Pity poor Joe Miller.
JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Senate hopeful Joe Miller says he will no longer answer reporters' questions about his background and personal life, citing the "viciousness" of the campaign.
Politics, beanbag, Joe. Life outside the confines of the primary and the tea party gets a little rough, and when you say outrageous things about Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits and other entitlement programs being unconstitutional, you're opening yourself up to scrutiny, and people are going to find out that you're a hypocrite, bilking the state to get a cheap hunting license, taking farm subsidies you condemn, and your family unemployment benefits, or Medicaid that you call unconstitutional.
Miller says this has become a distraction from the issues of the race. And he told reporters in Anchorage he intended to focus on those issues until the election.
Well boo-fucking-hoo that the issues Miller actually brought up turned around to bite him in the ass. But it seems that there's another reason for Miller to suddenly decide to clam up. As diarist AnnetteK has chronicled here and here, there seem to be some questions about Miller's tenure as an attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough, and the circumstances under which he left that job.
The story first surfaced in June after a Murkowski supporter and blogger asserted that Miller had been fired from the job. That's led to back and fort between Miller and the borough, tussling over the release of his personnel files, including communication last week between lawyers in which the borough demands Miller "'retract and correct repeated misrepresentations he has made regarding his records,' including postings on his campaign website that suggest it's the borough, not Miller, that is blocking release of the records." Miller says that the borough has to waive attorney-client privilege before he'll sign a release allowing his personnel files to be made public, and the borough contends that Miller refuses to work with them to determine what issues are involved.
Meanwhile, the Alaska Dispatch and the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner have filed suit to get the records. Here's what appears to be the meat of the issue.
U.S. Senate Joe Miller's personnel file contains documents related to an "investigation," Alaska Dispatch has confirmed.
The new information adds weight to accusations that in March 2008 Miller was caught using borough computers for political gain.
Multiple sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Alaska Dispatch that Miller used other employees' computers to send out proxy votes in a failed effort to unseat Alaska GOP chair Randy Ruedrich.
And that would be a violation of the borough's ethics codes, not to mention his coworkers' computers. So Miller apparently engaged in dirty tricks to help out his buddy's wife, Sarah Palin, in her effort to oust Ruederich. That's what Miller is now refusing to answer questions about and what he calls "personal attacks". Because his ethics have absolutely nothing to do with his fitness to serve as an elected official.
Not that ethics or fitness to serve seems to get in the way with the Palin cabal. They're like a bunch of mini-Roves, with about half the brain power, smart enough to cook up ratfucking schemes but not smart enough to cover their tracks.
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