lie fell apart when reporters obtained documents approving the trip, signed by Palin's chief of staff.
Next, the campaign argued that while the visit was authorized, Monegan's planned purpose -- to ask for more funding to fight sexual assault -- was not. Since Alaska has the highest per capita incidence of forcible rape in the country, this explanation was worse than no explanation at all, especially in light of reports that when she was mayor, Palin's town made a practice of billing rape victims for the cost of the forensic exams that could help identify and convict the rapists.
Now, Todd Palin has repeated all the old excuses and given yet another explanation for Monegan's firing: according to the First Dude, Monegan didn't "get on top of" making the state troopers' turboprop plane -- which Palin used after selling the governor's jet (at a loss) to one of her campaign contributors -- available whenever Sarah Palin wanted it. Palin said he and his wife thought the department "was retaliating against Sarah" because she had sold a jet that "Department of Safety officials enjoyed using."
This is the first time the Palins have argued that Monegan's dismissal was due to his supposed "retaliation." At this point, it's clear that the McCain/Palin strategy is to throw as many stories as they can into the air, creating a sort of verbal chaff to get them through November 4th.
Regis Philbin used to ask: "Is that your final answer?" I'm betting it's not. The election is just twenty-six days away -- plenty of time for the Palins to concoct yet another lie.