Sarah Palin's Family Matters (Updated with links)

Sarah Palin's family matters to her.  Sarah Palin's family should matter to the rest of us too, because Sarah Palin's "family matters" paint a picture of where Sarah came from, what surrounds her now, and constrains where she can go in the future.

VAN SUSTEREN: I mean, isn't it -- I mean, like, you know -- you know, I mean, this is obviously a wonderful child and -- you know, and bring great joy to your family, but the bigger thing is, like, the whole family's sort of pitched in.

SARAH PALIN: Yes.

VAN SUSTEREN: That's -- you know, because if you didn't pitch in, this would be a different story.

SARAH PALIN: It would be a different story. It would be some sad and some dire circumstances, I think, if the family doesn't all really kind of circle the wagons and help one another at a time like this. This is what family is for, also, to pitch in. And I'm proud of Bristol for accepting the help, too, that's being offered her by her grandmother, her great- grandma, her great-great-grandma, and aunts and cousins and -- we're very thankful to be in the situation that we are with so much help. 
[link to transcript here]

Troopergate was a family matter that got Sarah into a whole lot of trouble, not only with the divorce court judge who told the Heaths and Palins to chill, but with the Alaska legislature who decided it was important enough to spend a hundred thousand dollars to investigate it.  Neither Sarah's sister Molly, nor Molly's ex-husband Mike, came out of it looking nice.  Needless to say, neither Sarah nor her husband did, either.

Travelgate was a family matter that got Sarah into trouble too.  Being a governor meant that Sarah ought to be able to take her family with her during her official travel, and the State ought to pay for it.   However, Sarah finally agreed to a settlement with the State wherein she has to re-imburse the coffers to the tune of at least $9,000.

PerDiem-gate was also a family matter.  Why move to Juneau when you can commute to Anchorage, live at home and be with family while the State pays a daily allowance for meals and incidentals on top of your salary?  Sarah didn't realize she had to pay taxes on this allowance.  It remains to be seen whether she'll continue the practice.

The entire McCain-Palin campaign was a family matter that included the RNC buying clothes for the whole family, feeding the family and carting the family around in buses and planes and putting them up in hotels.  I like to call it Hockey-mom-gate. The family signed autographs and sat on stage and even the elder son was there in word, if not in deed, because his enlistment in the military was a frequent Sarah talking point.  Younger "son" was a prop and a talking point.  Hockey-momness was a talking point.  That the campaign failed, though, was the fault of the media.  It had nothing to do with Sarah or the family, of course.

Babygate is an ongoing family matter, whether you subscribe to the whole story or just the part about Sarah's elder daughter's most recent teenage pregnancy.  Babygate morphed into Abstinence-gate with elder daughter's declaration on national TV that abstinence isn't realistic.  And Babygate is threatening to morph further into Wardrobe-Malfunction-gate with elder daughter's baby-daddy going on TV with his family and saying he's "pretty sure" Sarah knew about the sexual intimacy that was going on.  Unwed-teen-mothergate is another related family matter, now that there will be no marriage to sanctify the pre-marital sex. 

Then there's Oxycontin-gate, where baby-daddy's mother got busted for running an unauthorized prescription drugstore.

And Schoolbus-gate, strongly rumored and not denied by Sarah, where allegedly, the Oxycontin-using elder son participated in vandalism of a school bus fleet causing school to be closed for a day.  The truants involved were expelled from school and not permitted to set one foot on school grounds for a year.  Curiously, this coincided with elder son being sent to school in Michigan for a year... and upon his return, he joined the military.

Then we have Felony-burglar-gate thanks to Sarah's husband's sister who just got caught stealing a couple grand in cash from a residence near Sarah's infamous hockey rink.  I guess when Sarah was doin' her wagon-circlin', hubby's sister's wagon got left out.

Yes, this is a real picture

This is not a normal, upstanding, family values family.  But it is where Sarah comes from and what surrounds her even today. They say you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.  I say, Sarah Palin shouldn't have retired this T-shirt after she wore it during her run for Governor.  I bet it still fits.

What Does Ethics Mean to Sarah Palin?

The Alaska Governor's office released a statement from Sarah Palin where she announced,

I am gratified that this settlement explicitly recognizes and establishes ...  that I broke no laws or ethics rules.

This is not the first time Sarah has denied breaking ethics laws. In the matter of Troopergate, the Branchflower report made it abundantly clear that Sarah overstepped her bounds in pushing to get her former brother-in-law removed from his job as a State Trooper. Yet Sarah declared that she had been exonerated of any wrongdoing.

 

 image credit

Since then, many respectable publications have raised serious questions about Sarah's ethics, covering not only Travel-gate and Troopergate but a multitude of other simmering scandals as well.

I started looking for a good definition of ethics and ran across an article published by The Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University titled, "What is Ethics?"  It's an excellent read.  I've excerpted some highlights below.

Feelings	Being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.
Religion	Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the saint. Ethics cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.
Law	Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. Laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical (example-Apartheid).
Society	Being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts."  An entire society can become ethically corrupt (example-Nazi Germany).
So, what is ethics?	First, ethics refers to well based standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. [...] So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded.

When Sarah Palin excused travel expenses for her family by saying that her job should not keep her away from her children, she was operating on feelings.  It feels good for me to take my kids along with me, so I'm going to do it.

When Sarah Palin excused her actions in Troopergate and more recently, Per Diem-gate, she insisted she had done no wrong because she had not broken a law.

I'm confident that Sarah would say her ethics are derived from her religious faith, but we have all seen repeated instances of hypocrisy here.  Does Sarah lie?  Yes.  Does she bear false witness?  Yes, on several occasions I can think of.  Does she envy the glamorous and lust after the things that belong to that lifestyle?  I think so.  Has she committed adultery?  There are a few people in Wasilla who are sure of it.  Does taking tax-free per diem money and family travel re-imbursements sound a little like stealing from the State?  It does to me.

And while it may be acceptable in Wasilla society to fake a pregnancy, that doesn't make it or any of the contortions and lies that necessarily follow ethical.

 

fair use claimed

Being ethical requires that

• we pursue a continuous study, and self-study, of what constitutes good ethics
  
• we make sure our decisions do not serve to take away anyone else's rights
• we uphold our personal, professional and societal obligations regardless of whether they are written into any law or rule
  
• we do no harm but instead improve life for our neighborhood, community and environment
• we treat others as we wish to be treated, and
  
• we make sure our actions and deeds are worth repeating by others

Where I work, part of being ethical is shining a light on apparent ethics violations so they can be examined and corrected if necessary.  Doing nothing can sometimes do harm.

Three Hundred and Twelve Nights, and Nine Family Trips

The Washington Post sums up Governor Palin's latest ethics antics:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin used a government "per diem" allowance to charge the state for more than 300 nights spent at home and spent another $43,490 on travel for her children and husband...

Alaska Daily News (ADN) closes the curtain on the Travel-gate episode:

Gov. Sarah Palin has agreed to reimburse the state an estimated $6,800 to cover assorted costs related to nine trips taken by her children in 2007 and 2008, but she's not admitting that she did anything wrong.

As for Per-Diem-gate, ADN reports:

Gov. Sarah Palin must pay income taxes on thousands of dollars in expense money she received while living at her Wasilla home...

Here are the main characters in today's tale - we've seen them before.

 

Sarah Palin

The Client

An Anchorage resident and retired electrical power lineman, Frank Gwartney, submitted an ethics complaint against Governor Sarah Palin last year when he learned she had charged the state for her children to accompany her on  travel.  News media also widely reported on Sarah's penchant for living at home and charging the State for meals and incidentals while she did so.
 

 

Thomas Van Flein

The Lawyer that Sarah Hired

We've seen Van Flein before.  He's been one of Sarah's BFFs and he can spin with the best of them!  In addition to parsing words on Sarah's behalf in Travel-gate, he was paid by the State of Alaska to defend Sarah during the Troopergate episode.  It must be nice when you are a governor under fire to have the state pay for your lawyer.  Hmm, I wonder if the Gov had to report the fair value of his legal counsel as income?

 

Timothy Petumenos

The Lawyer the Personnel Board Hired

And there's Timothy Petumenos.  The three members of the Personnel Board, who serve at the pleasure of Alaska's Governor, hired Mr. Tim to investigate the Travel-gate complaint.  Mr. Tim is the same attorney who was hired by the same Board to produce the second Troopergate report -- the one that said Sarah Palin didn't really violate any ethics rules. Mr. Tim said Sarah denied having conversations about firing Trooper Wooten with Walt Monegan, contradicting testimony gathered by the first Troopergate investigation.  He never looked into who was telling the truth, though.  Oh, and Sarah's deposed testimony has never been made public.

So how does Sarah Palin explain why she charges the State for travel for her children?

I am blessed to have a large and loving family, and the discharge of my duties should not prevent me from spending time with them.

The convoluted thinking on display in this excuse should be obvious to anyone with a brain who's had a real job.  Bring your family if you want, but the State didn't hire Piper or Trig or Bristol or Willow, and especially not Todd, as co-Governors.  You want 'em with you?  You pay for 'em to be there.  That's so simple -- to all but Sarah, I guess.

How did Petumenos see it?  USA Today reports:

Timothy Petumenos interpreted the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act to require that state only pay if the first family serves an important state interest.

After reviewing "over 40" travel vouchers, Mr. Tim determined that 9 of them simply wouldn't pass the smell test.  (I'd be real curious to know how he justified the others... at last count there were 72 in all.)  He said the Governor agreed "not to contest certain charges."  In return, he "agreed not to file a formal accusation or take the case to a hearing."

How did Van Flein spin it? From ADN:

"The governor has been exonerated of all wrongdoing in this ethics act complaint. There is no finding of wrongdoing and there is no ethics violation," Van Flein said in a news conference.

There's a major mistake in that statement from Van Flein. There was no hearing so there can be no exoneration.  There was a settlement, and as a result of that settlement, Palin will pay the state back for some of her children's travel expenses.  The settlement simply states that Sarah does not admit to any wrongdoing.  Color me surprised... not!

And Mr. Tim, the attorney hired by the state Personnel Board, declined to pursue charges.  Again, this is hardly surprising.  These are Sarah's pocket-people.  I wonder if they realize how dismal their future will be.  They will forever be remembered for their willingness to whitewash Sarah's questionable ethics dilemmas.

Back to Per-Diem-gate, though.  Why did Sarah think charging the State while she lived at home instead of the Governor's mansion was okay?  Because the Governor's mansion is in Juneau and that's more than 50 miles from where she lives, and she would rather live at home and hold court in Anchorage (much closer to Wasilla).  Juneau is her official duty-station.  Not Anchorage.  Sarah's spokesperson, Ms. Leighow, said it was perfectly alright if Sarah charged for meals while living at home.  She even said Sarah could have charged per diem for her children, too, if she'd wanted.

As far as I'm concerned there is still a murky line about how appropriate this per diem is.  In the world I inhabit, you can charge per diem when you are on official travel away from home, not at home.  Per diem allowances are calculated based on the reasonable cost to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at a restaurant at your travel destination.  The cost of making meals at home is considerably less.  At least, I can eat for way less than $60 a day if I'm at home.  I would probably be fired if I put in for per diem for the days that I chose to work at home.  Heck, even if my office was being renovated and I had the capacity to work at home and did so to benefit my employer, there's no way I could charge per diem!

Sarah Palin is reported to have said, "I'll do what I want until the courts tell me I can't."  This is the Governor that claimed to be a champion of ethics, honesty, and transparency.  The Christian Bible says something like, "By their fruits ye shall know them.  Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"  (That's Matthew 7:20.  Sarah's been quoting Matthew lately.)

Hey Sarah, we can see your thorns and thistles from all 50 states!