Wizbang on the Tasergate findings

Jay Tea at Wizbang has a post "On Ethics"
Among other things, he says:

But back to Sarah Palin. What exactly does that report say, and what does it mean?

First off, it's not any official, final report. It's just the report of the investigator to the legislative committee that hired him.

Second, the two conclusions come across as somewhat contradictory:

* Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides: The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust.

*Although Walt Monegan's refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety. In spite of that, Governor Palin's firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads.

So, Palin had the "proper and lawful" authority to fire Monegan, because she "likely" had his refusal to fire Trooper Wooten as part of her motive, she violated the law which said that public officials must not act in any manner where they might have a personal interest.

That law is so poorly crafted as to be essentially useless. If applied literally, then Palin has violated it countless times.

Her husband works for an oil company. Therefore, every single time she has dealt officially with oil companies, she has violated it.

He also works as a commercial fisherman. Therefore Palin should have nothing to do with any sort of laws governing the fishing industry.

Her teenage daughter is pregnant. Therefore she cannot act on any law helping pregnant teens.

Three of her children attend public schools. Therefore she must recuse herself from any matters dealing with education.

Her youngest child has Down Syndrome. She has to avoid any issue that deals with children with special needs.

What's more entertaining is to take the same standard and apply it to her current rivals. Of course, Alaskan laws have no legal standing on the actions of Senators from Illinois and Delaware, but it's a fun little exercise.

There's more, go and read it.

ON a previous post, one commenter whined about how posts like this, in defense of Sarah Palin, show the Republicans have "lost their moral compass".  Well, at least this commenter credits Republicans with having a moral compass in the first place.  Thanks ever so much for that.