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.