The investigators looking into weather or not Sarah Palin abused her office by firing the Public Safety Director for not firing her ex-brother in law are due to issue their report on Friday.
Shortly after gaining the GOP nomination, Palin said she welcomed the investigation and said she had nothing to hide.
Within days, however, McCain campaign political operatives had changed the strategy.
Their strategy is straight out of Bushworld.
It has two principal parts.
One, abstruct the investigation using any legal or illegal tactic they can find.
Two, try and distract the faithful and distract the investigaion by manufacturing a story line.
There has been a great deal of noise from the far right today about the investigation into Sarah Palin's conduct in the firing of Alaska Public Safety Director Walt Monagen.
The right contends that Monagen's firing by the Governor was for his failure to fire her former brother-in-law, who they now assert, tasar's a 10 year old child.
This alone suggests the desperation of the McCain/Palin forces.
Even if the story were true, the fact that someone of this character was once a Palin family member hardly presents a comforting picture of family values (especially after the son with the crystal meth problem and the pregnant teenage daughter).
The offical excuse that Palin used for firing Monagen was his alleged misuese of government funds to take an unauthorized junket to Washington DC,.
This story had now been discredited. Monagen had a travel voucher signed by Palin's chief of staff.
But this has not stopped the McCAin camp from trying to obstruct the investigation.
At first, there was the baseless assertion that the investigation was a product of partisan poltics,
But Alaska is soldidly non partisan, and the attempt to label the man who heads the investigation as a witchunter only played to the Limbaugh crowd in the lower 48.
Then witnesses suddenly began changing their minds about testifying.
Subpoenas were issued, and many of these same witnesses tried to defy those subpoenas, much as senior White House officials defied subpoenas last year in order to avoid purjury or taking the fifth.
The GOP sued to try and preserve their right to defy subpoenas and lost.
Today, they've appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
The Alaska Supreme Court wil hear oral arguments Wednesday.
The report on Palin's conduct is due to be released on the 10th.
The GOP is clearly in a box now.
The Alaska Supreme Court could rule that the legislature had no authority to initiate this investigation.
But if they don't, than the GOP game us up.
The report will come out, and the witnesses' will be compelled to testify.
Palin clearly has something to hide. Either that, or she's gettin extraordianarily bad advice.
The GOP could go to the US Supreme Court.
But the prospect of an appeal of an attempt by the GOP to interfere into an investigation would have echoes of 2000,when the GOP triumphed in a clearly partisan court.
The Palin case before the Supreme Court would kill McCain's chances of getting elected, even if Palin won.
So the bloviators are on about tasars now.
IT's the only shot they've got.
