Sarah Palin’s Dumb Idea
By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in Alaska, Palin, Politics, Senate
In the wake of the Justice Department’s decision to drop charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, Alaska’s Governor is joining those making a rather absurd call:
Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) called on Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska ) Thursday to step down from his seat and run in a special election in the wake of the Justice Department’s decision to drop corruption charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). Begich narrowly defeated Stevens in 2008, a contest overshadowed by Stevens’ October conviction.
Palin’s call came after a reporter at the Fairbanks News Miner emailed her a copy of a statement by Alaska Republican Party Chairman Randy Ruedrich calling for Begich to step down.
Asked for her response, Palin simply wrote back: “I absolutely agree.â€
When the reporter wrote back to confirm that Palin meant she’d like to see Begich resign in order to hold a special election, the governor responded: “Yes.â€
In an email to POLITICO, Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton confirmed the governor’s position. “She absolutely agrees that there should be a special election,†Stapleton wrote. “Stepping down to hold the special election would be the right thing to do.â€
Over at The Next Right, Jon Henke says quite succinctly exactly what I thought when I first heard this last night:
A lot of people wonder who the next leaders of the Republican Party should be. I don’t know. But you know who it shouldn’t be? Anybody who thinks the current elected Senator from Alaska should resign so that the corrupt former Senator Ted Stevens can be brought back to the Senate.
Seriously people, do you really want to see the guy behind the Bridge To Nowhere and one of the Senate’s Kings of Pork back in the Senate ?
Stevens symbolizes much of what was, and apparently still is, wrong with the Republican Party and the fact that Palin seems open to the idea that he should be given another bite at the apple just confirms what I’ve thought about her since September.
James Joyner, meanwhile, addresses the “fairness” issue that some are raising:
The Attorney General dropped the case against Stevens prior to sentencing because of prosecutorial misconduct, not because of evidence exonerating Stevens.
Beyond that, it’s not uncommon for narrow elections to be decided based on dubious knowledge on the part of the voters. Candidates are often smeared with unfounded charges by their opponents and occasionally even charged with actual crimes for which they are subsequently exonerated. Them’s unfortunately the breaks. There are no do-overs.
Just ask Gary Condit.
C/P: Below The Beltway
This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 and is filed under Alaska, Palin, Politics, Senate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:11 am
I completely agree with your observations about Stevens and what he represents – “good riddance” seems the most apt response. And I agree that calling for Begich to resign is a dumb (and futile) idea. Nevertheless, your headline is misleading: as the story makes clear, and as your post acknowledges, it wasn’t Palin’s dumb idea, as the headline changes. It was Randy Ruedrich’s dumb idea; Palin, asked if she agreed with it, said she did.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:28 am
Yeah, change the headline to “Shocker: Palin agrees with dumb idea”
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
Agreed Doug. I scrupulously read the details of the recent stories looking for anything which actually suggested that Stevens was innocent of the initial charges of accepting free home renovations.
Insteads, all I saw was some stuff about how the star witness’ testified to higher dollar amounts for the free renovations in court than he had described in earlier interviews. This info was not given to the defense, which could have used it to attack the credibility of the witness.
What this info doesn’t do is provide us with any reason to think Stevens didn’t accept free renovations. That Stevens has stated he is pleased to have been “vindicated” but has not made any real stink about getting his job back seems to speak volumes as to his understanding of his situation. IOW, he’s not acting like an innocent guy that got screwed.
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 am
Sorry, I typo’d: “headline changes” should have read “headline charges.”
April 3rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Kranky Kritter – not to mention that even if Stevens is innocent of these particular corruption charges, the bottom line is that his entire career is a monument to pork for votes corruption. It’s a lot harder for the GOP to criticize the Democrats’ corruption when several of our members are nose-down in the trough too (differences in scale and culture remain, but still, public perception counts).
I understand where Palin et al are coming from on this – it does appear that regardless of the merits of the charges, Stevens was stiffed by DoJ, and that seems a little unfair. Nevertheless, call me heartless or Machiavellian if you will, I don’t care. It also seems plausible that he would have won reelection but for the trial situation, but why is that a boon? My bottom line is that he was an embarrassment to the GOP and now he’s gone. The best response is to call it a win on balance and move on.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:07 am
The election has already been certified anyway – it’s a done deal for atleast another 6 years, by then Stevens will be 104. They need to put age and term limits on these Senators – they are just too old and too out of touch to effectively represent anyone other than their close lobbyist friends.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
TerenceC Says:
The request is for him to resign; he can’t resign if he doesn’t hold the office, and he couldn’t be holding the office without the election having been certified. Thus, saying that the election has already been certified is accurate but irrelevant.
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
So was your post.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
the justice system is evidently more garbled than ever right now; they should simplify the law as much as possible for the sake of average people