Two Degrees of Separation

Alaska is a small place. There's two degrees of separation. People who want to know can easily find out what everyone else is doing. Because of that, many people tend to look the other way. And we're relatively tolerant of politicians' personal peccadilloes. This is one of the reasons that people weren't looking under rocks for problems with Palin the way they are now. It wasn't an issue. Palin didn't use her children as campaign props when she ran for governor. How she raised them was not related to how she governed.

The state's population density is one person per square mile. Ok, there are lots of square miles with no one at all that balance off Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, and the other population centers. But to get a sense of this, I'll use another NYE (New York Equivalency). If New York State - state, not city - had the population density of Alaska, it would have a population of 47,213 people.

With so few people, with two degrees of separation, when things happen here, people know.

And we've seen a radical change since August 29. Before that date, for example, the the bi-partisan Legislative Council (which tends to business when the legislators aren't in session)

...voted 12-0 to spend up to $100,000 "to investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch."

(Anchorage Daily News, July 27, 2008) The Governor said she and all her staff would voluntarily cooperate.

Supporters as well as detractors of the Republican governor generally agreed the legislative investigation is needed into the circumstances leading up to Monegan's dismissal.

"There's a big question about what happened. The public wants to know what happened," said Fairbanks Democratic Rep. David Guttenberg, a Legislative Council member. "There's something that doesn't quite smell right. The governor's not going to appoint a special prosecutor to look at whether she's abused power."

Guttenberg said Palin didn't help matters with her long, rambling press release a week ago in which she and some of her top aides tried to refute Monegan. The press release was titled "Palin Responds to Latest Falsehoods."

Sen. Gene Therriault of North Pole, leader of the small Republican Senate minority that generally has backed Palin's policies, said he expects the governor will cooperate, and if she's cleared, the investigation could strengthen her.

"Unfortunately, with partisan politics and talk shows and bloggers, there's probably just as much noise as substance," he said. "Hopefully, what the investigator can do is sift through it and see if there's any legitimacy."

Senate President Lyda Green, a Wasilla Republican [and not a Palin fan] and member of the Legislative Council, said the investigation is "absolutely" needed.

All that was one month before Palin was the surprise pick of John McCain. At the time I questioned the need to investigate the firing since Monegan served at the Governor's pleasure, but it might be worthwhile to look into the charges of going around regular channels to get Trooper Wooten fired. At most, the Governor would be reminded that there are laws and procedures and that she isn't above the law.

But now? CBS (among many others) reports:

A lawyer for Palin had said earlier this week that the governor would not speak to investigators, preferring to have the investigation transferred to a state personnel board (whose three members are appointed by the governor) for review. Palin had previously said she would cooperate with the probe.

Post Palin selection, it seems like the Rove shock troops have invaded Alaska. The same sorts of tactics that the White House used with Congressional investigations are being used now - refusal to recognize jurisdiction, refusal to appear, attacks on the integrity of the Council, and blatant lies.

State Representative Les Gara said

It's sad. It's presidential politics turning this small community, this small state, unfortunately, into a battleground. And I don't like it at all. I don't like what's going on.

Anchorage attorney and author of two highly regarded books on the Politics of Alaska Native Land, Don Mitchell, and who worked closely with Senator Stevens over the years, writes on the Alaska Dispatch [Thanks for the heads-up, Gryphen] of watching Bristol and Levi sitting together at Palin's Saturday morning's pep rally in Anchorage.

Bristol and Levi sat shoulder-to-shoulder. But not once did they look at each other, speak to each other, or in any way acknowledge each other’s physical presence.

He goes on to describe the deal he, as an attorney, would have gone after for the Johnston family:

Pader Johnston has disconnected the Johnston family's land line. So I can’t call him to ask what kind of deal he cut. But if Levi was my kid, the deal I would have cut would, at an absolute minimum, have been: $500,000 for from now to the November election. If McCain-Palin win, a $ 1 million signing bonus to take the trip down the aisle. Then, for the duration of the McCain-Palin administration, $100,000 a month for every month Mr. and Mrs. Johnston live under the same roof, and $50,000 a month for every month that they remain married but do not.

That’s chump change for the RNC. And if, in the best case for the nation, it turns out to be only a $500,000 payday for sixty days of work, that’s a life changing grubstake for an eighteen-year-old kid and more than enough to enable Levi to make his child support payments.

Mitchell is not a lightweight in Alaska. If his suspicion that Levi's family has been paid off for Levi to be good until after the election proves true, then is another example of that we are playing big league hard ball in Alaska now.