Politics

The truth squad: We're not in Alaska anymore

Todd Palin, who appears to be involved in the imbroglio, was supposed to testify tomorrow. Today it was announced that Todd is ignoring his subpoena.

There might be some truth to Democratic partisan stuff. State Sen. Hollis French, who is in some capacity managing the investigation, is a Democrat and has said some things that make him look less than nonpartisan. He did use the word "impeachment" and said that the investigation might produce an "October surprise." He's also an outspoken Obama supporter.

But the Palin-McCain spokespeople, standing next to the French-Connection school-project looking chart board (see below), somber and well coiffed, looked suspiciously the part of Republican McCain operatives trying to influence the investigation.

But wait! They are Republican McCain operatives trying to influence the investigation.

Stapleton, who is volunteering to lead the truth squad, is a former TV journalist in Alaska and former Palin spokesperson. She was also once a speechwriter for the Republican National Committee. O'Callaghan resigned from the U.S. attorney's office at the end of July to join the McCain campaign. He told Newsweek last week that he is advising Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, who was being paid by the state up until last week, but is now being paid by the Palin family. O'Callaghan also said that he is also advising Todd Palin, and that there might be some McCain campaign volunteer lawyers in Alaska who are conferring with the Alaska Department of Law.

Although the "truth sqaud" denied it, one does have a niggling suspicion that they are now the department of law, since Alaska's attorney general, Talis Colberg, is not in Alaska anymore. He fled the state yesterday for a vacation in Kansas after he reneged on a deal to allow state witnesses to testify in the investigation.

Kansas and Colberg might fit. Before Palin picked him as her attorney general, he did some real-estate law, grew prize winning gladiolas and cabbages and had a job lined up to run the Alaska State Fair. Also, Kansas is a place that CNN tends to fly over.

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The chairman of the council overseeing the investigation, Democratic state Sen. Kim Elton, said after the deal had been broken, "I feel like Charlie Brown after Lucie moved the football."

Indeed, the whole state seems to be caught in some sort of post-modern cartoon.

It was certainly Charlie Brown adult-speak at the presser yesterday, evidenced by a video clip that was supposed to prove something about French, but was so poor in quality that nobody could hear anything at all. Then an arcane Alaska statue was thrown at us, supposedly barring a public official from being charged with ethics violations while that person is running for office. After, one spokesperson admitted that they were using that as a "rhetorical" example, which means that it doesn't mean anything. (An additional oddity: it was Sarah Palin who filed an ethics complaint against herself in order to put the case in front of the personnel board, which serves at her pleasure.)

A conspiracy theorist might think that the true purpose of the "truth squad" is to ensure that the people are befuddled until after the election. After all, hasn't that been the modus operandi of truth squads throughout the ages? Normally, such squads do so by keeping you awake all night with bullhorns and loudspeakers. And if that doesn't work, they round you up and put you in a room and yell really loudly. Here, in post-modern Alaska, which is, we've just realized thanks to Palin, a part of post-modern America, they have press conferences, repeating the same things, over and over, until we all begin to write those things down, exactly as they say them.

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