Besides supporting the same policies as George Bush, Sarah Palin has another similarity to one of the worst presidents in American history. Like Bush she doesn’t listen to advice contrary to what she has decided to do. She was advised against her actions in the Troopergate scandal at least twice and ignored this advice according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek.
The Wall Street Journal reports that an ethics adviser warned Palin on the Troopergate issue:
An informal adviser who has counseled Gov. Sarah Palin on ethics issues urged her in July to apologize for her handling of the dismissal of the state’s public safety commissioner and warned that the matter could snowball into a bigger scandal.
He also said, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that she should fire any aides who had raised concerns with the chief over a state trooper who was involved in a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister.
In the letter, written before Sen. John McCain picked the Alaska governor as his running mate, former U.S. Attorney Wevley Shea warned Gov. Palin that “the situation is now grave” and recommended that she and her husband, Todd Palin, apologize for “overreaching or perceived overreaching” for using her position to try to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired from the force.
This advice came from an informal adviser who was not in an official capacity when writing to Palin. She also received similar advice in the form of warnings from a judge during her sister’s divorce:
An Anchorage judge three years ago warned and members of her family to stop “disparaging” the reputation of Alaska State , who at the time was undergoing a bitter separation and divorce from Palin’s sister Molly.
Allegations that Palin, her husband Todd, and at least one top gubernatorial aide continued to vilify Wooten—after Palin became Alaska’s governor and pressured state officials to take action against him—are at the center of “Troopergate,” a political and ethical controversy which has embroiled Palin’s administration and is currently the subject of an official inquiry by a special investigator hired by the state legislature.
Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers’ union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were “not job-related,” and that Wooten was being “harassed” by Palin and other family members.
Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten’s behavior and character. “Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse,” the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: “Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives.”
