Friday 10 October 2008

Troopergate: who cares?

So let me get this straight: we should pay attention to today’s report as it may offer important new evidence to weigh in the balance for those engaged in the difficult task of deciding whether Governor Sarah Palin is qualified for the office of Vice-President.

Right.

I can see there are some legitimate issues here about power and accountability. This should matter in Alaska. And David Frum has been writing very cogently, from his conservative standpoint as a former Bush insider, about the broader issue of how the McCain-Palin ticket’s almost total disregard for expert or media scrutiny repeats one of the defining flaws of the Bush administration.

But the excessive prominence being given to Troopergate as a national issue (like Sarah Palin’s own ‘attack dog’ overplaying of Obama’s link to Ayers) is surely also a hangover from the era of small things - when a stain on a dress could dominate national politics as part of the descent into competitive judicial inquiries and the mutual, if uneven, politics of personal destruction.

(But for those who much want more, The Guardian’s Ian Cobain has been to Anchorage to investigate and ask – in a 3000 word bio-pic - “who, in short, is Sarah Palin?”)

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