Friday, October 10, 2008

Panel Findings

"Panel Finds Palin Abused Power," or so one headline reads, but who cares? So, she broke the law, so what? It's not as if she's setting a precedent. George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney abuse power, too, and that's not breaking news on CNN, or at the dinner table.

Why is everyone getting so exercised about a little lawbreaking, a few million deleted executive branch e-mails, some abuse of power, an invocation of executive privilege here and there to get out of testifying and, more importantly, a couple of stolen votes?

For that matter, who gives a flying fajita about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys who refused to play ball, and go after a certain demographic for election fraud, or the violation of employment discrimination laws for new hires in the Justice Department?

How cynical have we become, as a society, when we realize that the current attorney-general, Michael Mukasey, is only pursuing an independent prosecutor, so he doesn't have to hire an attorney himself when his time is up like his predecessor Alberto Gonzales did.

So what if the candidate whose claim to fame was ethics reform gets caught throwing her weight around, and acting more like J.R. in Dallas than the Mata Hari she was groomed for?

And, those of us who think she's going to step down---really. She's not going to step down any more than she is going to dress up as Joan of Arc to go out trick or treating on Halloween. Expecting contrition from Sarah Palin would be like expecting Mt. Rushmore to evacuate its bowels.

Apart from hearing yet another headline roar, the only thing this little piece of "news" proves is that Obama is right to say that a vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for Bush/Cheney.