Sunday, September 14, 2008

Meet the new boss...

The past few weeks have seen the Obama camp and much of the lefty blogosphere attempt to paint John McCain as W version 2.0. After reading today's NYTimes piece -- Jo Becker, Peter S. Goodman and Michael Powell dug through public records and interviewed some 60 legislators and local officials from both sides of the aisle -- perhaps they and we should have spent more time beating Palin about the head and face with the "Four More Years" stick.

Turns out Ms. Palin's governing philosophy, and please stop me if you've heard this before, rewards loyalty, punishes dissent, stacks government positions with friends and cronies, avoids candid discussions with the press, discloses nothing, and steadfastly safeguards against any shedding of light upon the internal machinations of her administration. I've pulled a few examples and put them below the fold. Be sure to read the entire piece.

Heckuva job, Havemeisty:
...when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency.
A subpoena avoided trumps a subpoena ignored:
Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
Time on the ranch is time well-spent:
Many lawmakers contend that Ms. Palin is overly reliant on a small inner circle that leaves her isolated. Democrats and Republicans alike describe her as often missing in action. Since taking office in 2007, Ms. Palin has spent 312 nights at her Wasilla home, some 600 miles to the north of the governor’s mansion in Juneau, records show.
Ew, barracuda...

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