In the annals of government abuse of power, Sarah Palin’s sins are minor. On a human level, her infatuation with getting her ex-brother-in-law fired is even understandable. But that doesn’t mean that Sarah Palin and her husband acted in a legal or ethical manner.
As governor, she was within her rights to fire the public safety commissioner, but it isn’t the decision to fire him that is most troubling. The troubling history here is that she and her husband repeatedly encouraged government employees to act in an unethical manner. Over and over again, their underlings had to remind them about privacy laws and standard procedures and conflicts of interest. Think of it as somewhat akin to Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby’s pre-war visits to the CIA, where they applied subtle, but unethical, pressure on analysts to provide the answers they wanted to hear. Pressuring an analyst to provide false analysis is pressuring them to violate their code of ethics.
On top of this, Sarah Palin brazenly lied to the people of Alaska and the state legislature about their role in Troopergate.
John McCain should have vetted his running-mate. I don’t think the people are in the mood for another eight years with a vice-president that doesn’t understand ethics or have a decent respect for the truth and the law.