Non-scandal involving Gov. Palin: Even though he's an admitted child-abuser who Tasered his own step-son and used a deadly weapon to break the law, Trooper Wooten still has a job

I'm republishing as a post in its own right what I wrote in a comment on July 21 on my post describing Gov. Sarah Palin as the "Most popular politician in the country" — which she indeed is among her own constituents in Alaska, and, I predict, will soon become around the rest of the nation.

Commenter Sam D had written: "Folks..you need to go to www.andrewhalcro.com to see what our Governor Palin has been up to. Her political career is all but over. She has been caught in many lies in the last few days. Read for yourself." Here's what I wrote in response (reprinted here with minor editing but without blockquoting; most links in original):

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Andrew Halcro, who runs a rental-car business, is a colorful crank who placed a distant third in the gubernatorial election that Palin won. He's devoted his life since then to trying to discredit her; her constituents see through it.

I take it you're referring to the possibility that she and members of her family may somehow acted improperly — through a complaint she filed before she was governor and through later expressions of disapproval and concern when she was briefing the head of her gubernatorial security detail — in the firing of the boss of an Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten, who was previously married to Palin's sister. (Wooten's been married and divorced four times, in fact.) In response to the complaint, Wooten was found in 2005 to have shot a moose illegally and to have used his Taser on his own ten-year-old stepson, "just to show him what it would feel like to be Tasered." (To work up a righteous furor over this, the Left will be obliged to pivot from its stance in the Andrew Meyer Tasering incident at the John Kerry speech in Florida last year, and to instead wear "Please Tase Me, Dad!" tee-shirts.) The trooper apparently was also photographed by the governor's husband while riding a snowmobile while off work on a worker's compensation claim for a supposed back injury, and the governor has reported that he's made death threats against her and her father.

The trooper's boss who Palin later replaced when she became governor, Walt Monegan, had reduced Wooten's suspension without pay from ten days to down to five. But Wooten is in fact still on the force, a time bomb continuing to tick away. Palin has denied that there is any connection between Wooten's status and her replacement of Monegan, however, whose position was an appointed one that serves "at the pleasure" of the governor. (Monegan was offered a different position, which he refused.)

Yeah, I've been following that story in the Alaska press, but I previously chose not to dignify Halcro with a mention here, much less a link to his blog. Nevertheless, if that's the best opposition research anyone can come up with for Sarah Barracuda, I'd say that's a pretty good sign she can pass the McCain team's, and the American public's, vetting too.

I don't know whether there was an even subconscious connection between Wooten's misdeeds and Monagen's dismissal, but I've written before that Sarah Palin is popular in Alaska despite having some sharp elbows. Her victims include some Republican politicians who are now doing well-deserved prison time for influence peddling. The fact is that some people deserve a sharp blow from a sharp elbow. Sometimes those who enable and cover up for such people also deserve a sharp blow from a sharp elbow. So bring me someone with a Palin-elbow-shaped bruise who clearly didn't deserve it, and then you might have something interesting.

Halcro, by contrast, has invested himself in promoting a child-abusing bully with a proved record of misusing deadly firearms to break the law while an officer of the law — which I think tells you all you need to know about Halcro too.

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A few pithy paragraphs I'd missed from the Alaska press about Trooper Wooten (bold-face mine):

"The record clearly indicates a serious and concentrated pattern of unacceptable and at times, illegal activity occurring over a lengthy period, which establishes a course of conduct totally at odds with the ethics of our profession," Col. Julia Grimes, then head of Alaska State Troopers, wrote in March 1, 2006, letter suspending Wooten for 10 days. After the union protested it, the suspension was reduced to five days.

....

Troopers eventually investigated 13 issues and found four in which Wooten violated policy or broke the law or both:

• Wooten used a Taser on his stepson.

• He illegally shot a moose.

• He drank beer in his patrol car on one occasion.

• He told others his father-in-law [Palin's father] would "eat a f'ing lead bullet" if he helped his daughter get an attorney for the divorce.

Beyond the investigation sparked by the family, trooper commanders saw cause to discipline or give written instructions to correct Wooten seven times since he joined the force, according to Grimes' letter to Wooten.

Gov. Palin has welcomed and cooperated fully with a legislative investigation that Halcro's hyperbole has ginned up. Ultimately, this is one of those non-scandals that is actually likely to end up improving the reputation of its target, since most of us would probably share the Palin family's concerns about Trooper Wooten. The only question I have is: Why is that miscreant still wearing a badge?

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UPDATE (Fri Sep 5 @ 1:15pm): Henceforth I shall avoid the name used by some for this controversy, "Troopergate," which among other problems sounds like prior genuine scandals involving, for example, disgraced former NY governor Eliot Spitzer's misuse of state troopers. Instead I shall refer to it as Tasergate, which has the appropriate effect of reminding people that those defending Wooten must therefore be in favor of child abuse.