Adding clarity....

Ms. Palin's choice to allow her son to eavesdrop on a conversation and in an atmosphere that is obviously NOT appropriate for a 16-year-old is not a healthy or educated one. No parent should willingly and knowingly put their child in this situation. A thought occurred to me while pondering this issue: In my opinion, it seems somewhat hypocritical for Ms. Palin to judge Mr. Wooten's equally uneducated choice of demonstrating the taser on his step-son (just as it was hypocritical for her and/or her family to partake of illegally obtained moose. But, I digress...) The difference is that Mr. Wooten honestly believed that his choice would not be detrimental to the child. I am very thankful that the step-son did not earn a lethal consequence due to his step-dad's ignorance. However, Ms. Palin adamantly believed Mr. Wooten to be a "loose cannon" (her words) and yet she STILL willingly put her son's mental health at risk. Even if it was just for the "extramarital affair" reason, as they said -- this is not a situation a wise decision-making woman willingly asks her son to join. And for you readers unsure of what her 16-year-old son, Track, allegedly overheard his uncle say to his aunt, I will quote Ms. Palin for you here: "I will kill him.[referring to Track's maternal grandfather] He'll eat a f****** lead bullet. I'll shoot him." Only the parties involved know what else he may have heard. The pain between the taser-gun and overhearing your uncle's desires to kill your grandfather may be immeasurable -- but I can make an educated guess as to which is longer lasting. It makes me wonder about her decision-making skills on other matters. Just my musings... ...do what you wish with them. Most sincerely, A Mother of 6 Wonderful Kids (Texas)

Andrew Halcro, you ought to be ashamed of yourself and your sophomoric behavior. As you have stated, a lot of what goes on in a divorce is a he said she said situation, and I don't think you really thought about that before you decided to spout off. There is so much more to this situation than what you have highlighted. During the election I was impressed by you and what you said and stood for, if you had been running against anyone other than Sarah Palin I would have supported you, as it was I was more impressed and impassioned by Sarah. I was excited by your ideas and energy also though and I was looking forward to watching you politically and possibly supporting you in the future. I defiantly thought of you as an "up and coming". Now after your little ranting episode I see you differently. I am no longer interested in supporting a sore loser. That is how I see you now, a sore loser who is lashing out and throwing barbs. It really is a shame, I thought you were so much more than that.

Andrew's Response:

Ashamed? Yeah...I'm ashamed I helped uncover a serious abuse of power after the governor denied it.

At least I'm not a liar. 

Once again, when you run for governor and need some assistance in the Matanuska Valley region, give me a call. 351-2360 Nice job bringing the hypocrisy of the Palin administration to light. Eric Feige

Wow! Andrew, I often read your blog with amazement at how educated you've become with State government issues. I try to read beyond the "Palin's the devil" remarks that are insinuated in your writing and professed by the majority of your bloggers. It can be a real turn off to those of us that just want the facts. But I have say, that especially with this issue, you may have let the dislike that is burning in your belly put a smoke cloud in your mind. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with your assesment of why Gov. Palin fired Monegan, but what I'm concerned about is your defense of Wooten. I don't know the man personally, as you seem to, but I would have to say that where there is smoke there is fire. These allegations are serious! Unfounded or not, they are serious. I know for a fact that if a member of your family tasered your daughter (even if she were begging for it) you would think that was a bit off kilter, and you would be angry. I realized he confessed to it and was punished, but what's the mindset??? Who does that kind of thing? That's like giving your kids meth at home so they'll know better than to take it from a stranger. Andrew, I know I will be crucified by your readers for for even questioning you on this, but do you really believe that Wooten is completely fit to be an officer of the State of Alaska? And are you really defending his actions?

Andrew's Response:

Please, never be afraid to question anything I post here.

I'm not condoning or defending Wooten actions. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows a lot of what is said is he said she said and it's very hard to prove and very rarely are there two angels involved.

As I wrote about the taser incident, it wasn't safe or right.

The background on the divorce was just to set the table to explain the where we are today. Wooten's story is compelling because of the long history of complaints against him by a family that is politically connected.

In fact yesterday at the PSEA press conference, the comment was made by John Cyr that he had never seen such a long list of complaints filed by the same people against the same officer.

The one thing I regret about the blog is I didn't make it entirely clear. It was never to take sides in a very messy divorce, but to raise the issue that there was some undue influence being put on the Department of Public Safety to punish him.

This story has just begun to be told and now we will move from the story of a messy divorce to the real story which is the abuse of power by certain government officials. 

What is the process to ask for the Senate or House of Reps. to begin an official inquiry into this matter. It seems the truth will not be told if an independent body doesn't do an inquiry. The breach of personnel documents, although they are investigative documents by a government official is a serious offense if true. So Andrew please advise us where the general public must go to ask for an unbiased hearing or investigation to happen.

Andrew's Response:

Email your legislators and ask for an independent investigation.

If we can throw all this other stuff out the window and just look at the unprofessional way she had Walt fired. The poor guy only had an audience with her for 45 minutes in 19 months? What kind of communication is this with one of your top commissioners? Then...for whatever reason.....she does the cowardly thing...sends someone to fire him while she is in DC? She must have been expecting Walt to quietly take the demotion and there would have been little to no press? This woman, if she were the CEO of a corporation would have ben fired by the board long ago over terrible decisions she has made on the fly. She has no communication skills whatsoever. She pulls knee jerk reactions all the time without thinking of the fallout. Let's have Dittman do a popularity poll right now, eh? Sarah, dear.....you are slippin' and sliddin'. We are worried about the next two years with you at the helm. God help us all.

Oops. As often happens with ADN, they've made a mistake. Let me fix this. 'On Thursday, the voters held little regard for Governor Palin. They said they do not believe Palin has what it takes to be a dog catcher, let alone a governor. "Based on what I know of Governor Palin and her promise to be open and transparent and committed to public safety, yet cutting spending for the troopers while simultaneously funding an $866,000.00 kitchen for a for-profit sports complex that was built in Wasilla on someone else's land which ended up costing the taxpayers $1.7 million dollars, knowingly writing a craptacular piece of legislation called ACES which simultaneously raised oil taxes 400% and all but completely eliminated oil exploration on state land (Liberty, anyone?), knowingly and willfully handing over $500 million to a company that has neither the resources, the capital or experience to build the largest gas line in the world and putting us at risk for three times that amount when, to fill the gas line we have to go to the people who actually *have* the gas, and knowingly and spitefully having some lackey fire a man with more than 30 years of law enforcement experience because she'd rather hire a man to take the state in a new direction, which as far as I can tell, just means that he ran out of women to victimize in Kenai... I would question any person in such a position of power, especially one who ran on a platform of 'integrity, (loyalty and courage')."

Thanks for your work bringing some light to the mystery of Monegan's untimely fireing. I know that you will be enduring personal attacks by Sarah's supporters for questioning their "Goddess" for any unholy motives. I am shocked by some of the comments remarking about it being "none of our business what she does." Hopefully your investigation will help clarify the real issues regarding this situation. It's sad that Sarah's "open and transparent" administration has come to this.

If I recall correctly Governor Palin admitted to two commercial fishing violations during the campaign - contrast violating fish and game laws for profit versus violating them for food - amazing how after 2000 years of listening to the parable (John 8:1-11) people are still willing to throw the first stone.