Still More Troopergate and Palin's Apathy to Sex Crimes

Posted by Melissa McEwan, Shakesville at 9:23 AM on September 22, 2008.

As you may recall, the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner, Walt Monegan, who was fired by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin after declining to re-open an old investigation against State Trooper Mike Wooten, who was at the time immersed in a bitter divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister Molly McCann, was also the chief proponent and champion of "an ambitious, multi-million-dollar initiative to seriously tackle sex crimes in the state," which was shelved just before he was fired.

You also may recall that the McCain campaign, in order to refute the assertion that Palin fired Monegan because of Troopergate, argued that she had instead fired him because he made an unapproved trip to Washington on his own to try to secure funds for the initiative. As I wrote last Tuesday, that argument necessarily meant that "Palin is shockingly indifferent to rape and domestic violence in her own state and contemptuous of the people who don't share her indifference -- and, weirdly, the McCain campaign appears to believe that's somehow more palatable than Palin having simply fired Monegan for insubordination because she wasn't getting what she wanted from a public servant on her personal family matter. That's quite an amazing calculation."

Well, get this:

It turns out that Palin's office did authorize the trip. So now they're arguing that their problem was specifically his reason for going, i.e. that initiative to combat sex crime.

According to [Randy Ruaro, another aide to Palin], Monegan asked for -- and received -- approval for the travel without telling Palin's staff his reason for going. "As a matter of routine, the travel was approved by [Palin's chief of staff, Mike Nizich] ... weeks before the actual purpose was made clear by former Commissioner Monegan," Ruaro wrote.

"When you receive permission to travel, it does not mean that you receive blanket authorization to discuss or do whatever you would like on that trip," he added.

You'll no doubt be surprised to hear that Monegan says the travel authorization "was to pursue funding for the anti-sexual-violence program," and, given his track record on this story, I'm sure that's true and Palin's people are lying yet again.

But the important point here is that, at every turn, Palin's defense has been predicated on the premise that she didn't give a shit about addressing a sex crime problem that even she agreed was epidemic. That much remains consistent.

And that's not a small thing.

Melissa McEwan writes and edits the blog Shakespeare's Sister.