Palin Tears a Page From Bush's Playbook

While it may be true that the McCain-Palin ticket wants no part of our current president on the stump, they certainly know how to follow his example. The campaign has been quietly trying to quash the Troopergate probe in Palin's home state of Alaska, and the tactics they're using are startlingly similar to those used by the Decider-in-Chief when certain congressional committees wanted to look into allegations of wrongdoing.

Palin, who initially supported the bipartisan probe into whether she fired the state's public safety chief because he wouldn't fire her ex-brother in law. Now that McCain has named her as his running mate, not so much. In fact, she's let the McCain people be the ones doing the talking about why, for example, her own husband has refused to testify in the investigation. Sound familiar? It should. Bush told Congress more than once that everyone from Karl Rove to Harriet Miers to Josh Bolten were off limits.

And what exactly does Sarah Palin have to hide? And who allowed her, or McCain for that matter, to determine when an investigation is legitimate and when it's not? Most laughable among the reasons Todd Palin's attorney gave for refusing to testify is that the subpoena is "burdensome", since First Dude is planning to be out of state. And here's the interesting part. The Alaska State Legislature has no power to compel any witness to testify prior to November 4th.

Ah, so that's the important part. Keep this thing on ice until after the election. Now this isn't to say that this sort of thing isn't done in other jurisdictions, and sometimes even by Democrats. Yet in this case the motive is so transparent it's insulting.

By the way, Palin is co-operating with a separate probe into Troopergate. That one she began after she was tabbed by McCain. That probe is being done by Palin appointees.