Palin's Speech Made Biden's Speech Look Lame

As an Alaskan, I couldn't help but feel good about our Governor's speech accepting the vice presidential nomination. Well, she's only been announced. The nomination comes next week. But she was pure Palin. For those who are wondering, this is real. She's poised, comfortable, and speaks honestly. It was a real contrast to the older man standing next to her with the shit-eating grin on his face.

Palin has become a strong, confident speaker. Her nomination and, even more, her speech will is going to totally change this election. The Republicans did a great job of pointing out all her best points.

The Obama people better be careful when they attack Palin. I'm in a household here in Portland that's got Fox News on. They reported that the Obama people said Palin was in the pocket of big oil. If that's their research, they're in big trouble. She is clearly NOT in the pocket of big oil. But, as I said, I'm getting my news from Fox, so I have no idea if the Obama people really said that.

I did notice that when McCain introduced her and said that she'd stood up to vested interests, he left the oil companies off his list. But Palin didn't leave them off her list. And that has been her biggest coup.

I would say from what we've seen in Alaska, Palin is honest, serious about doing what's right, takes on anyone who she thinks is wrong. And she took on the big oil companies and so far she's won. But the Monehan firing also reveals some lack of experience and lack of sense of the protocol. The video is the first few minutes of this morning's speech.



For another video of Palin, see her introducing a several day workshop for legislators and the public on AGIA (Alaska Gasline Inducement Act).

There will be lots of contradictions in this race. The McCain folks have been blasting Obama for lack of experience. It isn't just about being governor for 18 months, it's also her exposure to different ideas and different people. She spent time outside of Alaska when she went to the University of Idaho. Other than that, I suspect she's spent more time outside of Alaska as Governor than she did since she moved to Alaska as an infant. I don't that she's been outside the US besides Canada. These gaps should cause concern. But who knows what the glamor and the media can do?

Fox Says its Palin for McCain VP

Photo at induction of Rabbi Michael Oblath October 2007.









"ARE ANY OF THE ALASKANS UP? McCAIN PICKED PALIN" is what woke me up this morning, 15 minutes ago.


My mind is spinning. Sure, we've heard her name was in the ring for VP, but it all seemed so far fetched.

The first time I saw her was a small group of people at the University of Alaska Anchorage when she was just starting to run for governor. Her hair was piled up on her head, she was in scuffed snow boots. She spoke openly and directly. A real person, not a politician. I liked her, but thought she was in way over her head. She said she didn't know to a number of things and even asked if the audience had suggestions. I knew at the time that she'd stood up the Randy Ruedrich, the Republican Party Chair of Alaska, and resigned from the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission very publicly saying it was because Ruedrich had a conflict of interest and she couldn't continue to serve. That was pretty gutsy.

Then, to many people's surprise, she actually beat sitting Republican Governor Murkowski in the primary. Well, by the time of the election, I think we'd all seen the polls so we weren't that surprised. But when she started to run it was a real long shot. The party stalwarts were all against her. She certainly was helped out when it came out the FBI had searched the offices of several prominent Republican officials.

As governor, as I've said in previous posts, she was the right person at the right time. She stood up to the oil companies on the Petroleum Profits Tax (also known as Petroleum Production Tax) and got it raised. Then she stood up to the big oil companies over AGIA (Alaska Gasline Inducement Act). After the previous governor had negotiated privately with Conoco-Phillips and BP to build a natural gas pipeline to the Lower 48. She had reinstated the commissioner of Natural Resources who'd resigned because of how Murkowski was negotiating. They set up conditions the State insisted on and put out a Request for Proposal requiring them. The big oil companies didn't turn in any proposals. But an pipeline company from Canada did. Then the oil companies put in a proposal after the deadline, which didn't meet the state requirements. Palin was able to get the legislature, in special sessions over the summer, to approve Trans Canada's bid to get a license.

Meanwhile she's been on the cover of Vogue magazine and did other such national publicity work. Her biography came out and the book was simply a PR job on the sweet but strong willed girl who grew up in Wasilla. I found it hard to stomach. This was not a serious book.

And now we're seeing some of the inexperience coming to the surface in the way she handled the firing of the head of the State Troopers. It has come out that her staff and family have been pressuring him to fire one of the troopers - who just happens to be her ex-brother-in-law.

This is a woman with a lot of internal strength. She also has very limited experience outside of Alaska and in public office. She was mayor of a town of about 74,000. She's been governor almost two years. She's floated on a bubble of strong moves against the oil companies, supported by the FBI's investigation into oil related corruption in Alaska and three ex-legislators convicted and a number of other people indicted and/or pleading guilty. Her physical beauty has certainly been a major attention getter - she's been called the hottest governor in the USA. She has a son serving in the Middle East and a newborn child with Down's Syndrome. When he was born in April, she said she had her family to take care of and was not a candidate for Vice President.

I think this is a woman with a lot of smarts and strengths. But she also has had probably the least experience of any Vice Presidential candidate in my lifetime. If, in ten years, she proved her mettle, I'd say she'd be a long shot candidate. She'd have been through the rough and tumble. Right now, she's only had amazing successes. The Monehan firing has been the only bump. She isn't used to failure.

But the US and Republican image machines can make a lot of this woman and they will. I'd like to say she could surprise us. But I have to say she also has a huge amount to learn. She hasn't been tested in the rough and tumble of national politics or even the primaries.

No one can say American presidential politics is dull.

Palin and Monegan - What’s it all mean?

I don’t have any more facts than the rest of you who read the newspaper. Well, maybe a few insights from people who know the players, but not much. But I do know something about administration and human resources. The ADN's editorial this morning (there were also not one, but two different front page stories on the topic) called for an investigation of the Monegan firing:

The big question is whether Monegan was fired for not doing the Palins' bidding and firing Trooper Wooten. If so, that would be an abuse of office.

I'd argue that we need to separate the issues better. There are, it seems to me, two key issues.


1. The firing. This happened. Everyone agrees. It is important to remember that a Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Governor. The Governor need not give any reason for the firing. Commissioners are not regular civil service positions that have protections against arbitrary terminations. These kinds of protections for career civil servants are there so public administrators are protected from arbitrary termination without cause. Ideally, this allows public administrators to do the right thing despite pressure to do some shady deal for a boss.

But the higher ranks are exempt from those protections. These are known as political appointees. The rationale for these folks is that a new politician needs to have people loyal to her vision of how things should be, to the platform she was voted in to carry out. But if a governor (or mayor or president) no longer trusts or is comfortable with a political appointee, there are no legal impediments to instant termination. There may be political consequences, but there are no legal violations.

To call for an investigation of the firing of Monegan is a waste of time and money. What she did was legal and was her right. What can the result of the investigation be? Nothing.


2. Pressuring the Commissioner to fire someone for personal reasons.

On this the facts are in dispute. We don't know exactly what happened and the players disagree. In a previous post on whether it was ok for legislators to get discounts from the Baranof Hotel during the special session. I raised two key ethical problems for public officials - undue gain and improper influence. Improper influence occurs when someone takes criteria into consideration that are outside the normal process for making a consideration. The Department of Public Safety has a union contract with its troopers that spells out the steps for terminating a trooper.

When it becomes necessary for the Employer to initiate disciplinary actions against any member for just cause, such actions shall be administered in a fair and impartial
manner, with due regard for the circumstances of the individual case. (p. 19)

If attempts were made to cause the Governor's ex-brother-in-law to be terminated that were outside of this process, then we could be getting into improper influence issues.

Undue gain happens when someone gets, through use of their position, something that they are not qualified to get. In many ethics laws, this usually means something of value was exchanged. Doing harm to an enemy fits into this, certainly in the public's mind.

But let's look at some of the possibilities:

• What can a sitting governor say or not say to her commissioners?
  
• If a Governor hears of a wrong doing by a state trooper that was not a relation, would anyone complain if she mentioned it to the Commissioner and asked that he look into it? I think not.
• If the Governor herself feels harassed or sees questionable behavior by a trooper and mentions this to the Commissioner, would that be a problem? Again, I think not.
  Both of these situations would involve the Commissioner, rather than the Governor reporting to the individual trooper's supervisor. But we expect the Commissioner to be aware of what is happening in the organization and he could pass the tip on to the supervisor.
  
• If a member of the Governor's family is a trooper and the Governor has issues with his behavior, can she mention it to the Commissioner? She could be accused of covering it up if she didn't.
  
• And finally, the case at hand, if the ex-husband of the Governor's sister is a trooper and the Governor thinks his behavior raises questions about his fitness as a trooper, can she mention this to the Commissioner?
  

It is clear, that if the Governor lied to get the trooper fired from his job hoping this would jeopardize her ex-brother-in-law's custody of her sister's children, that this would be a problem. But, if she really believed that he was unfit to be a trooper because of behavior she witnessed or heard about, is telling the Commissioner about it improper influence? In the context of what is done all the time, I would say no. In terms of a perfect world where no one ever was in a gray area, it would be a problem. One also has to wonder why someone would want to jeopardize child support payments by getting him fired. But it does appear that the Heath family thought this trooper was not fit to be a trooper.

But we don't know the facts - whether her concern about his fitness was genuine or whether this was an emotional reaction against the man who she perceives as doing her sister wrong. And from what we're learning about the trooper, he's no gem either.

• Is the Governor responsible for what her relatives say to the Commissioner?
  
• If she told them to go tell him and this can be proven, then yes.
• If she said something like, "Do what you want, but don't involve me" probably yes.
• If she said , "Don't do it," but they did it anyway, probably no.
• Is the Governor responsible for what her subordinates say to the Commissioner?
• If they say it on her behalf, at her behest? Yes.
• If they say it without telling her and she notifies the Commissioner as soon as she finds out, I think not.
• What does pressure mean?
• The Governor says she never pressured the Commissioner. The Commissioner says she did. "Pressure" I would argue here is in the eye of the beholder. But like all things, the word "pressure" means different things to different people. There's probably a continuum from "offhand comment" to "threaten with a gun". I suspect that the Governor and the Commissioner would mark the spot where 'pressure' sits on that continuum in different places. She may think she just mentioned it to him. He may think that when the Governor mentions something, it is always more than idle chit chat.
  
• Again, we don't know what she said. If we had a tape, we could play it and let people vote whether it fits their idea of pressure. We know she didn't say anything like, "You fire that guy or else" or anything even remotely close to that. If she had, then Monegan wouldn't have been so surprised when he was fired.
  

• What might be the outcome of an investigation?
  
• The investigators find clear proof that the Governor used her position to pressure Monegan to fire the brother-in-law.
• They don't find clear proof.
  

• If they find clear proof, what can they do?
• This hardly seems something that we would impeach a Governor over, especially when her popularity ratings are much higher than the legislators' ratings. If Bush can authorize torture, manufacture excuses to get into Iraq, and on and on without there being impeachment proceedings, then this option is going nowhere.
  
• There could be a vote of censure
• They could end up doing nothing
  

• Who wins and who loses here?
• Winners
• people who don't like the governor - they get the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed and her golden glow tarnished a bit
• people who might benefit from the Governor being weakened
• The Oil Producers - AGIA passed last night in the House, but as John Coghill said when urging people to vote for the bill, there are no winners yet, we're just a little closer and we have a little more information. There is still a lot of negotiation to do. This still has the Senate vote and a weaker Governor can't negotiate as hard
• Sean Parnell's political opponents - He's been closely linked to Palin. If damage to her rubs off on him, then that helps Don Young in the primary. If Parnell beats Young in the primary, it helps Berkowitz or Benson, whoever wins the Democratic nomination. If this causes Parnell to lose to Young, this would also help the Democrats who believe they have a better chance against Young than Parnell.
  
• the legislature - they've been unable to stand up against Palin's popularity; if that lessens, then they gain
• Who loses?
• The Governor
• The Lt. Gov and US house candidate Sean Parnell
• The people of Alaska
• The time and money spent on this by whoever investigates
• The spiritual loss when people find out she's not superwoman
• The National Republican Party as they watch what they've billed as a rising political star
  

I'm sure others can add more people I've forgotten


Ultimately, as I think the chess pieces several moves ahead to see where this might go, I see much ado about nothing. This wouldn't have been a blip on the Alaska political scene five years ago, but then neither was buying votes outright. But unless there's evidence she strong armed Monegan, it is highly unlikely anything will come from this investigation beyond "he said, she said." In the end I think it will be the difference between their interpretations of "pressure."

This did not cause the Governor to lose the AGIA vote, but the timing of this was terrible. Her opposition didn't make up this issue just before the AGIA vote. She created it by firing Monegan. If she thought she'd done anything wrong, surely she would have waited until after the AGIA vote to fire him . But given we've seen several politicians sent to prison for things they think were ok, that isn't a foolproof argument either. Or maybe she's lived in such a positive publicity bubble for so long that she thinks she can't do wrong.

Part of me would like to see the ethical bar raised a little further. So an investigation would cause people to think more carefully about all their conversations. Another part of me thinks that we have to let governors and legislators have a sense of freedom of thought and speech that doesn't cause them to say nothing for fear of violating something.

One way out of this would be for the Governor to acknowledge that ex parte communications with a Commissioner for personal family gain is totally inappropriate and that she knows that and wouldn't do that. However, she has come to realize from this whole discussion that as Governor, perhaps people weigh her words much more heavily than they did when she was just Sarah Palin from Wasilla. So, what she thought was merely casual communication may have been interpreted as pressure by the Commissioner.

Now, let's get back to work solving the trooper shortage, alcohol problems, finding more and diverse energy sources, and on and on.

AGIA Public Forum - Gov. Palin Introduction

The AGIA discussions began this morning at the Sheraton Hotel. The tables in front were reserved for legislators and most were there. Governor Palin opened the meeting with a short talk.

Did Anyone Else Read Chapter 1 of Palin's Bio?

When there was all the buzz about the Palin biography, most of the websites (for instance here, here, and here) that mentioned it, also had a link to the first chapter. I linked, read, and said, "Oh dear."

But do I need to blog about it? I'd like to think I subscribe to the "if it isn't doing anyone any harm, and if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything" school of blogging. I've even been accused of being too compassionate to Vic Kohring. (See first comment.) My response was that I'm not here to judge or to condemn, but to understand, to learn, to figure out how to do better next time. But, does writing a review on the book do any of that?

First, book reviews are an honorable tradition. They steer us to good books and away from bad ones. And this book is newsworthy. The most popular governor in the US, talked about as a potential Republican vice presidential candidate. The first ever biography of her. But I could only find one other review online. It was from a Sarah fan (actually, I, personally, think she's been exactly the governor we needed) who seems to be similarly unimpressed with the book, which he apparently got an advanced copy of.

Second, I also think that writing a good book is really hard. So another potential value of reviewing the book is to figure out why this doesn't work for me and perhaps offer something for other authors to consider. This fits the "how to do better next time" criterion.

(As I think about this, the process of writing itself is a way to think through something and understand it better. For me it's like solving a puzzle - why do I think this book is boring? Another problem is that I know Kaylene Johnson, the author. While we hadn't seen each other in years, we did have an enjoyable conversation not too long ago. The book didn't come up.)

So why did I find it boring? The sentences are all complete and the grammar works.

It's taken awhile to figure this out. There are several problems for me:

1. An impersonal, omniscient narrator who isn't (omniscient)
   
2. Facts that don't really add up to anything significant
3. A general sense of inauthenticity

It is hard to write a biography. You have to get in all the relevant facts that will help the reader understand who the person is and why she does what she does. You have to deal with chronology - do you do it in order, or skip around and confuse the reader? You have to document what you write. You have to give the context. This is just the mechanical stuff. Then you have to breathe life into the prose.

1. An impersonal, omniscient narrator who isn't. Some anonymous, all-knowing voice is telling us what happened and summing up the important things we should know.

These mountains would become, like other wild places in Alaska, a place of sustenance and renewal for her boisterous and busy family.

In 1969, the Heaths moved to southcentral Alaska, living for a short time with friends in Anchorage, then for two years in Eagle River before finally settling in Wasilla.

They had a white cat named Fifi and a German shepherd named Rufus, a canine sidekick to the kids who shows up in many family photos. The children often hiked the “Bunny Trail” to the home of a distant neighbor who had kids the same age.

Once a year, the family accompanied Chuck Sr. on a week- long class field trip to Denali National Park, where camping in view of majestic Mount McKinley left indelible memories with the Heath children.

This omniscient narrator doesn't know everything. She doesn't know that much at all. She is dependent on scraps of facts she got from the Heath family.

“Dad never stopped lining up new adventures for us,” Chuck Jr. said. The kids caught Dolly Varden off a nearby dock. Chuck Jr. loved to catch the Irish Lord, an ugly, creepy-looking fish, for the pleasure of holding it up to his little sisters’ faces and making them scream.

When the family wasn’t running or hiking, it was hunting or fishing. “We could literally go hunting out our back door,” Chuck Jr. said.

The Heath kids and their friends spent many hours playing ball.

There's lot that we don't know. The kids like each other and no one is telling us what really happened. Just the things that will make their sister look good.

If this were fiction, the narrator could be omniscient. But it isn't. (Well, maybe that's debatable too.) So Johnson needed to talk to us readers now and then. To explain her project, the obstacles, what she tried to do and how. "Hey, I have to write this biography of the governor. I talked to all the family members, but they didn't give me much to work with. And this is an authorized biography, that means I agreed to . . . " We don't know what she agreed to and Johnson doesn't tell us the rules. Did Sarah or someone in her family get the right to cut out stuff they didn't like? Did she have a deadline and so had to make it presentable in two months? She doesn't tell us. At least in chapter 1, where we might expect this author's voice to talk to us, it doesn't.

2. Facts that don't really add up to anything significant. As you can see from above, Johnson got random snapshots. But when she puts them in an album, there are lots of blank spaces. OK, so there's a dog and a yellow porch. So what? Yes, little details are important, but they also need to add up to something. It appears Johnson had so little, she had to put whatever she had into the book, even if it just fills some of the blank spaces in Sarah's life, but leads nowhere in our quest to understand the governor. There just aren't enough dots to connect.

There are some exceptions - dots that might actually give us some insight into Governor Palin. She's quoted talking about the Miss Wasilla contest she entered for the scholarship money (we know that is the reason because her brother says so):

“They made us line up in bathing suits and turn our backs so the male judges could look at our butts,” she said in a 2008 interview with Vogue magazine. “I couldn’t believe it!”

If Johnson had gotten more quotes like that the pages would turn. Not because the governor says 'butts' but because it sounds candid and authentic. But Johnson didn't get this quote from the Sarah, she got it from Vogue magazine. They were able to get real stuff from Sarah, why couldn't Johnson?

But here's something from sister Molly that potentially offers insight:

From the time she was in elementary school, she consumed newspapers with a passion. “She read the paper from the very top left hand corner to the bottom right corner to the very last page,” said Molly. “She didn’t want to miss a word. She didn’t just read it—she knew every word she had read and analyzed it.”

If it's true (how many of you read the paper diagonally?), it tells us that Palin does her homework. I think Molly believes this and it may even be true. But how would an adoring younger sister know for sure if her sister "knew every word" and "analyzed it?" Did she give her quizzes, or did it just seem like that?

I can't help thinking, if she read everything and analyzed it, how come she was surprised by the sexist nature of the beauty contest?

Johnson didn't have enough paint to cover the whole wall of Sarah's childhood. Instead, she should have just painted one good Sarah story that she could do well with the little paint she had. Something in-depth that would give us a sense of the future governor without trying to cover the whole family history.

3. A general sense of inauthenticity

The beauty pageant 'butt' quote is the only truly authentic fizz I got. All the rest sounded flat. If this were a movie, it would have been filmed in Hollywood, not Alaska, and those "snow covered mountains" with "the soft alpenglow" would have been painted on a set. That's how it reads. Even the part about camping a week with views of Mt. McKinley. Johnson is an Alaskan so I would expect her to say Denali. And Alaskans know the only campground where you can see Denali from is Wonder Lake. Were they always there? But even there, it's a rare day, let alone week, where the mountain is visible. But on that Hollywood set, we can paint over those details.

The contrast between the omniscient pose and the narrator's lack of in-depth stories sounds fake, like painted mountains.

The family stories are second hand and sound like Chuck Jr. and the rest were editing as they spoke. It's not from the heart. It's painting the scenery to reflect well on their politician sister. I don't blame them. They certainly aren't going to make her look bad. But where are Lyda Green's impressions of Sarah? Or one of the losing Ms. Wasilla contestant's?

This book reads like an inspirational book aimed at 14 year old girls. "Sarah Palin - Hero Governor of Alaska and how growing up in the wilderness made her the woman she is today." This is a political biography written in Sound of Music prose.

Johnson didn't have an easy task - write an approved biography of the most popular governor in the US who's still on some people's lists for McCain's running mate, so getting it out by May - when the Governor is going to become probably the first sitting governor in US history to have a baby - was a high priority.

I think that given the buzz on Palin nationwide, a fair number of copies will be sold. (Just one hundred per state would be a reasonable press run.) Those people who really want to find out who Palin is, will buy it for the scraps they can glean. But if the whole book reads like Chapter 1, I'm guessing a small percentage of people who buy the book, will actually read the whole thing.

Installation of Rabbi Michael Oblath

Tonight Congregation Beth Sholom in Anchorage, Alaska had a dinner and installation at services for our new rabbi, Michael Oblath. It was probably the first time a new rabbi has been welcomed in the Dena'ina lanaguage which is the language of the original inhabitants of the Anchorage area. He was welcomed by

• Regina Boisclair, Cardinal Newman Chair, at Alaska Pacific University,
• Jonathon Ross, President and CEO, Alaska Native Heritage Center (in Dena'ina language)
• Marla Greenstein, President of Congregation Beth Sholom
• Anchorage Mayor, Mark Begich
• Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

In the service, following the dinner Rabbi Lennard Thal, Senior Vice President for Reform Judiasm, and an old friend and mentor of Rabbi Oblath installed Rabbi Oblath with warmth and wit. All in all it was a very uplifting evening. You can see and hear highlights in the brief video above.