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In early 2009, as our legal defense bills piled up, Todd and I retreated to my quiet bedroom office and sat down for a sobering look at our finances. By then, we were faced with attorneys’ bills that would grow to more than $500,000—a lot more than my total salary for all the time I’d served as governor….

As the number of complaints mounted, I remembered the observations of the left-wing-radical-turned-conservative-activist David Horowitz in his treatise, The Art of Political War. I’d been following Horowitz’s work ever since I met him a decade earlier at an Alaska GOP convention at which we both spoke. His book explained the stark difference between the left’s expert use of the weapons of political warfare and the right’s high-minded but ineffective approach. One of the left’s favorite weapons is frivolous ethics complaints. That’s what they used to bring down the architect of the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” Newt Gingrich.

Prior to the election of 1994, the Democrats had held a majority in the House of Representatives for four decades. Working with a team of grassroots activists, Newt selected and trained candidates, shaped a political message, and became what Horowitz called “something rare in Republican politics—a genuine movement leader.”

To the left, that meant one thing: he had to be eliminated. There are many fine Democrat public servants, but sadly many in the party have moved increasingly to the left, and often the beating heart of their political warfare has been the personal destruction of their enemies. Generally speaking, after decades of failed social policies and weak national security positions, the party doesn’t have a strong base of success from which to win political arguments. So it targets people instead of ideas.

Back in the 1990’s, the Democrats had Newt in their sights. And strangely enough, the more influential he became, the more “unethical” he became—at least if you counted the number of complaints filed against him. Horowitz wrote, “Eventually, Democrats lodged seventy-four separate charges against Gingrich, sixty-five of which were summarily “’laughed out of committee.’”

Over time the cloud of ethical questions hanging over Newt reached critical mass. Instead of defending their own, Republicans on certain committees forced Newt to concede to one charge.

In my case, one by one, every ethics charged filed against me and my staff was tossed out. But there was one that was settled with a finding of no wrongdoing.

It concerned First Family travel. Since we live in a huge state with few roads linking rural communities, flying to another city isn’t just a day trip. Before, when I’d travel on the road system for a state function, any of the kids who were not tied up with school or a sport could just jump into the truck and off we’d go. When we had to fly somewhere for a First Family event, the state would pay for it; otherwise, I would pay for the kids out of my own pocket. Sometimes we could hop on the state’s prison transport plane, the King Air, and zip somewhere to attend one of the many First Family events we were constantly being invited to. It wasn’t as though they were bumping anyone—the seats were empty, and it was usually only Piper displacing forty pounds of air on this old state aircraft….

However, a complaint was filed about my kid’s travel. It targeted trips that appeared to have questionable benefits to the state—such as Piper’s travel to wave the starting flag at one year’s Iron Dog race (though apparently her travel to two other Iron Dog races was fine—go figure.)

All of my kids’ travel requests had been authorized by the Department of Administration and approved by the ethics supervisors who had worked for the previous administration on both sides of the aisle. We had disclosed and announced all of our travel. Nothing was hidden. And here’s the kicker: I had spent less on travel and personal expenses than my last two predecessors, despite having a much larger family.

The Personnel Board investigator was a Democrat, and though he had been fair to my administration in the past, the word was that he was feeling some pressure not to let us off. Still, he admitted that the travel guidelines were vague and circular, and that I had correctly followed the law and the historical precedent established by past governors in their family travel. However, because the travel guidelines were so vague, he asked me if I would hold myself to a future law that could one day be written to establish clearer travel guidelines. I’m always in favor of holding myself to a high standard, so I agreed. He reviewed my kids’ trips and presented me with a list of the ones he found “questionable” according to the new (and as yet unbinding) guidelines he established for judging their benefit to the state. He then offered me two options to settle the case. I could reimburse the state for the eight or nine trips, or I could present my case to the Personnel Board and wait for the board to provide clearer guidelines or tell my administration what to do.

I saw the second option as an utter waste of state time and resources. The proceedings would be a major distraction and would only prolong a complaint process that was obviously out of control….

I signed a settlement that stated clearly that I had not violated any law, travel regulation, or protocol. I agreed to reimburse the state for the trips in question, even though they were First Family functions that the kids were invited to—my staff had all the e-mails and invitations proving this….

And spin it they did. The result is that instead of reporting that an independent board of review found me not guilty of any wrongdoing, and that all the ethics charges filed against me have been dismissed, the media made statements like: “Governor Palin has been dogged by ethics complaints, most of which have been dismissed.”

Most of which. Now an asterisk will forever accompany the issue because of this one settlement. Although, the fact is, all have been dismissed….

In the end, Newt Gingrich lost his battle on one complaint and was assessed a $300,000 fine. Three years later, the IRS exonerated him. But it was too late: the image of Newt as ethically challenged had become part of the media record. Democrats had neutered their nemesis and pushed him to the back burner—at least for a while.

Now they were trying to consign us to the same fate. Thus, although it was illegal to do so, Andrée and her acolytes leaked to the media every time they filed another charge. The leaked charge would get front-page coverage. Our vindication would be buried next to the obituaries, if mentioned at all.

The ethics complaint insanity came to a head when the obstructionists started targeting my staff. My team. If they answered a press question about, say, a national event I was invited to, they would be charged with doing “partisan work on state time.” Andrée charged Kris with accompanying me on the campaign trail as the liaison with my state office, although she had full clearance to do so, an I was obviously not going to abandon my full-time responsibilities as an elected official while on the trail, though many candidates do. Kris had to pay to defend herself out of her own pocket. Randy Ruarto was charged and also had to pay personally to defend himself for merely doing his job. Others were in the same boat. Why would any rational citizen want to put himself through this? You wonder why good people stay out of politics? This is why.

The method of attack we were combating seems to have come right out of Saul Alinsky’s activist manual Rules for Radicals—the revolutionary handbook that taught leftists how to effectively harass and obstruct their opponents. Alinsky’s tactics had seemingly been updated by a new generation of left-wing activists.

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Posts: 1295 | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
Hope it isn't too far over your head, Jar-Jar.

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Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Ron Lambert:
KOM, I left out a lot. Note the dots of omission. The excerpt was just long enough to contain the completed thought about the leftist rules of political warfare, which framed it.

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Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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Andrée charged Kris with accompanying me on the campaign trail as the liaison with my state office, although she had full clearance to do so, an I was obviously not going to abandon my full-time responsibilities as an elected official while on the trail, though many candidates do.

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