Sarah Palin’s Troopergate: A Non-Starter? I think not.

The Republicans may have dispatched their mouthpieces to the networks and newspapers to extoll the wisdom of McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate, but the fact is, a fact that is surely sinking right now within the core of the Republican Party, McCain made an embarrassing and dangerous choice for his ticket: Palin is embroiled in a scandal that, when the press and the national bloggers begin to examine it, will blow wide open. [as I wrote this, Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo does his own take on this story, one that TPM had been reporting on for quite a while]

That scandal is called “Troopergate” by the Alaskan press and blogger corp and it only takes a cursory reading of the story to smell the chum in the water that will draw them into this story further.

The basic summary of the story is that Sarah Palin’s sister married 4-year-veteran State Trooper, Mike Wooten. Four years later, Wooten files for divorce from his wife. And then the trouble starts. A rash of complaints begin to be filed against Wooten from members of Palin’s family against Wooten. All of the charges are investigated, he was found guilty of some of the charges and was sanctioned, but the majority of the Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS) investigations find in favor of Wooten.

What does Andrew Halco, former gubenatorial candidate and Alaska Independent, have to say?

In Wooten’s eight year career, the only complaints that have been filed against him came from people associated with Governor Palin during a divorce and child custody fight in which they were trying to get him fired so he wouldn’t be able to get custody of his children.

Unfortunately for Wooten, Sarah Palin is elected to the office of Governor. Now the calls begin from within the Governor’s office (from her staff and her husband) allegedly attempting to force the head of the Alaska DPS Commissioner, Walt Monegan, to fire Wooten.

Monegan refuses to do anything more. Palin fires him.

Palin claims in the Juneau Empire newspaper,

Palin said late Monday she welcomes the investigation.

“I’ve said all along, ‘Hold me accountable,”‘ she said. “I’m telling the truth when I say, there was never pressure put upon Commissioner Monegan.

“I did not ask him to hire or fire anyone in the two years that we worked together. If it takes an investigation to prove that to Alaskans, then so be it, certainly.”

A month later, a tape is discovered that has one of her staffers (staff member, Frank Bailey) calling one of the troopers at the DPS. Bailey claims to be calling on behalf of Sarah and Todd (Todd Palin, her husband, who the press will soon discover, made a habit of spending a lot of time in Sarah’s official government meetings). From the Juneau Empire one month later after her claim of knowing nothing about the contacts with the DPS:

Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday said at least two dozens calls were made from her staff members to Department of Public Safety officials questioning the employment of a trooper who went through a messy divorce with Palin’s sister.

Palin says that she had no knowledge of those calls. This will also prove to be false: the day of the call in question, a series of emails were exchanged (after the call) between Bailey, Palin, her husband and several other staffers, which likely discussed this call and how it had not been very successful. Form your own opinion. You can listen to the call here. While the call is somewhat long, I suggest you listen through the entire thing.

The State of Alaska begins an investigation, after a bipartisan group votes 12-0 in favor. With an investigator now on the case, Palin dispatches her Attorney General to interview the witnesses within the DPS in advance of the State’s investigator. Shades of witness tampering? It sure seems like it.

So all in all, McCain’s vetting process doesn’t exactly seem thorough. And Governor Palin is in the middle of a legislative investigation. While all the facts certainly have not come out yet, the very fact that they haven’t come out one way or the other underlines just how dangerous this choice really is.

After years of a Bush Administration that scoffed at the rule of law, is choosing an ethically-challenged inexperienced Governor really the right choice? Don’t forget that one of the key things voters rebelled against in the 2006 election was political corruption in the Republican Party (Abrahamoff, Ney, etc, etc).

Last night, I heard Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow both refer to this story and utter, in almost perfect sync, “That story is a non-starter.” I think both Keith and Rachel should consider who told them this line.