Sunday, September 21, 2008

Why Are Democrats Defending Wife Beaters?

One would think the so-called "Troopergate" scandal up in Alaska is something akin to Watergate to see what the pro Obama news media and Democratic bloggers are writing about it these days. The Democratic lawmaker heading up the investigation of Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her public safety commission this summer announced an "October surprise" was in the works which could lead to Gov. Palin's impeachment once the investigation is concluded. Gov. Palin fired Walt Monegan she says because of insubordination. Her staff produced numerous e-mail exchanges with Monegan showing his efforts to undermine her position in budget negotiations with state lawmakers for his agency. Palin had also expressed frustration that Monegan hadn't acted to rid the state agency of her ex-brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten. Palin's sister was Wooten's fourth wife. Wooten's domestic abuse problems are known to many in Alaska, but there has been nothing reported about Monegan's domestic abuse problems until now. His ex-wife claims he beat her and threatened to kill her. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

It turns out that well before he was jettisoned for what he says was his refusal to fire trooper Wooten at the behest of Sarah Palin, Monegan had his own share of domestic troubles - some of them spilling all the way down to the Bay Area.

In October 1994, Monegan's estranged wife, who had moved from Alaska to the Peninsula with the couple's two daughters after more than 10 years of marriage, sought a temporary restraining order against him - accusing Monegan of threatening to kill her, waving a gun at her and dislocating her shoulder, according to her declaration on file in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

In an interview last week, Georgene Moldovan said Monegan had threatened several times to throw her body in an Alaska river.

Monegan, 57, who has since remarried, vigorously denied Moldovan's allegations, both in court papers filed at the time and in an interview with us last week. "I'm not a door slammer - I don't punch walls," he said.

Monegan admitted to dislocating Moldovan's shoulder, but said it was an accident that had happened before they were married, while they "were wrestling and tickling."

Moldovan was an emergency room doctor and professor at Stanford and shuttled back and forth from Alaska to the Peninsula the last seven years of their marriage. Monegan asked her for a divorce in 1993, but snapped when he learned he might lose the couple's house, she says.

One day in April 1993, she said in her court filing, "he pulled out his gun and waved it at me outside my home and yelled he would kill me if I stopped him."

In the interview, Moldovan said Monegan "would show up unannounced and break into my apartment and do threatening things. I was forced to get a restraining order because I was really fearful he was going to harm me."

Since this story first surfaced in the presidential campaign, I haven't read anything redeeming about either Monegan or Wooten. Yet, clearly Democrats and the Obama campaign are trying to stoke this "Troopergate" scandal for all its worth. What I can't figure out is how easily the media has been manipulated into going along with this phony scandal. Does anyone know of any governor in these United States who doesn't have the discretion to fire a state agency head for any reason or no reason at all? Anyone familiar with executive prerogative in this area should understand just how absurd the claim that Palin did something illegal by firing Monegan is. I've never seen anything like the way otherwise educated, professional people have turned into complete monsters in their mission to destroy Gov. Palin. Since when did liberal Democrats in America take the side of wife beaters? Simply unbelievable.

The real story here, if there is one, is how it is so difficult in this country to get rid of bad cops. We've seen this issue arise on numerous occasions here in Indianapolis where police officers get in trouble with the law and we learn they had long histories of disciplinary problems which were not appropriately addressed by their supervisors. The Chicago Sun-Times recently did an investigative story on the problem of getting rid of bad Chicago cops. That investigation discovered that hardly one-fourth of problem cops who should have been fired were actually terminated.

7 comments:

Vox Populi said...

Um, clearly we aren't "defending wifebeaters." (by the way, he was convicted of this when??? where's the police report, etc....?)

The problem is Sarah Palin's potential abuse of her powers as governor. If she really did fire the man because he wouldn't fire her brother-in-law, that is an abuse of power, no matter how bad either man was.

If she fired him for a truly legitimate reason, then there is nothing to the story. But the fact that the campaign has chosen not to cooperate (even after she said early this year "hold me accountable) certainly tells us that she, not Monegan, has something to hide.

artfuggins said...

You have missed the whole point. It is not the job of the governor to get rid of her brother in law who may or may not have beaten her sister. The state police have an entire code of conduct and procedure to investigate and take action. If he did what he is accused of then the state police should terminate him.....but without the pressure and intimidation of the governor.

Jeff Cox said...

2 responses:

1. There is ample evidence that the state police head was fired for insubordination regarding the legislative process. Refusing to fire the trooper was probably part of it, but by no means the whole thing.

2. Why is it that the same people who call for immediate firing of any police officer who manhandles an uncooperative suspect are now saying an Alaska state trooper who tasered an 11-year old, misused his official position, abused his wife and threatened her father should somehow be retained?

Gary R. Welsh said...

Sorry, Vox, No lying here about the facts. She is cooperating with the only statutorily granted method of investigating hiring/firing: the state's personnel commission. The folks in the legislature, including both Democrats and Republicans, trying to bring down Palin are part of the corrupt political culture which has ruled Alaska for decades. The only people pushing this investigation are corrupt pols who want to end the reform movement Palin represents. She is cutting into their bottom line. They've been getting rich off the government largesse for years and Palin is shutting off the tap. The Obama campaign quickly moved in with their attorneys to advise pro Obama legislators who are part of the investigation--three in total, plus friend of Monagan's who is supposed to be conducting a fair and impartial investigation. This is all a load of crap and you know it, but you are such a blind partisan, you think it is funny. It is people like you that absolutely makes me sick of politics. You don't wish to accomplsh anything good from the political process. It's all sick and demented games to win for your party. The hell with the country and the hell with right and wrong.

Concerned Taxpayer said...

You know...I've never been able to decide if vox populi and artfuggins are really as ignorant of facts as they indicate, or if they are just pretending.

Concerned Taxpayer said...

Well, this just answered my previous pondering about vox pupuli, wilson, and artfuggins, et al!

The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message. Even short-lived victories, which stop it briefly, leave you with the knowledge that it will return; each minor victory bound to be lost to the redoubled efforts of this patient and persistent force. You can't escape it. It never stops. It never gives up. It never ends. It rains upon you from every possible angle, from every possible source.

It's the drumbeat of the left. It is political, philosophical, theological, and social. It pervades every activity. It is post-structural, post-modern, post-everything in the parlance of the day. It is tolerant, diverse, non-judgmental, non-discriminatory, egalitarian, politically correct, multicultural, globalist, and collectivist. It insists that there are no rights and wrongs, no moral absolutes. It turns everything upside down in its looking glass world. It denies the correctness of all that produced what our culture revered before the deconstruction of the world in accordance with the tenets of cultural Marxism...
(attributed: The Drumbeat
American Thinker, by William Staneski)
http://www.lucianne.com/threads22.asp?artnum=425812

Anonymous said...

The problem is Sarah Palin's potential abuse of her powers as governor. If she really did fire the man because he wouldn't fire her brother-in-law, that is an abuse of power, no matter how bad either man was.

OK. So if someone is related to a head of state, they can do _whatever_ they want, as long as they are not "convicted," and the head of state should never be able to dismiss them? What if a an officer has seven women accusing him of rape, yet none will testify in court? Gets to stay on the job because having the head of the police fire the person, your in-law, is wrong?