Alaska News

Alaska Ear

ON THE MOVE ... You might have seen in Saturday's paper that U.S. Attorney for Alaska Nelson Cohen is leaving, headed back to Pittsburgh whence he came less than three years ago. He seemed like a good guy while he was here but never quite shook the cloud he arrived under. He is the only non-Alaskan ever to hold that job.

Earwigs will remember that the Bush administration bypassed Uncle Ted to give the job to an Outsider, although the appointment is traditionally the prerogative of the congressional delegation.

Of course, we now know they had a good reason for not hiring someone chosen by Ted. Probably a bad idea to have a U.S. Attorney beholden to him in the job when the indictment came down from Cohen's brethren in the public integrity unit.

Anyhow, bon voyage, Mr. Cohen. Let the jockeying for the job by local Democratic lawyers begin.

LINK BATTLES ... How clever was mayoral candidate Dan Sullivan? On Wednesday, if you Googled "Selkregg for mayor," guess what came up?

A "Sullivan for Mayor" ad.

It also came up when you Googled Croft for mayor, Honeman for mayor and Claman for mayor. But not Monegan for some reason.

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By Friday, the game had changed: The Sullivan ad was gone from Clayman but a Honeman ad appeared next to Croft and Selkregg. By today it will no doubt have changed again.

HALF AND HALF ... Sen. Kim Elton's most recent newsletter reports the following:

"Rumor du jour is that former Senator Dave Donley is being considered for the vacant attorney general slot. The other half of the rumor is that an appointment won't be made until after the legislature adjourns so a confirmation vote can't be taken this session."

Old Dave has a bit of political baggage for an A.G., but the interim appointment part sounds like Sarah being smart, whoever she names.

STILL FRIENDLY ... After Lisa Murkowski made her annual speech to a joint session (Has anyone actually brought a joint to the session since the ad hoc days?), she hosted a fundraiser at the Baranof to announce that she isn't ready to announce she's running in 2010, but thanks to everyone for donating to the unannounced reelection effort. Earwigs report the no-doubt esteemed guests included Mike Nizich, Sarah's chief of staff, Karen Rehfeld, Sarah's budget director, and Jerry Gallagher, Sarah's legislative director.

Apparently they weren't worried about showing up to contribute toward a non-candidate their non-candidate boss might be squaring off with next year. Or maybe they were taking names for the boss?

ONE WORD ... A Juneau earwig reports as follows: "Thursday evening, 2-26-2009, about 6:20 p.m. I got a one question political poll: do you have a favorable opinion of Governor Sarah Palin? Once I said "no" there were no further questions."

Darlings, if you know what that was all about, give Ear a shout-out.

ENOUGH ABOUT SARAH ... Let's talk about Bristol, who appears to have inherited her mother's sense of humor.

It seems that people wanting to support the efforts of the World Wildlife Fund against Alaska's hunting and predator control policies have been making donations and directing the fund to send the fuzzy stuffed animals one gets in return to Gov. Palin.

An earwig in a position to actually know something once in a while says Bristol called her mom last week to report three more stuffed wolves had shown up at the house.

Mom wondered (perhaps not sincerely?) what they might send the WWF fans as a thank-you for the stuffed wolves.

Bristol suggested packages of moose meat might be just the thing.

A QUESTION ... What's up at ACS? Another high-profile woman has left the very visible PIO job there. Earwigs say former ADN business reporter Paula Dobbyn, who started last May, is gone. Her predecessor, Mary Gasperlin, left last April after a year. Before Gasperlin, former KTUU anchor Meghan Stapleton (now the mouthpiece for SarahPac) and the IBEW's Melinda Taylor both left after a few months. Before them, Mary Ann Pease exited. Is that five in four years? Looks like they all went on to better things, but what's the story? Hmmm. Maybe there's only room for one company spokeswoman in the organization -- the one who's always walking that dog on TV?

Ear actually tried to talk to Paula, who demurred, for the time being anyhow. She said she's headed to a beach on Bali for a few weeks.

Oh, now Ear really feels bad for her. Not.

ON THE MOVE ... Natalie Novik, a former Parisian who moved to Kotzebue in 1990 for a job with NANA, has been named French Honorary Consul in Alaska. She currently works for The Northern Forum in Anchorage.

Compiled by Sheila Toomey. Find Ear online at adn.com/ear. Contact Sheila at stoomey@adn.com.

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