Alaska Clears Palin of Troopergate Wrongdoing

The Anchorage Daily News reported today that Governor Sarah Palin was cleared by the Alaska Personnel Board of any ethics violations. Since this is good news for Palin, and since the mainstream media doesn't like good news for Palin, I decided to see what the MSM had to say (if anything) about the subject.

I checked the Los Angeles Times, and they have a headline pretending to take you to an article/blog post about Palin being cleared, but the link goes to a story about how Palin wore jeans on the final campaign day. (Oh, they fixed it now. They presented the highlights and quoted Palin but didn't point out the pertinent information that was also missed by the NY Times and Washington Post, below.)

Then I checked the New York Times, and they have the article (not a big headline, but findable) that describes how the Alaska Personnel Board cleared Gov. Palin. That part of the article takes 5 paragraphs. Then they go on to describe the findings of the Legislative investigator, discuss the "fired" (he wasn't fired, just shuffled to another job, prompting him to resign and claim he was fired) Monegan's point of view, and fail to report in the remaining 18 paragraphs that the Alaska Legislature (and its investigator) has absolutely no jurisdiction over gubernatorial ethics violations. That responsibility lies solely with the Alaska Personnel Board (see
Sec. 39.52.310 item c). But the New York Times didn't think that was worth mentioning.

You may notice that I didn't link to the New York Times. That's because I promised, after the NY Times spilled state secrets, that I would never link to them and only mention them if it helps discredit them.

The Washingon Post is also covering the story with an anti-Palin slant:

After Palin was selected as Sen. John McCain's running mate, her attorneys attempted to take the investigation out of the hands of the legislative investigator by asking her hand-picked, three-person State Personnel Board to look into the matter. At a routine meeting, the board surprised attendees by announcing that its investigator would release his findings yesterday.

Keep in mind that the "hand-picked" comment is a big, fat lie. Two of the three members were appointed by Palin's predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski (last paragraph). Also, the Post makes the same error as the NYT of assuming the Legislature had any legal purpose (besides sheer politics) in conducting an investigation.

Yes, your objective media at work...