Palin perfidy in Alaska

Governor Sarah Palin, in a blatant attempt to hide her machinations from her fellow politicians and the people of Alaska, resorted, on a regular basis, to using her personal e-mail accounts to conduct state business.

That's bad enough. When confronted with her deviousness, Palin tried to keep those e-mails secret. Andree McLeod, a Republican once employed by the state, who remains active in the state's political life, sued under the Freedom of Information Act to gain access to Palin's secret and personal e-mails.

Last Friday, Ms. McLeod won a battle in the on-going war to force transparency and accountability from the Palin administration. Craig Stowers, a State Superior Court Judge, ruled that any e-mails that went through Sarah Palin's personal e-mail accounts were public records if they contained official state business.

Why would Palin use her own private and personal e-mails to conduct state business in the first place? There is obviously only one answer possible: She was trying to hide her machinations from public view. In this instance, there isn't one whit of difference between the ethics of Sarah Palin and the ethics of the worse vice president ever, Dickie Cheney!

Palin's perverse attempt to circumvent Alaska's public record laws might have been successful if a hacker had not broken into one of her e-mail accounts.

Unfortunately, because her personal e-mails are not part of a secure system, some may be lost forever.

It appears that McCain's choice for vice president lacks an ethical foundation. Some believe that McCain simply made a mistake; that McCain, being an honorable and ethical man, made a wrong choice; that he didn't know she was ethically challenged. Not so. Sarah Palin fits well into the ethical and moral mindset of the senator from Arizona. And that's one of the reasons he bowed to the wishes of the Christian right and chose her. He has neither, either.