With Sarah Palin, Barack Obama Shows Rod Blagojevich How Pay-For-Play Is Done!

I wrote this earlier in the year, and posted it on my other blog at Townhall.com, but frankly, this fits right in with the theme of choice, and my ongoing open letters to Republicans in office. This was going on during the 2008 Presidential and the Republican party chose to stand back, and do nothing. John McCain's campaign chose to stand back, and do nothing, as well.

So what happened? The democrats were able to smear the reputation of a great Governor, with nothing but lies. And at least one of them, Senator Kim Elton benefited from pay-for-play with Obama.

And as always, the Republicans proved to be worthless at protecting their own.

Now since I originally posted this story, the Alaskan democrats tried to force one of the "troopergate" co-conspirators, Beth Kerttula, down Governor Palin's throat, as the replacement for Kim Elton. However, Governor Palin said no, and literally asked for resumes from any registered democrats in Juneau, Elton's district, who might be interested in being a Senator!

After much wrangling, Governor Palin was able to convince the democrats that it was in their best interest to accept former Juneau Mayor, Dennis Egan, whose father was Alaska's first Governor, rather than any of the four choices they had put out there, including their first choice, Beth Kerttula.

With Sarah Palin, Barack Obama Shows Rod Blagojevich How Pay -For-Play Is Done!

Long before Americans learned about the sorted tails of, now impeached, Governor Rod Blagojevich, and his attempt to sell the Senate seat vacated by now President Barack Obama, there was a much more nefarious plot taking place in our northern most state.

Anyone who was not on another planet during the past election cycle heard the words “troopergate” blasting from their television, or saw the words staring ominously at them from their newspapers. But how many know what the real story was, or how it grew so big?

Well, in the interest of brevity, the simple answer was, Governor Palin fired Walt Monegan, the Public Safety Commissioner of Alaska. Actually fired is not quite correct. She was displeased with his continual insubordination, especially on budget issues, and his penchant to continually try and do end runs around her office. So, she offered him job reassignment. When he refused, she took action.

Now there is a back story to this, as there always is. At the same time this was going on, Governor Palin’s sister, was having trouble with her ex-husband, State Trooper Michael Wooten. This is a troubled fellow, who had a history of violence with his ex-wife, having threatened to kill her, and the Governor’s father, and the Governor herself. He also tazered his son once, and had been caught driving his patrol car drunk. This fellow is not trooper of the month material.

Now, before we go any further in the story, and get to the good parts, let me make sure everyone knows one thing. Trooper Wooten is still Trooper Wooten. He is still on the job!

Now with that said, in Alaska, there are some politicians that never let a good crisis or story angle go to waste. So, after Mr Monegan was fired, the story was cooked up, that Governor Palin fired him because he wouldn’t show Trooper Wooten the door. The same Trooper Wooten who is still employed.

Pretty soon these democrats set the wheels in motion for the Grand Inquisition. A nice show trial for the Alaskan people. All was well with the world.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Senator John McCain, who just happened to be running for President, took a lot of grass roots American’s advice, and chose Governor Sarah Palin to be his Vice Presidential running mate. That set the wheels in motion for some serious hijinx.

At this time, let me introduce you to a key player in this story, and the recipient of the pay, for the play, Alaska State Senator, Kim Elton. Elton, along with Senator Hollis French, Stephen Branchflower and Beth Kerttula were the democrats in charge of the show trial.

Some background on Kim Elton, and his ties to the Obama campaign.

Elton is a long-time friend of Pete Rouse, who was Senator Obama’s chief of staff and campaign advisor. (Rouse currently serves in the White House as a Senior Advisor.) Rouse and Elton worked together in Juneau in the late 1970s on the staff of Alaska Republican Lt. Gov. Terry Miller.

According to CNN reports, after Governor Palin was selected for the GOP ticket, the Obama campaign contacted the PSEA Union that represented Trooper Wooten and filed a phony complaint against her.

Although the hearings were set for sometime in 2009, Townhall’s Amanda Carpenter reported in September of 2008 : French, Elton, and Branchflower were hard at work, looking to make this an “October surprise”. Even though the investigation was ongoing, French was already describing it as “damaging,”

Even though this report was far from done, French was calling it a “game changer”. Something that would “perhaps even cause Palin's impeachment as Governor-- a game-changing outcome that would certainly increase the Democrats chances of winning the White House in November.”

The partisanship was so strong by the democrats that Alaska’s Speaker of the House, John Harris requested a special meeting with the Legislative Council, but his request was refused. The witch hunt was on.

At that point five Alaska Legislators, Rep. Wes Keller, Rep. Mike Kelly, Rep. Bob Lynn, Sen. Fred Dyson, and Sen. Tom Wagoner, filed suit in state superior court in Anchorage against French, Elton, Branchflower and the Alaska Legislative Council in order to halt the investigation of Governor Sarah Palin and others because the investigators had lost all appearance of impartiality required under the Alaska Constitution.

Elton, in a local radio interview, went so far as to describe Governor Palin as “criminal”.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Senator Elton donated $2250 to the Obama campaign, but failed to disclose this to the Legislative Council and he continued to preside over the Council with respect to the investigation, refusing to convene meetings of the Council at the request of a majority of the Council’s membership.

It was obvious that Senator Elton was vested in the outcome of the Presidential race and played smear politics with Governor Palin’s reputation in order to help sway the election.

Senator Elton continued to work as hard as possible to destroy Governor Palin, and help his good friend Barack Obama win the presidency by allowing Stephen Branchflower, their handpicked investigator, to write the report before witnesses were even interviewed, misconstrue certain evidence and disregard evidence that was helpful to Governor Palin.

Minutes after the Branchflower Report was publicly released, Elton told the Anchorage Daily News that perhaps people will know how to vote in November. The report was released October 31, 2008 four days before the 2008 Presidential election.

Now we know what the outcome of the 2008 election was. Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States. But what became of all of this business in Alaska concerning Governor Palin?

Well after all sorts of histrionics, it turns out, that even the highly partisan, totally biased Branchflower Commission had to say that Governor Palin was well within her rights to fire Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. As with any political appointee, the Public Safety Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Governor. Which in practice means that Governor Palin could fire him at any time, for any reason whatsoever, or no reason at all.

Now, Branchflower included some wording that admonished the Governor, still clinging on to the smear tactics to the bitter end, but the bottom line, even the democrats had to confess, Palin had done nothing wrong.

Within days of the election, the Juneau Empire, the capitol city’s newspaper, reported that a separate report by the personnel board cleared Governor Palin of any ethics violations, stating: "There is no probable cause to believe that the governor, or any other state official, violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters"

As if to punctuate the point further, Timothy Petumenos, an independent investigator for the Alaska Personnel Board, further said this: “Branchflower used a wrong statute as the basis for his conclusions, misconstrued the available evidence and did not consider or obtain all the material evidence to reach a proper finding.”

He went on further to state that his investigation included much more data, including additional e-mails of state personnel, including Palin.

Petumenos concluded that Palin did not seek the trooper's firing after she became Governor. He stated: "Also absent from the evidence reviewed is any assertion that the Governor directed anyone in the Department of Public Safety to terminate Trooper Wooten, or directed anyone on her staff to seek the termination of Trooper Wooten,"

Of course, and again, the best evidence of this is the fact that Trooper Wooten, is still, Trooper Wooten!

Now even though Governor Palin was cleared of all charges, the deed was done. Her reputation, 4 days before the election of a US President, had been tarnished.

And obviously, the newly elected President of the United States, Barack Obama is very pleased with the good work that Kim Elton, Hollis French, Stephen Branchflower, and Beth Kerttula performed.

And for his part, Senator Kim Elton was rewarded by the Obama administration with a plum assignment in the US Interior Department, where he will serve as Director of Alaska Affairs under Secretary Ken Salazar. Obviously, this is of concern, because in his position Elton will be able to interfere with many environmental and energy initiatives that Governor Palin, and the Alaskan people want, as many of these do not fit well with the left wing of the democrat party’s agenda.

The bottom line is this. Barack Obama has clearly paid off Kim Elton for “services rendered”

On the behalf of Mr. Obama, Mr Elton, with his cast of co-conspirators clearly succeeded in interfering with the election of a United States President.

The only question that remains is this:

If the Illinois legislature impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich for ATTEMPTING to wrongly influence who would end up being the person to take President Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, what is the punishment for conspiring to destroy a sitting state Governor, and Vice Presidential candidate?

Especially since the eventual winning Presidential candidate has direct ties to the efforts to destroy the Governor, and throw the election in his favor.