Via Feministing, it turns out that one of the reasons cited by Sarah Palin for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan is worse than why we previously believed she fired him: merely abusing her power to take revenge on a former brother-in-law. (See this ABC News report for the basics). She did it because Monegan was going to Washington to ask for money to combat sexual assault -- Alaska has more forcible rapes per capita than any other state in the Union -- and Palin didn't want Monegan's request to interfere with her earmarks requests going through now-indicted Senator Ted Stevens. The AP checks it out:
The last straw, the McCain campaign said, was in July, when Monegan planned to travel to Washington to seek federal money for a plan to assign troopers, judges and prosecutors who could exclusively handle sexual assault cases — one of the state's most intractable crime problems.
In a July 7 e-mail, John Katz, the governor's special counsel, noted two problems with the trip: The governor hadn't agreed the money should be sought, and the request was "out of sequence with our other appropriations requests and could put a strain on the evolving relationship between the Governor and Sen. (Ted) Stevens."
Four days later, Monegan was fired. He said he had kept others in the administration fully apprised of his plans to go to Washington.
Between this and her refusal to subsidize rape kits for sexual assault victims, a pattern is clear.
--Tim Fernholz
