Dan Fagan Defends Governor Palin on Ethics, Attacks Her on Everything Else

Dan Fagan writing for the Alaska Standard:

The continual ethics complaints against the governor are getting a little old. The latest filed yesterday accuses Palin of having a conflict with her official duties as governor.

Sondra Tompkins says Palin shirked her gubernatorial duties when she traveled to Indiana at the end of the legislative session for two events, a Right to Life banquet and a breakfast for families with Down syndrome children.

"The recent partisan trip to Indiana by the Governor was purely to benefit personal interests, had no benefit for the State of Alaska and was in direct conflict with her official duties," the complaint said.

Yeah and so what? Our governor is running for president- tell me something I don’t know. She will finish out her first term and then hit the campaign trail. Does this mean she’s shirking her responsibility as governor? Of course not.

Well, if even Mr. Fagan can see that these ethics complaints are just partisan attacks then they surely must be. You want us to tell you something you don't know, sir? Sorry, but I don't have all day to respond to this. I can conclude from his last comment that Mr. Fagan believes that Governor Palin is handling her duties as governor sufficiently. Please keep this in mind because Mr. Fagan has a habit of contradicting himself.

Let us move on:

An argument could be made Palin is not a hands on governor. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming she is not engaged in the day-to-day responsibilities of being governor. That’s no surprise. The first thing she did when elected mayor was to create the new position of city manager so she wouldn’t get bogged down in the minutiae of daily operations of running the busy metropolis of Wasilla.

Palin has been more of a press secretary (her own) than governor and we should have known that going in. She clearly has little understanding of policy; we learned that during her campaign for governor and it was reaffirmed during her run for vice-president.

Is being a hands off, disengaged governor a violation of state ethic’s law? Is taking a few politically, self-serving out of state trips now and then an ethics violation? Not hardly.

[...]

Enough is enough. Let’s give the ethics complaints against Palin a rest.

Fagan obviously equates being "hands on" to fulfilling the duties of governor, yet earlier in his piece he claims that Palin has not been "shirking her responsibility as governor." Well which one is it, Dan? Make up your mind, please. As for not being "up on the details," this argument is getting stale. I remember listening to a phone conversation on your radio program between Mr. Fagan and Governor Palin, and it is safe to say that one person was not up on "policy details." And it was not Governor Palin.

Just for the sake of argument, let's say that Governor Palin does not micromanage every issue. History tells the tale of a president who liked to micromanage his administration. His name was Jimmy Carter. History also tells us of the president who replaced Carter and turned the United States around from the doldrums of the previous administration. I think his name was Ronald Reagan.

He wasn't into details either, or so his critics claimed.

Dan, enough is enough. Let's give the Palin nitpicking a rest.