There’s yet another potential scandal dogging Gov. Sarah Palin as she continues to avoid speaking to the media. Seems she is refusing to release about 1,100 e-mails between herself and her aides that a Republican activist claims violate ethics and hiring rules. Of course, Palin and her cronies are crying “executive privilege,” but what is undermining that argument is that the governor’s husband Todd Palin was copied on many of the e-mails. Since he has no position in state government, but is just another upstanding Alaskan, the argument for privilege is moot.

But the real reason the e-mails are being withheld is likely because they contain a whole lotta wrongdoing that might further tarnish Palin’s halo:

The list of confidential emails includes a number of communications related to the Public Safety Employees Association, a union for the state’s police officers and state troopers, and the headings refer to PSEA ads and a “PR campaign.” Many of these PSEA-related emails were CC’ed to Todd Palin—and were also withheld under the deliberative process and executive privileges. (Recently, John Cyr, the PSEA executive director, told The Washington Post that Sarah Palin held a grudge against the state troopers and held down their salaries and other funding because her ex-brother-in-law-the-trooper had not been fired.) A separate email sent from Frye to Bailey and Todd Palin and headed “I may be in trouble here guys” was withheld because it involves a personnel matter. In April, a series of emails with the subject line “from Sheila Toomey” zipped between Sarah Palin, Bailey, Frye, other Palin aides, and Todd Palin. Toomey writes the “Alaska Ear” political gossip column for the Anchorage Daily News. These emails were also withheld under the deliberative process and executive privileges. And a string of emails titled “Racism on the Radio” that went back and forth between Governor Palin and her aides was blocked from release on the same grounds.

Andreé McLeod, the person who originally requested the e-mails and who used to work for Palin in Alaska government, is continuing her efforts to shake loose the secret e-mails:

“I’ve known Sarah for years, ” says McLeod, who moved to Alaska from New York in 1978. “When the finger is pointed at somebody else, she’s all for accountability. When it’s pointing at her, it’s different. Sarah Palin was elected on the basis of providing open and honest government. She has failed miserably.”

“Executive privilege?” Withholding e-mails? Sounds like Palin subscribes to the Cheney School of Vice President (emphasis on the “vice”).

Double McSame Dick Cheney took a moment off from his European tour to offer his opinion about his prospective replacement, Sarah Palin:

“I thought her appearance at (the) convention was superb. I watched that with great interest. I loved some of her lines: ‘What was the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? It’s lipstick,'” he told reporters…

“I think she is a good candidate and I don’t see any reason why she can’t be an effective vice president,” he said.

Cheney should be thrilled with the choice of Palin for the ticket. Ironically, he and Palin appear to be more similar in character and ideology than the men who were on John McCain’s short list, including Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Tim Pawlenty or even Mitt Romney.

This is not just about the fact that Cheney and Palin both wear glasses, confuse sarcasm with humor and like to hunt, they have some fundamentally frightening traits in common:

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People Magazine photo of the Diddys with their twin daughters at home. Which is not in Alaska. Or Arizona.

We came under some criticism after we posted a P. Diddy video in which the performer/producer/clothing designer/etc. declared war on the McCain/Palin campaign. Reacting to McCain’s choice of running mates, Diddy said, “John McCain, you are bugging the eff out. There’s no black people in Alaska.:

Commenter Debbie took exception. “Is it a slow day for providing news that you are resorting too this guy ?!? He represents nothing worth talking about & is not known for morals or integrity in his own life.”

I won’t debate Puffy’s personal life (although it’s always hard to argue with success) but he does seem to be on to something. There really are no black people in Alaska. Or Arizona. According to a 2006 U.S. Census estimate, black people are rare in both states.

There’s only one place African-Americans are scarcer than McCain’s and Palin’s home states: the Republican party.

Of the Republicans’ 2,380 delegates, only 36 are black, a 78 percent drop from the GOP’s 2004 convention and the lowest number in 40 years, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Kentucky and Indiana have no black delegates or alternates at this convention. Four years ago, Kentucky had two black delegates and Indiana three.

Black leaders in Kentucky and Indiana — and even some white officials — said that’s a problem for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, and a long-term issue for the party.

“When you march into St. Paul without one African-American delegate, then you are saying: ‘We don’t have anything to offer African Americans,’ ” said Al Brown, who in 1992 was the first black chairman of the Jefferson County (Ky.) Republican Party.

Forgive me for asking, but what does the Republican party offer blacks? For that matter, what does it offer me? Or you? Somebody help me here, I got nothing.

In another sign that right-wing nut-job Richard Viguerie has gone completely off the rails, his latest e-mail goes beyond even his usual bombast and veers into the realm of the insane:

With her acceptance speech, “Now we know why liberal Democrats hate and fear Sarah Palin,” Richard A. Viguerie said.

“A week ago, conservatives and most Republicans were down-in-the-dumps, listless, unengaged. That lack of enthusiasm is a thing of the past. Tonight, thanks to Senator McCain and Governor Palin, conservatives and Republicans are fired up as they have not been since Ronald Reagan was president,” he said.

“Sarah Palin is the next Ronald Reagan,” Viguerie said.

“In less than a week, Governor Sarah has captured the heart and soul of this convention, the Republican Party, and the conservative movement. She brings together social conservatives, and economic conservatives and libertarians, and people who are fed up with the Culture of Corruption that infests our nation’s politics,” he said.

“From this moment forward, there’s no limit on where Sarah Palin might go,” Viguerie concluded.

How about back to Alaska ….

Shame on you, Sarah

ABC did a great job of researching some of the claims made in Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican convention. The speech was composed by a Bush speech writer, which would explain why I was unable to listen to it. It also explains why it was so untruthy.

PALIN: “[Obama] is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word ‘victory’ except when he’s talking about his own campaign.”

FACT: On July 15, in a speech in Washington, D.C., Obama twice used the word “victory” in reference to Iraq.

Palin hired a former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Stevens to lobby Congress for earmarks. Wasilla, population 10,000, received $27 million in federal money, about as much as Boise, Idaho, population 200,000

“In fact,” he said, “true success in Iraq — victory in Iraq — will not take place in a surrender ceremony where an enemy lays down their arms. . . I want Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future, and to reach the political accommodation necessary for long-term stability. That’s victory. That’s success. That’s what’s best for Iraq, that’s what’s best for America, and that’s why I will end this war as President. A week later in Berlin, Germany on July 23, Obama used the word “victory” three times to describe Allied successes during World War II. And in a June speech about the prospect of universal healthcare, he said Sen. Hillary Clinton “will be central to that victory.”

PALIN: “There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate.”

FACT: The meaning of “major” is open to debate, but Obama worked with Republicans, including Sen. Richard Luger of Indiana, to pass legislation that would expand efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. While a state senator in Illinois, he sponsored two contentious bills, one that studied racial profiling by police and another that ordered interrogations in potential death penalty cases to be recorded.

[…]

Palin’s idea of sport

In her 20 months as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has worked hard to turn it from America’s last great wild place into strip mall sprawl suburbia, like the lower 48. A key component of her effort is to get rid of predators, wolves in particular.

Palin offered a bounty for anyone engaging in aerial hunts of wolves, paying $150 for each left foreleg brought in. The Defenders of Wildlife sued to end this brutal killing, which is the opposite of sportsmanlike and which was outlawed by Congress 30 years ago. Wolves are either shot from the air or run down with airplanes until they are exhausted and then shot point blank on the ground.

“The Governor is overstepping her legal authority by offering cash payments for each wolf killed by aerial gunners,” stated Tom Banks, Defenders of Wildlife’s Alaska Associate. “That’s a bounty by anyone’s standards regardless of what they call it.”

Palin offered a bounty for anyone engaging in aerial hunts of wolves, paying $150 for each left foreleg brought in

Hoping to boost the number of wolves killed this year by permitees, Palin announced the state would pay $150 for each kill. According to an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) news release, the bounty was instituted to “motivate permittees to redouble their efforts and to help offset the high cost of aviation fuel, ADF&G will offer cash payments to those who return biological specimens to the department… Permittees will be paid $150 when they bring in the left forelegs of wolves taken from any of several designated control areas.”

Healthy ecosystems need predators. Without them, varmit populations — rodents, usually — explode. Poison is commonly then employed to kill the varmits, taking desirable and domestic species with the rodents, sullying waterways and introducing toxins.

“Governor Palin needs to take a close look at wildlife management practice in her state and restore the use of sound science,” concludes Banks. “She said would heed the will of the public, but it’s increasingly clear she’s only listening to that segment that is willing to sacrifice Alaska’s natural heritage for the benefit of a few.”

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) introduced the Protect America’s Wildlife (PAW) Act to close a federal loophole that would eliminate Palin’s aerial hunting program, which has also been proposed by Dick Cheney’s friends for the Greater Yellowstone region. Go to the Defenders of Wildlife’s site to see if your representatives have cosponsored the bill, and to sign a petition demanding they do.

If they weren’t Republicans, you could almost feel sorry for them. Inside the GOP convention hall — the ultimate dittohead echo chamber — party faithful in St. Paul seem to be blissfully unaware that a concensus is forming that Sarah Palin, John McCain’s choice for vice president, is irreparably flawed.
To gauge the level of panic in the McCain campaign, note that the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was timed to hit the airwaves just as Hurricane Gustav was making landfall near New Orleans.
But the real scandal here isn’t Palin’s thin resume, her ornamental status as what a commenter here described as McCain’s “trophy VP,” the ethics investigation into her personnel practices as governor, her past membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which treasonously promoted secession from the Union, or even the pregnancy of her 16 year old daughter despite Palin’s fervent, if fantastical, belief that abstinence is the only acceptable form of birth control.

The real scandal here is John McCain’s colossally bad judgment in what is universally regarded as any presidential nominee’s most important decision. It borders on an act of criminal negligence for a man who would be the oldest-ever first-term president to nominate as vice president someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin, a former sports reporter and beauty queen with no foreign-relations experience — who just months ago admitted she had no idea what a vice president did every day.

Choosing Palin reveals that, despite his slogan of “country first,” politics trumps everything with McCain, including the security of the United States. It ought to be a career-killing moment, in the way that former Sen. George Allen’s revelatory use of the racial slur “macaca” ended his presidential ambitions.

[…]

A kick butt and take names lawyer is in charge of defending Alaska Gov. and Republican Vice Presidential pick Sarah Palin in her abuse of power case in her home state. Thomas Van Flein’s first move was to try to have the investigation taken out the hands of the legislature and put under the control of the state’s “Personnel Board” (I guess Human Resources is too fancy for Alaska).

Why would anyone care who looks into Palin’s firing of the guy Palin asked to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper? Well the legislature answers to the voters, who elected its members. The Personnel Board consists of three people appointed by…the governor.

To say Anchorage attorney Van Flein seems like a political hack doesn’t do it justice. He has doggedly thrown in Bill Clinton references at every opportunity.

[S]tate Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat and former state prosecutor who is project director for the legislative investigation…asked, “Governor Palin has repeatedly stated that she has nothing to hide and that she and her administration will cooperate fully with this investigation. Is your client aware that you seem to be challenging the Legislature’s jurisdiction?”

And Palin’s lawyer’s answer?

“We don’t have any sex. We don’t have any drugs. And there’s no blue dress. Nor are there any shady real estate deals here,” Van Flein said. “In the big picture, I think people are going to be disappointed that this is not a scandal.”

It’s only been a few days and these people are already turning my stomach.

I just received in my in-box incontrovertible confirmation that John’s McCain’s choice of a running mate was a really bad one — arch-conservative Richard Viguerie thinks it’s a good one.

He says that the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate “unites the Republican Party and energizes its conservative base.”

But wait, there’s more:

McCain has chosen to balance his ticket with a principled conservative. Governor Palin’s life story is one of sticking to principle. She is living proof that a person can take on the corrupt political establishment – including corrupt leaders in her own party – and achieve great things.

There’s an old expression in politics: Go along to get along. Not this time. The selection of Sarah Palin is one big kick-in-the-pants to the corrupt establishment in both parties.

Congratulations to John McCain for hearing and responding to conservatives. Conservatives, the base of the party, have been listless. But, now, nearly all will work enthusiastically for the McCain-Palin ticket. In fact, this is the most enthusiastic conservatives have been since the era for Ronald Reagan.

That’s not all, though, Viguerie had one more over-the-top gush left in him: “This is a grand-slam home run. Conservatives’ feet haven’t touched the ground since this announcement.”