I watched a 5 minute, 18 second ABC investigative report on Troopergate in a genuine desire to learn more about Sarah Palin's concerns about the dangerous Trooper who had tasered his stepson, allegedly threatened to kill a member of Palin's family, drank beer in a police car, etc. Palin herself reported the alleged death threat against Palin's father made by Trooper Wooten (her former brother-in-law): "I will kill him. He'll eat a (expletive) lead bullet, I'll shoot him." And Wooten himself admitted that he tasered his 10 [or 11]-year-old stepson, according to some reports justifying it as a training exercise.
Yet some on the internet have suggested that it's not so simple. I, for one, wanted to know more. In Chicago, a big issue over the last decade has been the extent to which police hierarchy looked the other way when dealing with "dirty cops." The press in Chicago is uniformly harsh on officials who treat such serious behavior leniently, as Alaska Director of Public Safety Moneghan appears to have done.
So I was shocked that the entire ABC report made no mention of any reason anyone would want to have a dangerous cop fired. The only reason even hinted at in the entire ABC report was that the trooper was Palin's brother-in-law.
I think that all the reporting that's actually in the ABC report is fine; it is effectively edited to make Palin look like she is shading the truth (at best) — and she probably is. But it is unconscionable for ABC to fail to mention ANY LEGITIMATE REASON why Palin might want the dirty cop fired or any reason to be contacting Mr. Moneghan about it (the threats to kill her family that she witnessed). The ABC report is trying to say that Palin fired the state official because she wouldn't fire her former brother-in-law; even if that were true, don't you think the audience would be entitled to know WHY?
If I were head of ABC News, I would immediately fire or demote the producer of this ABC report. I would then break up the team that did the report and bring some political diversity to ABC's newsroom by hiring a Republican-leaning producer from outside. There is no possibility that an ABC producer could report an entire 5 minute story with extensive clips from past interviews without knowing of the reasons for Palin wanting the allegedly dirty cop fired. To suppress that knowledge from their viewers because it would allow viewers to understand Palin's actions was a breach of simple journalistic ethics. An apology to Palin is due.
That ABC, which has been fairer in this election cycle than NBC or CBS, could act as it did here just suggests how bad things are in journalism today. This is the most biased season of press coverage that I can remember for at least a decade.
And I am not as sanguine as others that the backlash against the press will effectively offset press bias. As ABC's report shows, Palin is probably at least shading the truth — perhaps worse — and fair-minded viewers who know no more than ABC is willing to tell them would likely think even worse of her.
I'm slowly learning more about Troopergate, but I still have a lot to learn. ABC could have been a lot more helpful. Every day I am thankful that the monopoly on the national news has been broken, but the remnants of that monopoly remain powerful.
UPDATE: Flopping Aces has some details based mostly on online sources. According to that site, it turns out that (1) the investigation into Wooten started before Palin even started her run for governor, (2) there were two people who heard the death threat by Wooten, (3) there were substantive reasons given by Palin for her removing Moneghan and offering him another job in her adnministration, and (4) the investigation found that Wooten had behaved improperly:
So apparently Wooten was a dirty cop being treated fairly lightly by his superiors and his union."The record clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable, and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession,” Col. Julia Grimes, then head of Alaska State Troopers, wrote in [a] March 1, 2006, letter suspending Wooten for 10 days. After the union protested it, the suspension was reduced to five days.
She warned that if he messed up again, he’d be fired.
2d UPDATE: Some commenters are arguing particular facts below, in particular, some reports that the 10 or 11 year old stepson asked to be tasered, and immediately asked to be tasered again. I have read other accounts that suggest that the child was trying to show he was tough in front of his cousin, one of Sarah Palin's daughters.
You are missing one of the points of my post, made both at the beginning and the end. I want to know what happened. I don't know the details; I want to know them. The press should be of more help. ABC just gave one side of the story, an account that was not even very coherent since it didn't mention why anyone would be concerned about keeping Wooten on staff.
Tasering a child is wrong, whether he asks for it or not. If the tasering was motivated by the stepson trying to seem tough to his cousin -- and Wooten knew this -- then it would show him to be as childish as his stepson. I wish I knew what happened; I wish the national press cared what happened.
If this is a crime, then pretty much all of police academy qualifies as severe physical torture.
The way you said it makes it sound like he tased the child in anger and, ultimately, destroys your credibility in a post that accuses others of omitting critical information.
Sheesh.
Maybe because you don't taser an 11 year old, even if they do ask for it. You really need that explained?
First victims of the blow-back against the gross anti-Palin coverage: Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews.
If his son had asked him to procure some marijuana from the police evidence locker and let him smoke it, would that have been ok?
How about if his son had asked him to hit him with a nightstick?
Pepper spray?
Put him in handcuffs and put him in lockup for 24 hours?
At any rate, even if it is irresponsible, the OP clearly makes it sound like he tased the child in anger, which is clearly child abuse.
I asked this on your previous attempt at media criticism, and I will ask again in hopes that you will answer, Prof. Lindgren. Do you have any actual knowledge of the party registration of the reporters/producers in question or are you just making assumptions based on the content of a report that was insufficiently deferential towards The One? And should I assume that you would have no problem if ABC started asking its job applicants about their party affiliation (or even political leanings) before hiring them in an effort to satisfy the Lindgren Standard of Balance.
I'm unclear on your point, Oren. How does that sentence imply that the tasering was done in anger?
I feel the same way about dirt bikes, ATVs and hunting and yet somehow I manage to refrain from sanctimoniously judging parents that allow their children to do those things . . .
Tasers are incredibly safe, much more so than even mundane activities like driving to the mall or going for a swim in the ocean. Your attempts to make it seem even remotely risky are absurd.
The best comment I saw on Troopergate was from an Alaskan newspaper reporter who basically said that the trooper was a very bad cop and needed to go, but there was a question of Palin's particular motives for wanting to be rid of him. If this was a good cop, she should certainly be disqualified from office. In this case, its a happy coincidence that this was a bad cop.
And body size is apparently a factor.
So either the Taser is far less dangerous than Talkleft and other far-libs will assert, or tasing a kid is horribly dangerous.
Ask for it or not.
But I like death threats for bad police work. YMMV
I can understand why you might want to have potential reasons for Palin to have pushed for firing mentioned, but given that she didn't push for any other troopers firing, and frankly there are a lot worse than Wooten though I believe he deserves to be fired too, it looks like the other potential reason is only theoretical. She could have also sought to have him fired because she doesn't like people with big noses...but that's not the evidence that is out there.
Boyd G.
Read the full quote. Moneghan said he thought he was fired because he wouldn't fire Wooten, but also says that he was never specifically asked to fire Wooten.
Hunting, done right, does neither. ATV's use is by minors is a terrible idea, but at least in that case, the parent is not intentionally harming the child - its negligence.
Putting the tasering right after "dangerous" and before the death threat clearly attempts to draw a comparison. It is not unreasonable to read just that sentence and conclude that part of the evidence that Wooten is dangerous is that he pulled a taser on his son.
Hunting accidents -- one for every 10,858 hunting licenses.
Taser deaths -- 70 in total, out of millions of uses.
Nevertheless, it would be good and responsible journalism--aka an effing miracle--if the report had included the reasons this guy was considered a loose cannon and a bad employment liability risk.
He himself has admitted to "problems", so it's not as if this is made up out of whole cloth.
As to knowing the party lineup of the morons who put this together--red strawman smelling strongly of small fish--since the point is, party affiliation aside, this was an obvious hit job, done with malice aforethought. The one thing you can presume about a republican is that one would probably not have done that. WRT Palin, I suppose, anyway.
Do we have special knowledge of the ABC team which put this together? Just the odds. Self-reporting among the MSM.
Most unlikely there's a republican, a conservative, a military veteran, or an evangelical. Might be. Not the way to bet.
Have we heard from the 11 year old? Is this how it really happened?
I do not find it unreasonable to question the assertion by a state trooper that drinks beer in his official state car.
The bottom line is no reasonable parent tasers their child. One that does has serious issues and I would surmise from my experience would have credibility issues.
I did it. I was briefly shocked. No pillows around me, even. It was fine.
(You know what was more uncomfortable? When they sprayed pepper spray at the front of the classroom and I started to tear up. The pepper spray demonstration was much, much worse for me.)
Police can demonstrate the Taser without using the more damaging aspects like the hooks and the longer shock, and it's not harmful at all.
I imagine this is in every police department's "meet the public" song and dance. Totally harmless. Chill out, folks.
So you are comparing accidents to deaths?
Do you have a link to the hunting stats. I am just curious as to what type of accidents they include.
Maybe I should tell Talkleft to get a new beef.
BTW, CNN's report on this issue lacked essentially the same information that this ABC report lacked.
Do you care to explain your arrogant pronouncements or do you imagine that merely stating them would be sufficient to convince me? I see no justification for your statement whatsoever.
See how stupid it sounds when someone else says it?
On account of, see, there are about 600,000 deer hunters in Michigan during rifle season. Last year, two were reported to be sober, but I never believed it.
So, according to your stats we need to see about, hmm, 57 dead guys. Not close. Not even close. Not by a factor of fifteen, or perhaps twenty. Excluding the heart attacks, of course.
1. The trooper was never fired.
2. Palin sent private e-mails to the public safety director - complaining about the trooper - BEFORE she was Governor.
3. The Alaskan legislature has no authority to compel testimony by executive branch employees about executive decision-making. It's called the deliberative process privilege. The executive branch has an ethics review process - that Palin has started. The Alaskan legislature can investigate, but they cannot substitute their investigation for that provided by law - which is to take place in the executive branch.
4. The person in charge of the Alaskan legislative investigation - a Democrat - has bragged that he would produce an "October surprise."
5. The trooper's conduct was egregious. That is, Palin was RIGHT right to complain about him. This is probably a perfect example of the "good old boy network" - troopers covering for other troopers who do bad things. As you correctly note, this trooper made death threats against Palin's family, tasered his stepson, and drank beer in a police car - to list just the most egregious examples. Suppose Gov. Palin had said this trooper - with these bad acts - should NOT be fired? There'd be screams of bloody murder for her "nepotism."
6. The obvious point, of course, is that if the press devoted this level of attention and investigatory resources on: (a) Obama's work with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, (b) Obama's loss of $110 million down a rat hole when he was in charge of the Annenberg Challenge in Chicago, and/or (c) Biden's multiple instances of plagiarism ... then we probably wouldn't even have Obama as the Democratic nominee - or Biden as his running mate.
7. As Governor, Palin had the right to fire the public safety director for any reason or no reason. He served at her pleasure. She fired him for failing to hire more troopers quickly enough and for not being a team-player on the budget. These are legitimate bases for his dismissal (indeed - she need not give any reason). The legislature has no authority to look behind her executive decision-making process - no more than she has the right to "investigate" a legislator's - or judge's - decision-making process.
The public is rightly disgusted with the press' obvious double-standard in reporting on the two campaigns.
No, Wooten was the one cop she wanted fired, the one cop involved in a custody battle with her sister. So the overall impression left by the ABC story was a fair one, as far as it went.
GG
Until we CAN be confident of this, the monopoly on national news has NOT really been broken.
Sen. HOLLIS FRENCH
(D) Arkansas State Senate
lol
Btw, the figure I quoted earlier, 1 in 10,000 license, was for the 1960s. It has since improved to 1 in 25,000. Even still, it's a far sight more dangerous than a taser at training setting.
The question presented: By firing the official who would not fire her threatmaking ex-brother-in-law, has the Vice-Presidential candidate abused her power for personal ends?
One more reason not to vote for Palin, she's another pol that's swallowed the 'unitary executive' Kool-Aid.
No, and the reason is simple: the issue is NOT whether Wooten deserved to be fired. The issue IS whether Palin lied when she denied pressuring Monegon (sp?) and/or giving the reasons for firing him (Monegon). Thus, mentioning the reasons why Wooten might have deserved firing are irrelevant to the only thing that's in issue, which is Monegon's firing.
Because bad guys do not get due process, and can be fired anytime.
I believe it's in the Alaska Constitution, the "Total Bastard" clause.
I believe some court cases also say it's okay to lie about whether you were involved in firing a Total Bastard.
[But thank God the good people of this country now have The New Yorker, The Smoking Gun, Snopes and Jjim Lindgren to trust, rather than the evil AP/Reuters/McClatchy triumvirate.]
That's not a ringing endorsement of the state police. Here's the letter that was sent to Wooten. I can find no reason why they did not dismiss him immediately. (H/T: Patterico.)
But he said it was a "training exercise" (training for what?) and the kid wanted to be tased...and even asked to do it again. What possible reason could there be to question his assertion? What possible reason would an 11 year old have for not telling the truth about his step-father's version of events?
BTW, we don't have two dozen hunters shot dead by other hunters or themselves. We do have heart attacks, auto accidents.
But let's have the dead guys, Oren. Dead guys. As in DEAD, since you were talking up the dead for tasers.
What's the line on death threats?
Suppose, just for supposin's sake, that the gov had been a man and not at all related to the woman in the Wooten case and not addressed it at all. The fems would be all over him for ignoring the good old boys and their domestic violence.
All depends.
The report is troubling, but...
First, they do mention that he allegedly threatened the family. It just gets glossed over.
Second, for me what was troubling is there is no effort to ask why the fired official thinks this was the case; no effort to get into what facts drove him to it. you can feel you were fired for whatever reason you want, but if you don’t have facts they could just as easily be the sour grapes of a man righteously fired.
Third, at the end, they didn’t mention that the release date of the report was moved up, in time to hurt her political career. Ain’t that nice?
Oren
Consent is not a defense.
And really, I thought you libs were opposed to police brutality and other official abuses of authority. Well, how do you think we stop this sort of thing? by firing people who do the sort of crap we are talking about.
So even if he was fired for not firing that person, good. I hope every cop who beats his wife or threatens murder is fired… and shot.
Really the cognitive dissonance is truly stunning.
11 year old gets shot of Wild Turkey 101 from father. Dad declines to give him second shot. Kid brags about it to friends.
11 year old hits on his fathers bong. (Pot possession is legal in state.) Dad declines to give him second hit. Kid brags about it to friends.
11 year old gets Oxycotin from father though he is not in pain. Dad declines to give him second pill. Kid brags about it to friends.
Has ABC played that video that Al Gore put together showing the Biden and Kinnock speeches side by side?
Oren, are you trolling? This is a child. You do not use a taser on a child. You do not use a taser on your OWN child. The lack of judgement this shows is amazing. I can only assume (hope) he did it while drunk, since he seems to be an alcoholic.
Do you care to explain your arrogant pronouncements or do you imagine that merely stating them would be sufficient to convince me? I see no justification for your statement whatsoever.
Are you saying what I take you to be saying? Please clarify, because I must be reading you wrong(?).
As for trying to get a bad cop off the force, what is the difference between any citizen calling to demand that, and the governor, her husband, or a member of her staff doing so? Anyone aware of a bad cop has not just the right but the duty to press for correction, and that includes people with connections.
Moneghan claims he did what he could, which wasn't much, under either the union contract or some kind of civil service regulations. I would like to know which. If only contract, then at most there is a civil breach of contract. But even if there are regulations, they are unlikely to prescribe such a light penalty for what are such serious actions by Wooten. A death threat, if credible, is a felony, at least in most states, and if Palin was the witness, I not only find the report credible, I'm surprised she didn't just arrest him on the spot.
One can argue the best way to have handled the matter was to take a criminal complaint to the grand jury and prosecute Wooten, and that could still be done, but it is slow, and in the meantime, what might this apparent rogue cop do to someone?
This episode does point to an important form of corruption, that makes "law enforcement official" a kind of title of nobility, not subject to the same laws as the rest of us. I find Palin's willingness to take on the "blue wall of silence" one of her most attractive attributes, and reason enough to vote for her (and that old what's-his-name who's running with her).
But it does point to a problem she and that old dude will confront in DC. A president, and even less a vice-president, has little control over the executive branch, with current civil service protections. Palin is used to being able to fire bad officials on her own authority, but a president can't do that. If she and the old dude hope to carry out their reform agenda, one of the first things they are going to need to accomplish is to reform the civil service system to make it easier to fire more people, or at least reassign them to Antarctica.
As for the bias of ABC reporters, the place to take complaints about that is to ABC, its advertisers, and its associated blogs that allow viewer comment. You're preaching to the choir here, although you may also be activating complainants.
This is a nation of laws. Perhaps discomfort with that fact is why the Palins once worked to have their state secede.
Why is that?
I don't know about all of your news viewing about Wooten, but I generally watch CNN and MSNBC and knew all about the problems regarding Wooten.
Maybe he should be fired, but there is a thing called due process - not executive fiat.
Oren, presumably, you also have huge problems with Bill Clinton, who fired 93 out of 94 US Attorneys when he took office in 1993. (But for Bill Bradley's intervention, all 94 would have been gone.)
[crickets]
He's also activating apologists.
Kids do ask for a lot of stuff, right up through 10 years old. It is hard to say no. Some stuff I let them play with, like the flashlights and overhead light, but what they really wanted to touch was the gun and siren and it is hard to convince a kid to move on.
However, you have to say no. You just have to.
Accepting the facts as given above, sounds like the cop had very poor judgment, and deserved to be punished if not terminated.
This, in fact, was the State Troopers' response to the Palins' allegations. They decided that the appropriate punishment was not firing, but a ten-day suspension and a warning that that was his last chance.
Apparently he served his suspension and has kept his nose clean since. I presume that other than the issues identified, that he is a good and valuable cop.
Let's not forget the old stand-by of liquor and car keys.
But, hey, as long as no one actually sees the kid drinking, we would just have to assume that he was just transporting an open container. On this lap.
The Obamaniacs attacked Palin and her family. It backfired.
Now they are taking to the streets for 'Alger' Wooten. Let's not block the doorway!
True. Other than the stuff he did wrong, he's done nothing wrong.
If a, then ~~a.
Of course that's not true, but the badness of the guy who was denied due process can be a mitigating factor. Perhaps even cause for jury nullification, to analogize to another recent topic here. And you might look at the U.S. presidential election like the biggest jury trial in the world. I imagine most people would want to know about such potential mitigating factors.
Oh yeah, I can see he was a model cop. Some people would say personal knowledge of such a situation would impose a heightened duty on a leader to ensure corrective action was administered. Not me. Since she had personal knowledge of the guy's activities, she should have recused and instructed that no action be taken against him. Otherwise, it would raise the appearance of conflict of interest, since she's the chief executive of Alaska, with control over the Public Safety chief as well as the troopers. And we can' have that, right?
Ps. Oren - I hear that Halliburton supplies drilling equipment used by oil companies in Alaska. Companies THAT NEGOTIATED OIL RIGHTS WITH SARAH PALIN! You may want to look into that.
I don't want to divert this thread any more than has been done already, but I did want to note for the record that this is NOT the relevant comparison.
Back to your regularly scheduled denunciations.
Yes -- or at least most voters would believe so. Let's assume that Palin abused her position and had the guy fired. If the guy's a real creep, voters will be much more likely to overlook (some even condone) her conduct.
Now he foists this joke on us:
"If I were head of ABC News, I would immediately fire or demote the producer of this ABC report. I would then break up the team that did the report and bring some political diversity to ABC's newsroom by hiring a Republican-leaning producer from outside."
That's right, the solution to perceived bias is to interject even more bias into the reporting. Lindgren has failed to respond to the obvious flaws in his claims, instead trotting out even more overhyped claims of bias. Give it up Lindgren, your credibility is heading down the drain.
Well, I worked (only briefly) in a major DC news bureau and there most certainly were all of the above. They just had to use a different bathroom than everybody else [that part was a joke].
I sincerely apologize for implying that the assertion of an honorable state trooper of the great state of Alaska might be self-serving.
For that matter, nor does a governor having a state employee fired have anything to do with the so-called "unitary executive."
//Monarchy now!
BTW, I understand that the state police did investigate the matter, but my understanding is that the substance of Gov. Palin's complaint is that the investigation itself was flawed.
Finally, what investigation has been done into the allegation linking the firing to the Wootton complaint? It sounds as if Gov. Palin may have had a legitimate complaint (even if an investigation exonerates the trooper), but the bigger issue is whether the firing can be linked to the trooper-complaint. Seems to me that that is the weakest link to the story, at least potentially. If a political gets fired, and carries around an axe to grind, it is not exactly uncommon for that political to claim that the firing was inappropriate and/or politically-motivated.
My experience only the good performer gets clemency in situations like this. I'd expect him to have more than a few attaboys in his file. Else the leadership would have taken this opportunity to get rid of him.
People buy hunting licenses that can last for an entire year, for several years or for their entire life. People don't buy a ticket for every hunting expedition. Comparing accidents per hunting license to taser deaths (and only deaths, not injuries) to every single use of a taser is ridiculous. It would be more appropriate to compare accidents per hunting license to taser injuries per police officer armed with a taser. Do we have 70 million police officers in this country?
Section 3.1 of the Alaska Constitution states, "The executive power of the State is vested in the Governor."
Section 3.23 allows the Governor to reorganize the executive branch, subject to a Legislative veto. However, if the Legislature does not act, the reorganization takes effect.
Section 3.24 provides: "Each principal department shall be under the supervision of the governor."
Section 3.25 provides: "The head of each principal department shall be a single executive unless otherwise provided by law. He shall be appointed by the governor, subject to confirmation by a majority of the members of the legislature in joint session, and shall serve at the pleasure of the governor, except as otherwise provided in this article with respect to the secretary of state. The heads of all principal departments shall be citizens of the United States."
So, yes, there pretty much is a unitary executive in Alaska, and the head of the unitary executive is the Governor.
The whole media theory about this is a little tenuous. After all, Palin didn't fire Wooten, she fired a third party. There is no direct evidence connecting the failure to fire Wooten to the third party being fired. It is all circumstantial, and is undoubtedly true that she had the power to fire the third party with or without cause. Just from what I have heard this week, Palin seems to fire a lot of people.
Wooten has not been fired. These dots don't connect very well.
Reading that report about Wooten, in my jurisdiction he would have been fired for any one of the three "circumstances" listed in the report (tasering kid, drinking in his cruiser, illegal hunting).
How often are you going to type the silly fact that the 10 year old child asked as if it means anything?
How often are you going to omit the critical fact the officer was reprimanded for tasering the child?
Part of my point was to say that I wanted the details, a point that I repeated at the end of the post, so don't lecture me because I don't have the full story.
That's what I'm trying to get!!!!
Um, those statistics were from 11 years ago.
What is comical about this is you clearly have no clue what unitary executive means.
Why is ignorance a virtue for the modern left?
That understates the bias, however. As I recall, in the rare cases when particular issues are asked, they are usually to the left of what they would be if they were all typical Democrats.
Additionally, I am under the impression that publishers tend to lean Republican, if not conservative. Their control is obviously not that of an editor, but there is something of a conterveiling influence there.
Something you couldn't possibly demonstrate factually.
Liberal ideals translate into liberal bias.
Otherwise, I did enjoy this:
And this:
And this,
But I'm sure they're busy "influencing" news coverage and everything.
Some commenters are arguing particular facts below, in particular, some reports that the 10 or 11 year old stepson asked to be tasered, and immediately asked to be tasered again. I have read other accounts that suggest that the child was trying to show he was tough in front of his cousin, one of Sarah Palin's daughters.
You are missing one of the points of my post, made both at the beginning and the end. I want to know what happened. I don't know the details; I want to know them. The press should be of more help. ABC just gave one side of the story, an account that was not even very coherent since it didn't mention why anyone would be concerned about keeping Wooten on staff.
Tasering a child is wrong, whether he asks for it or not. If the tasering was motivated by the stepson trying to seem tough to his cousin -- and Wooten knew this -- then it would show him to be as childish as his stepson. I wish I knew what happened; I wish the national press cared what happened.
From what I've read:
Sarah's sister had a permit to kill a moose, but she couldn't bring herself to shoot it, so Wooten shot the moose for her. Then since that was technically illegal they tossed that into the complaint.
Since it's technically true, it doesn't cast doubt on the veracity of the other complaints, really, but it's not really an issue that people can use to say Wooten was a bad cop.
I don't think many conservation officers would be all that upset if a hunter shot an animal with someone else's permit, with permission. I don't think my dad would, unless he hated the guy who did it.
If you want to make an argument based on statistics you need to provide a link. If you can find something on the web, then you can link to it easily. There is no excuse for not doing so.
I have no idea of how dangerous it is to subject a ten-year old to a Taser jolt. I don't know that all Tasers deliver the same jolt. I also suspect the police models are different from the models available to civilians. If I had to advance an educated guess, I would think the Taser is fairly harmless unless the boy had some sort of medical condition that made him particularly vulnerable. All that being said, I personally wouldn't do it, nor would I advertise that fact if I did. On the surface it looks like poor judgment.
* * *
Ann and Nancy Wilson, the frontwomen of the rock band Heart, are demanding that the McCain campaign stop using their 1977 song "Barracuda" at political rallies after the song was played in honor of vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin on both Wednesday and Thursday nights. Does the McCain campaign have to honor the Wilsons' wishes?
Not if the campaign has the correct license. Like thousands of other songs, "Barracuda" is distributed by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, meaning that any entity that is licensed with ASCAP can play a song without getting the artist's explicit permission.
* * *
Via Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2199492/
Monegan, by all accounts, was doing a great job. By most measures the state police was doing the best it had in years. Then Palin decides to fire him without warning. Her reasons for it have varied day by day, but have included "wanting to take the force in a different direction", not adequately filling vacancies (although the training college was producing the most graduates in years), and not adequately fighting alcohol abuse in the force (if he wasn't fighting alcohol abuse in the force, why on earth would she offer him a new position running the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board?)
Palin has repeatedly and publicly denied that Monegan's firing had anything to do with Wooten. She has repeately and publicly denied that anyone in her administration pressured Monegan to fire Wooten, although she had to backtrack after the recording came out of her flunkey Frank Bailey saying "[Palin] really likes Walt [Monegan] a lot, but on this issue, she feels like it's, she doesn't know why there is absolutely no action for a year on this issue. It's very, very troubling to her and the family. I could definitely relay that."
So she has fired a guy who was doing a great job of great importance, possibly because of an unrelated family vendetta. And she has possibly repeatedly lied about the whole affair. That seems to be a bona fide scandal to me.
Alaska may be different, but it is viewed as a pretty serious deal everywhere I have hunted.
And the fact that the "guy" says that he was never pressured on this issue means nothing to you because . . . ?
Not always. Lawyers can often argue against their ideals and seem to do fine advocacy nevertheless. I would imagine one might be able to find a journalist or two who is able to perform a similar feat.
And do not publishers have some influence over which stories they publish?
I say that like most institutions the media is capitalist, and biased towards getting people to read/watch them, regardless of the truth or whether they are serving society.
Sorry, that argument won't wash.
1. ABC did not explain the 3 reasons Palin gave for Moneghan's demotion and resassignment (which he refused), which you must admit were relevant to the report.
2. Without indicating that Palin had heard the death threat against family members, they would not know why she and her family were legitimately contacting Moneghan about the case. Further, did you know that (according to some accounts) Sarah's Security Detail ordered Todd Palin to talk to state security officials about the death threat (when Sarah became Governor)?
So it was relevant, and they omitted the other stuff that even you would have to admit is relevant.
Sorry, that argument won't wash.
1. ABC did not explain the 3 reasons Palin gave for Moneghan's demotion and resassignment (which he refused), which you must admit were relevant to the report.
2. Without indicating that Palin had heard the death threat against family members, they would not know why she and her family were legitimately contacting Moneghan about the case. Further, did you know that (according to some accounts) Sarah's Security Detail ordered Todd Palin to talk to state security officials about the death threat (when Sarah became Governor)?
So it was relevant, and they omitted the other stuff that even you would have to admit is relevant.
Wooten seems to have been a good old boy going through a messy divorce.
There were no allegations that Wooten abused the power of his office. Aside from the complaints gathered by his ex-in-laws, he broke traffic laws, failed to reimburse the department for cell phone calls, showed up late, took a day off without calling in, and apparently used forms from work to write a court filing on. Most of this stuff (lateness, absence, cell phone calls, use of dept. forms for court filings for personal business) seems related to his divorce, frankly.
A couple of these are malum prohibitum laws: Party hunting is legal, in for example Minnesota. There was a time when drinking and driving was legal in many states, too (Texas for sure, and Missouri if I remember correctly). Tasers are new, but when I was a kid we used to crank up a field phone to I don't know how many volts for the thrill of getting shocked.
Oh, and DG -- of course he's trolling.
Little kids will do the damnedest things to get a bit of their step-dad's attention.
So you knew that the brother-in-law of the governor of Alaska and VP candidate for the GOP was a "dangerous Trooper who had tasered his stepson, allegedly threatened to kill a member of Palin's family, drank beer in a police car, etc." but you neded to watch a show to learn more about Palin?!?!
This concerned anger about media bias really has to go. You sat down with pre-determined conclusions about a non-public figure to supposedly "learn" more about someone who is the chief executive of one of 50 states and soon may be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Really, for someone who write blog posts linking stock market slides to Barack Obama's clinching of the nomination (but fails to make the same correlation/causation mistake when the DOW swoons after Palin's acceptance speech), you really ought to sit down, take a deep breath and try to contemplate the obviously strong biases you bring to your reading and viewing.
Exactly: He writes blog posts. ABC alleges that it engages in journalism.
Do you? It seems you know so much about them already ... at least with respect to Wooten.
Out of the whole Troopergate incident, one thing is clear: Palin, if she felt that strongly that Wooten had been inadequately disciplined, should have focused her efforts on reforming the disciplinary procedures of the state police. Also, assuming that Wooten is as poor of a trooper as he has been characterized to be, could have been readily dismissed for nearly any new out of line behavior as he had already been put on notice from the disciplinary decision. Again from the same ADN article:
Dated March 1, 2006
On April 11, 2005, an administrative investigation was initiated regarding allegations of improper conduct committed over a two year period that occurred between yourself and various members of your immediate and extended family. I have reviewed the entire file, to include the "Memorandum of Findings", all recordings and interviews conducted in this administrative investigation. The pertinent sections that were sustained include the following:
...
/s/ Colonel Grimes
When all the information JL wants is revealed, here's how this will look, I predict: Whether to keep Wooten from getting custody, or just to make him suffer, the Heath girls decided they were going to try to get him fired. They tabulated everything they remembered that they could try to stick him with, including the time he angrily yelled at their dad. Luckily one of the neighbors remembered when Wooten took a beer out of their garage fridge and drove off in his cruiser.
But the State Troopers did not fire him, they only suspended him for ten days. Frustrated, Palin persisted in her attempt to get her ex-brother-in-law fired, even ordering up his personnel and workman's compensation record to look for further excuses.
The motive for Monegan's firing will become irrelevant.
You omitted the brackets. Your identity is exposed.
Yes, as that proved, Republicans are very good at convincing people the real news is a press blunder on an inessential document, not the rest of the story which remains valid.
I'm also sure that if a Democrat had suggested Wooten was a "bad cop" it would be proof that the liberals don't support our brave policemen and women.
But that's not what Palin said - she said that she never pressured Moneghan to about Wooten, and that she fired Moneghan for unrelated reasons. So the specific allegations against Wooten are beside the point - what's at issue is whether she really did pressure Moneghan or fire him because of this.
http://www.adn.com/politics/story/476430.html
The combination of the death threat and drinking on the job is very troublesome. Wooten was a law enforcement officer. Those two offenses, together, dramatically escalate the potential threats of each considered alone. My day job involves, among other things, litigation arising from discipline of law enforcement officers. I had one of those cases cross my desk last month.
Absent significant impeachment evidence going to the credibility of the accusations, or evidence of exetnuating circumstances, those two offenses together could justify termination under California law, and Palin had every right to use every lawful means available to protect her family.
Then the ENTIRE INTERNET condemns father and just about accuses him of reckless child abuse. Sound about right?
No duh. Wooten did not provide the child with anything he could not do himself (e.g. give him whiskey). It's not hard to build a DIY "tasers" out of disposable cameras and other assorted parts.
Even if this is true (which I don't buy), this certainly changes the degree of wrongness. Just saying that a police officer tasered a kid implies that he did so in order to restrain or punish the kid. It's misleading wording, even though it's literally correct.
I think Palin's points in her e-mails that the police officers need to be held to a higher standard and that they shouldn't be exempt from firearms laws. As a religious reader of the War on Guns blog, comments like that from Sarah Palin just make me like her more.
Then I wonder why Colonel Grimes left it out of Wooten's letter of reprimand? Surely if it had been a policy violation, she would have put it in the document along with Wooten's improper use of department forms and failure to use turn signals. No reasonable State Trooper colonel could possibly conclude that a death threat was less less important to include in a disciplinary record than failure to signal a turn. So I must conclude that Wooten's words did not constitute a death threat, and were not worth mentioning.
She was involved personally with the office via family connections and it was not her place to try to get him ousted after the investigations took place. By nature of her relationship she should have stayed out of it and not actively tried to get Wooten pulled for the force by leveraging her position as governor.
Wooten actions are a side story, because who cares about this guy, he isn't running to be Vice President
If the governor showed any real sign of attempting to fire any other "loose cannon" aside from the one that happened to be having a nasty divorce with her relatives, let me know. Otherwise, it's hard to believe that motivation.
Maybe if the kid had asked the cop to help him inhale some harmless marijuana smoke, that would be A-OK, huh? Maybe snort a little cocaine, just like Barry? The kid would probably laugh about that, too, and brag about it to his pals at school. Child abuse is child abuse. Adults are supposed to protect kids, not taser them. No matter what a 10-year old may think he wants.
Some folks will use any pretext -- even deliberate child abuse by a bad cop -- to attack the Governor of Alaska, a lady who never asked for the VP slot, and now is subjected to these scurrilous Liberal attacks simply because she accepted. It's for the children, right?
If this is the best libs can do, count me unimpressed. And disgusted.
It's comforting that threatening to kill somebody, but not saying it to his face, isn't worth firing a police officer. I'm sure the same standard would be used right now if a Secret Service officer told Michelle Obama that he was going to fucking kill her kids.
I'd prefer to just kill the fucking cop myself if he threatened to kill a family member of mine.
Say it with me: "Alger Wooten
"Alger
[dramatic pause]
Wooten"
Doubly so in a post where Jim hoists ABC for not presenting all the relevant facts.
Ethics takes sides. Could election parody get any better than that?
Would it be OK to taser folks at Guantanamo? If it were done, would it constitute torture?
Monegan did not say this. He says that no one explicitly told him "Fire Wooten". They did just about everything short of that. See, for example, here or here
If you did it in one second intervals, asking if they wanted to continue between each administration -- go right ahead!
My nine year old asked to drive the car. I said no. If she asked me to Tazer her (I am a cop and carry one), I would say no.
he is an idiot. He is the adult. He is supposed to know that act was wrong.
The only real political problems for Palin here are that he wasn't fired and that apparently she didn't actually try to get him fired.
If it comes up in an interview, she'll add 1-2% to the McCain vote by answering something like "You know, my Mother is still mad at me about this. A couple of months after the election, she asked me why Wooten was still a trooper. I told her 'Momma, being Governor doesn't mean that I can fire my sister's ex-husband. He was investigated and punished for {acts} before I took office and that's where I have to leave it.' I'm Governor, not King."
Hint: compare the "loser ex-husband and sympathizers" demographic with that of "folks who had to deal with aftermath of loser ex-husband".
What I find absolutely chilling are the threats of violence against Mr. Heath. Coupled with a seeming problem with alcohol, that for me warrants termination &a prohibition against possessing firearms.
Ultimately, I think we have to remember that state troopers are a tightly-knit clique who will look after their own. I'm sure Palin was frustrated by the lack of effective disciplinary action, and I tend to agree that discipline was unreasonably light. And I probably would have done the same thing as her, if I were in her shoes. But on the other hand, Wooten's not been fired ¬ shot anybody yet, so maybe it worked...
.
ROTFL. "Simple journalistic ethics" is an oxymoron. The function of the press is to FORM opinion, not INFORM. Oh, and to sell hotdogs and bier while at it. Trusting the press is folly. If they get something right, it is a coincidence or an accident.
We saw the result of a full-grown adult being tasered here a few months ago. After what appeared to be about a one-second jolt, the guy fell flat on his back, stiff as a board. Are you saying there was zero danger of the kid cracking his head on something hard, or sharp?
It is the responsibility of adults to protect kids, not taser them. IMHO, that cop should have been terminated.
He was found guilty of making death threats against his father-in-law because the father in law hired an attorney for Wooten's wife, of using his issued taser to shock a minor who was not under arrest, of drinking while driving his patrol car, and of illegally shooting a moose on his wife's tag.
He was investigated for drinking in a bar, intervening in someone else's boyfriend-girlfriend dispute, and, after identifying himself as a trooper, throwing the boyfriend out. The bartender called the police about Wooten, who stopped Wooten while he was driving home. The trooper who stopped him made him park the car, and then gave him a ride home, but later denied that he thought Wooten had been drinking or was impaired. The trooper was not able to explain why he made Wooten park the car. Wooten was cleared on this complaint.
Wooten was also accused of driving drunk on more than one occasion. The investigator cleared him of all of this, since no one but the family saw him drunk, and the family was not considered impartial.
At the time Wooten shot the moose, he was actually a wildlife trooper with responsibility for enforcing fish and game laws, who would have (or should have anyway) cited a civilian for the same thing he did. It was not a meaningless violation.
He was accused of shooting a wolf from a moving snowmobile, and was cleared because he had crossed into an area where that sort of thing was legal, even though it is illegal in most of the state.
He has a history of alcohol abuse, and was subject to mandatory anger management classes and mandatory alcohol counseling prior to being employed a as trooper.
This all happened prior to Palin being the governor.
Since then, Wooten claimed an on-duty injury prevented him from working, so he was missing work while being paid disability pay. During the time he claimed he couldn't work, he was able to go on a wilderness moose hunt. He was also accused of being in bars and bragging that he was beating the system. One of Palin's aides (Bailey) also accused him of hiding a pre-existing medical condition and a history of alcohol abuse in his original application for employment. Normally, such applications are confidential. In that recorded telephone call, Bailey says he learned of the application because Wooten was claiming to be disabled.
As far as I can tell, no investigation into the new allegations has ever happened.
The head of the state police had differences with Palin, other than that about Wooten. She offered him a job as the head of the state's alcohol control board, which he turned down. He then resigned after being told Palin no longer wanted him as head of the state police. He says himself that no one pressured him to fire Wooten, but that he received a number of complaints about Wooten's continuing behavior. He also says that he feels the real reason he was forced out was over Wooten, although he has no way to demonstrate that other than his gut feelings.
Palin says she never asked the head of the state police to fire Wooten. He agrees with this. Palin also says she never asked anyone on her staff to pressure the head to fire Wooten.
In the much ballyooed recorded telephone call, Palin's aide (Bailey) repeatedly asks a Trooper lieutenant why Wooten has been allowed to commit so many violations without action by the agency.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, but this was not mentioned in Wooten's official letter of reprimand.
Where do you get this other stuff from?
According to the Washington Post, Palin complained to Monegan last February, that "This trooper is still out on the street, in fact he's been promoted," said a Feb. 7, 2007, e-mail sent from Palin's personal Yahoo account and written to give Monegan permission to speak on a violent-crime bill before the state legislature.
"It was a joke, the whole year long 'investigation' of him," the e-mail said. "This is the same trooper who's out there today telling people the new administration is going to destroy the trooper organization, and that he'd 'never work for that b****', Palin'.)"
If new allegations kept turning up against him, why did he get promoted?
if this trooper - Wooten - had been involved as a key witness in a big trial, was the affiant on a contested search warrant, or was involved in a use of deadly force, based solely on what is in my previous post, there would be liberals all over the State Police for not firing such a moron, or for allowing him to do anything important. He's clearly not suited by temperament or personal behavior to be a law enforcement officer.
Palin says she (and her family) made a number of complaints about Wooten. i can see why. Frankly, if the head of the state police didn't recognize Wooten as a potential time bomb for his agency, he should have been fired.
BYW, in that same recorded phone call, the lieutenant says something to the effect that Moneghan didn't fire Wooten because he was afraid he would be accused of firing the trooper because of the governor. What he said - if the lieutenant quoted him correctly - was that Wooten somehow had immunity from job action because of the relationship between his ex-wife and the Governor.
Fair enough.
"If new allegations kept turning up against him, why did he get promoted?"
Good question. we should ask the former head of the state police.An even better question is why the new allegations were ignored.
As for all those details, the actual IA reports (4 or 5 as I recall) from the State Police are on-line somewhere. I read them last week when this all started, because I was curious about where the truth lay. If you bother, I especially recommend the IA investigators treatment of the bar incident. It's amazing for the pretty evident fact that Wooten's conduct was whitewashed, and the bartender pressured to change his statement.
The current (stalled) investigation was under the control of a Democratic state legislator, who hired a friend of the fired agency head, who would be solely responsible for investigating. The legislator has been quoted as saying the report would be a new "October surprise" for the governor. The report was due to be released just a week or two before the election. Since then, an attorney for one of the aides has filed a suit, seeking to determine who actually has the statutory right or authority to investigate, so the initial investigation is in limbo until resolution of the suit.
I'm assuming Palin would like nothing better than to put this to rest, but under these circumstances, would any politician in his/her right mind cooperate with such a potential for rigged results?
I agree with you that item 1 should have been included.
Your second item is the crux of the dispute and you're wrong. Taking your last point first, having Todd Palin "talk to security officials", if true, isn't the same thing as pressuring Monegan to fire Wooten. For one thing, that's a simple fact conveyed in a single conversation, and not necessarily with Monegan (though possibly). For another, it doesn't explain the apparently numerous communications from people purporting to speak for Gov. Palin implicitly telling Monegan to fire Wooten. Finally, it doesn't get to the issue of whether Palin herself was behind that pressure, which is the key fact she has denied.
Your first point in item 2 suffers from essentially the same flaw. She may have had a legitimate reason for talking to Moneghan. But (a) "talking to Moneghan" is not the same as pressuring him to fire Wooten; and (b) it doesn't explain the apparently repeated approaches to Moneghan by the Governor's staff claiming to speak for her.
It would be a different story if Gov. Palin had said something like "You bet I wanted the guy fired. He did X, Y, and Z and shouldn't be a state trooper." If that were her defense, then all of Wooten's bad acts would be relevant. That's not her position, though. Her position is a denial that she had anything to do with it. Under those circumstances, what Wooten actually did is irrelevant.
I'll add, too, that the case facts are a bit unclear. The initial reports I saw had Gov. Palin denying any contact with Monegan at all. That, obviously, undercuts your argument entirely. More recent reports, such as the WaPo article linked above, report her claim that she did speak to him but only related to family matters (a claim that, frankly, the facts don't support very well). If she has changed her story, that could also be significant.
Having said all that, I personally think Gov. Palin is irrelevant to this campaign. The issue is McCain v. Obama. I've said so since the day he selected her; my only purpose in commenting in response to your post was to note what I believe is a problem with your reasoning. Frankly, I don't give a damn about Gov. Palin, Monegan or Wooten.
I hope our whit is following this thread, I'm sure he'd be shocked and amazed by this newfound understanding for the wacky antics of our boys in blue.
This television station site has a lot of primary documents on it.
You can find out that He was accused of shooting a wolf from a moving snowmobile by his ex-father-in-law. It turns out that his ex-fil had shot and wounded the wolf, so Wooten humanely chased after it on the snow mobile and dispatched it. Kind of harsh for a man who couldn't dispatch his animal to charge the man who put it out of its misery with a game law violation.
I actually found the original case files on-line, which included all the typical "I then proceeded to so-and-so's domicile was was unsuccessful in locating him. I then telephonically contacted etc etc." I don't think those were on the TV station site. I'll go back in my browser history and see if I can find the links.
And it is mostly he-said, she-said, but it does demonstrate a scary pattern of behavior, even when you take it with a grain of salt.
I wouldn't think that one could fairly judge the governor's behavior, without first ascertaining if she had a valid issue with the State Police's handling of her family's multiple complaints.
This is the kind of thing that bothers me about the police. No citizen has complained that Wooten violated his civil rights during a stop or an arrest. Surely if Wooten were a bad cop, after all the Palin-Monegan-Wooten hubbub, someone he had arrested or detained would have stepped forward and complained. Instead, only Palin's blood relatives, and their neighbors the Lanes, have ever complained.
Even though the boy wasn't harmed, tasing the boy was ill-advised, however brief and mild the pulse. It fit in with the pattern of minor stupidities listed in his letter prescribing his ten-day suspension.
here's a link with all of the pdf files about the various allegations.
if you read the file about the bar incident, it does seem to be alleging that Wooten overstepped his authority. As for anything else, it would be interesting to see how many arrests Wooten has actually made. You don't get complaints if you're lazy and never take enforcement action.
Even if he hasn't been accused of violating someone's constitutional rights, would you agree the sustained allegations alone demonstrate a disturbing pattern of behavior?
I saw him admit on CNN to tasering the kid, there is *nothing* else necessary to know - that alone is grounds for dismissal and prosecution and he admits that he did it.
At the same time, probably the only thing that could get him fired would be the governor making it happen. In other words, he probably did lose his job due to her, as it's unlikely that the other people in his department or the DA in his area would have done the right thing on their own accord.
This is the kind of thing that bothers me about the police. No citizen has complained that Wooten violated his civil rights during a stop or an arrest. Surely if Wooten were a bad cop, after all the Palin-Monegan-Wooten hubbub, someone he had arrested or detained would have stepped forward and complained. Instead, only Palin's blood relatives, and their neighbors the Lanes, have ever complained.
He's a fine cop, a fine father, and a fine man.
Alger Wooten
Normally, the governor of Alaska would not have to justify or explain a firing of the state police head.
Adam, that is the slimyest comment I've seen on this subject or any subject involving, frankly, child abuse. Lets say that an 11 year old girl want's sex from an adult vs. an 11 year old that doesn't. Isn't there a "tremendous difference in wrongdoing?
Did you really need to have that explained? MY GOD, what are supposed adults coming to when they can excuse this kind of behavior for whatever damn reason? Have we no shame?
Hoosier, take a look at this
I nearly crapped my pants.
It is my pleasure to provide character reference examples for Mr. Mike Wooten. Since I have become acquainted with Mike, I continue to be impressed with his integrity, work ethic, community spirit, and trustworthiness.
...
I have never seen him raise his voice, or lose his patience... I wish American had more people with the grace and sincerity ... of Mike Wooten.
/s/ Sarah Palin, Mayor [of Wasilla]
Well, who among us hasn't wanted to Taser a 10 year old or make death threats against former in-laws? Palin may have been imprudent to take her family's word ahead of Trooper Wooten's, but if facts are as stated by Flopping Aces, it seems prudent to get rid of this guy before he ended up costing the state a few million in a civil rights law suit.
What the Commissioner's motives are, I don't know, but a person who makes death threats, even in the context of a domestic dispute, seems to need some kind of counseling and psychological assessment at the very least. Col. Grimes' findings make me wonder how long-suffering the department was with employees like Wooten in a position to exercise its police powers.
The rule which the press seems to be lobbying for, intentionally or not, is that former in-laws of politicians can never be fired, lest it be perceived as abuse of power. I thought that nepotism, not its opposite, was main problem with rural politics. Or maybe the real rule is that conservative politicians can do nothing right, particularly if they stand to hurt the chances of a media darling.
This whole issue is really beneath the level of presidential politics, since it seems to have become so muddied that nobody in the position of a disinterested voter can really tell where the whole truth lies. That is what Washington and National media love to drive into scandal, but what bearing does it really have on the job of Vice-president?
If this is the best the left can come up with, it is a case of endorsement by faint objections.
It also seems compelling to me that a Governor Palin has an 80% approval rating in Alaska. Presumably, this dispute has been heard and considered by the people of her state in making that assessment.
Mr. Lindgren, I submit the Tutins, llamasexes, and jukeboxgrads, et al--and the MSM honestly don't care.
Nothing can be permitted to prevent the 0ne from taking the White House.
It really is that simple.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
Have you ever SEEN so many hardcore Liberals fighting for due process and substantive fairness for a cop who tasered a small kid?
A bit counterintuitive, to me.
Taking a walk down memory lane...
Nixon’s Enemies List is the informal name of what started as a list of President Richard Nixon’s major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson, written by George T. Bell [1] (assistant to Colson, special counsel to the White House) and sent in memorandum form to John Dean on September 9, 1971. The list was part of a campaign officially known as “Opponents List” and “Political Enemies Project.” The official purpose, as described by the White House Counsel’s Office, was to “screw” Nixon’s political enemies, by means of tax audits from the IRS, and by manipulating “grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc.”
I voted for Mitt Romney in the primary -- a fine man, he would be a fine vice president.
If she believed with cause that Wooten should not have been a State Trooper,would one not expect her to pursue that even more as Governor than as previously as a private citizen? I suppose it could be called "negligent retention."
Bet that the last letter of recommendation she ever writes for her sister.
It's such a shame too, I had such a high opinion of my parents before the internet finally revealed the truth to me.
2-3 is "so many"? I mean, c'mon. FWIW, though, I disagree with Oren on this issue. I don't think using the taser on the kid was appropriate. What really surprises me is that there are "so many" conservatives willing to criticize a cop for using a taser regardless of the circumstances.
You are a strange fellow... I hope you do not have kids!
The thing is that Oren has no problem tasing a kid for the fun of it. If that is your position, you also are a strange fellow.
...
I have never seen him raise his voice, or lose his patience... I wish American had more people with the grace and sincerity ... of Mike Wooten.
/s/ Sarah Palin, Mayor [of Wasilla]
Yeah that was also written 5 years before the incidents in question.
There were rules against tasing younger individuals. Not sure of the age, but there were rules that he violated. That of course does not include the idiocy of his actions.
I'm in total agreement. He probably had rules that forbade the use of his taser except in clearly defined circumstances that justified use of force. He also probably had rules against using the taser on juveniles in any circumstance. Although he did not taser the kid with malice, he was demonstrably stupid. It's the inability to control his own actions that is so disturbing.
Given the Governor's popularity within her own state, I suspect most of the people there agree with trying to can this fool. He's exactly the kind of overbearing bully that gives cops a bad name. Well, maybe a worse name...
Can't disagree with that! He actually needed to be removed and I just wish that Palin had accomplished the action.
Out of curiosity, what "law" do you think she broke?
Yes, other than the crimes and abuses of authority. Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln...
Er, except at the time, he was in charge of enforcing those laws. If an ordinary person breaks a minor law, I think it's worth ignoring. But when LEOs do the same, I don't.
Of course by itself it's not a serious crime, but it shows a pattern of refusal to obey the law, which makes him unfit to be a LEO.
I'd like to show my girlfriend how brae you can be when you're waterboarded. Please put me on the waterboard.
Uncle:
How about being beer boarded?
Last month I met a guy buying a fishing license.
He was cited and fined for holding someone else's fishing rod while the owner took care of some personal business, because in the interim a fish bit, and he didn't have a license.
TASING THE STEPSON
One day -- maybe a year or two before the investigation -- Wooten showed his stepson his Taser. He had just been to Taser instructor school. Wooten told Sgt. Wall that the boy was fascinated and pleaded to be tased.
"So we went in our living room and I had him get down on his knees so he wouldn't fall. And I taped the probes to him and turned the Taser on for like a second, turned it off. He thought that was the greatest thing in the world, wanted to do it again," Wooten told the investigator. The boy flinched but nothing more, he said. The boy was about 11 at the time.
In his interview with troopers, the stepson said it hurt for about a second, according to Wall's report. The boy said he wanted to be tased to show his cousin, Palin's daughter Bristol, that he wasn't a mama's boy. The probe left a welt on his arm, he said. His mother was upstairs yelling at them not to do it, the boy said.
As Bristol remembered it, the jolt knocked the boy backward, the trooper report says. She said she was afraid.
The probes are attached by thin wires to the Taser cartridge. In the field, an officer fires the probes into a suspect's skin or clothing and the suspect receives a jolt of electricity for five seconds, said Steve Tuttle, a spokesman for Taser International, which makes the devices. They are only incapacitated during that time. In demos, the probes might be taped to a person so that they don't accidentally strike an eye or injure the volunteer, he said. If the Taser is fired for just a second, it would feel like your funny bone was hit but the quick jolt wouldn't knock you over, Tuttle said.
---------------------------------------------
This is a guy that you would want on the public payroll?
Since I expressly said I disagreed with Oren, I'd call your post a radical interpretation of the text.
Acad Emerg Med. 2008 Jan;15(1):66-73.
TASER X26 discharges in swine produce potentially fatal ventricular arrhythmias.
Walter RJ, Dennis AJ, Valentino DJ, Margeta B, Nagy KK, Bokhari F, Wiley DE, Joseph KT, Roberts RR.
Cook County Trauma Unit, John Stroger Hospital of Cook County, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA. rwalter@cookcountytrauma.org
J Trauma. 2007 Sep;63(3):581-90.
Acute effects of TASER X26 discharges in a swine model.
Dennis AJ, Valentino DJ, Walter RJ, Nagy KK, Winners J, Bokhari F, Wiley DE, Joseph KT, Roberts RR.
Department of Trauma, Stroger Hospital of Cook County, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
....11 standard pigs (6 experimentals and 5 sham controls) were anesthetized with ketamine and xylazine. The experimentals were exposed to two 40-second discharges from an EID (TASER X26, TASER Intl., Scottsdale, AZ) across the torso.
RESULTS: Two deaths were observed immediately after TASER exposure from acute onset ventricular fibrillation (VF). In surviving animals, heart rate was significantly increased and significant hypotension was noted. Acid-base status was dramatically affected by the TASER discharge at the 5-minute time point and throughout the 60-minute monitoring period. Five minutes postdischarge, central venous blood pH (6.86 +/- 0.07) decreased from baseline (7.45 +/- 0.02; p = 0.0004). Pco2 (94.5 mm Hg +/- 14.8 mm Hg) was significantly increased from baseline (45.3 mm Hg +/- 2.6 mm Hg) and bicarbonate levels significantly decreased (15.7 mmol/L +/- 1.04 mmol/L) from baseline (30.4 mmol/L +/- 0.7 mmol/L). A large, significant increase in lactate occurred postdischarge (22.1 mmol/L +/- 1.5 mmol/L) from baseline (1.5 mmol/L +/- 0.3 mmol/L). All values returned to normal by 24 hours postdischarge in surviving animals.
Spare us the phalogocentric heteronormative heuristic that privileges intentionality as a hegemonic discourse for (en-)gendering textual interpetation.
He was never fired. He got promoted.
Tony, the State Police gave him a sweetheart deal and they are and should not be the last word on the subject. The thin blue line is notorious for taking care of its own, even when its own are pretty bad apples, as appears to be the case here. I hang out on the ar15.com site, where the resident cops will almost always defend their own, even in the most egregious examples of official misconduct.
The police must be accountable to the elected branch, or else every citizen is in trouble. I personally think that elected officials in the executive branch should have the power to directly fire any public servant at any level, while doing so in a transparent manner and taking the consequences in the next election. I wouldn't mind the legislative branch having the power do so either, subject to the normal veto process.
If Palin asked Moneghan to take a look at his case simply because she knew he was no good, well, whoop de do, anyone would have done that, including every lib, liberal, or pinko on this blog. Asking once might or might not be by the pure ethical book but few people would consider the intervention so heavy handed as to compromise the appearance of impartiality by Moneghan.
The allegations are not that simple. There is evidence that she might have mounted a campaign to get Wooten fired. If true, it shows that she was either unaware or unconcerned with the perception of a conflict of interest. Moneghan's firing is more troubling still. Considering some of the stories about her tenure as Mayor, it fits into a narrative of someone unwilling to compromise who will purge dissenters.
As someone who finds the idea of a Palin Presidency deeply disturbing, "Troopergate" isn't much of a scandal. I suspect the investigation was being cooperated with because Palin knew that ultimately it wouldn't amount to much. As part of a larger pattern of being in over her head, however, it is troubling. That mayoral executive experience? Turns out that she ran the major project of her tenure into the red by being sloppy and ignorant -- being too much in a hurry, and not listening to people.
If she shows some depth in the coming weeks she will be a formidable politician this season and beyond, even if the GOP loses the Presidency. So far there isn't much to hold onto... what does a VP do? Fannie Mae? A variety of non-corrupt pols in Alaska who criticize her unwillingness to engage the complex details of policymaking? Someone who lies repeatedly about pork spending while running for office as a reformer? Troopergate is just not something to get worked up over. All it shows to me is that she didn't have the political savvy to take this total thug loser of a cop down in a quiet way because she was so eager to flex her new power. Not a good trait.
Very reasonable and I agree completely. But Palin concealed evidence of all of Wooten's transgressions -- the tasing, the cow moose shooting, drinking beer in the cruiser -- until the breakup. What does that say about Palin's character?
A smarter ex-sister-in-law would have tried to avoid the appearance of conducting a personal vendetta, by having an independent agency investigate the outcomes of all investigations into complaints against state troopers. By singling out her ex-brother-in-law, instead of looking like an effective executive, she just looks like a loyal, vindictive sister.
David, what letter is that? That's not what the letter of reprimand from Colonel Grimes says.
Excellent summary of her downside, especially in light of her predecessors in the GOP tradition (W, Nixon). I don't know that you do justice to the upside, however - her willingness to take on corruption in her own party (and her success in so doing!), her ability to take out both Murkowski and Knowles in the governors race, her satisfaction of 80% of Alaskans in her governorship, the generally libertarian way in which she secured it (perhaps lessons learned from her mayorality), and her sheer energy, which the country, not to mention the GOP, sorely needs.
The contrast between her willingness to take on the GOP and Obama's unwillingness to do the same with his party is a stark contrast.
What I haven’t been able to find is the url for, much to my irritation, a radio program on radio KUDO Alaska with CC in Cutting Edge, 17th. Both Monegan and Hollis were on the program (demonstrating Hollis’s objectivity, he threw the possibility of criminal charges against Governor Palin into the show)
The really shocking statement I heard was CC reporting that the union’s position was that the tasering of the child by a trooper was not a dismissible offence because it was hardly an UNUSUAL thing for a trooper to do. This generated no concern from the host or Monegan. That force has some major issues. Will continue to look for the audio of the program.
I believe her more recent numbers were 60%. That doesn't impress me, given the state of Alaska politics.
Surely you jest! Obama took on the identity politics victim-trip crowd (Jesse Jackson, some of the Hillary people) and criticized African-American absentee fathers. He avoided the entrenched big-money people in the party. He defeated the Clinton machine. He acknowledged that Reagan had some good ideas. He isn't a pacifist or a pretend-militarist. He isn't perfect, but comparing Obama to Palin is inane IMO as he is obviously way more thoughtful on way more issues.
I also don't understand why people call her libertarian. I am open to believing that she is willing to put aside her own religious views on sex ed and gay rights, but her actual views don't seem all that respectful to individuals. Libertarians that are mostly focused on economics are rank hypocrites IMO, but that's another story.
Thought vs. action. Generalities vs. specifics. Expedience vs. courage. Interest vs. principle.
I'm voting for Obama in an attempt to drive a stake through Rove's heart and because I think he has the sense to resurrect the DLC approach ritually sacrificed by the nutroots. He's an American Blair. But Palin has shown the stones to be the more transformative force long term.
You're right, thanks. I thought you meant it was near the discussion of the tasing incident. Although I did read through the document, that sentence didn't leap out at me, being in the middle of one of the concluding paragraphs as it was.
I'm voting for Obama in an attempt to drive a stake through Rove's heart
A wasted vote then. Rove cannot be killed by any means known to folklore, let alone political process. Even the Gypsies have given up trying.
By the way, this is going to be the basis for the next Indiana Jones movie. Mutt Jones and the Imortal Campaign Strategist. (Frankly, they really need to work on the name.)
Can I quote you in the next debate over originalism?
Oh, and LOL. But if you don't spell my name right, I'll come after you like Gov. Palin goes after a wolf.
Hey, be my guest and quote away. Just bear in mind that the received discursive "meaning" of a text establishes no essentialist relationship between signifier and signified.
I am, by the way, reviewing a monograph by postmodernist historian as we write. And spending gobs of time on VC, because I can't bear the pain of actually finishing reading the book. ("Text"?)
I will, of course, demolish it. And then pistol-whip the author before nailing his ears to my garage door. As per usual.
I know I should be in jail for this approach to reviewing academic-press books. But the perpetrators--I am the victim here--always insist on a post-structuralist prosecution strategy as a condition of cooperating with the state. So it's by definition impossible to meet the burden of proof. Or even speak of it without doing those "quote mark" things with the DA's fingers. (Usually the state's entire case consists of showing the jury the director's cut of "Blade Runner.")
Which is nice for me.