Posted on 10/09/2008 6:21:01 PM PDT by steve-b
The 2007 state fair was days away when Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan, took another call about one of his troopers, Michael Wooten. This time, the director of Gov. Sarah Palin's Anchorage office was on the line.
As Mr. Monegan recalls it, the aide said the governor had heard that Mr. Wooten was assigned to work the kickoff to the fair. If so, Mr. Monegan should do something about it, because Ms. Palin was also planning to attend and did not want the trooper nearby.
Somewhat bewildered, Mr. Monegan soon determined that Mr. Wooten had indeed volunteered for duty at the fairgrounds — in full costume as "Safety Bear," the troopers' child-friendly mascot.
Two years earlier, the trooper and the governor's sister had been embroiled in a nasty divorce and child-custody battle that had hardened the Palin family against him. To Mr. Monegan and several top aides, the state fair episode was yet another example of a fixation that the governor and her husband, Todd, had with Mr. Wooten and the most granular details of his life.
"I thought to myself, 'Man, do they have a heavy-duty network and focus on this guy,' " Mr. Monegan said. "You'd call that an obsession."
On July 11, Ms. Palin fired Mr. Monegan, setting off a politically charged scandal that has become vastly more so since Ms. Palin became the Republican vice-presidential nominee.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
At will position, serving at the convenience of the Governor. End of story.
Seems to me that threatening to kill the Governor’s sister might lead one to be leery of being anywhere near this trooper. I wonder what his supervisor would have done if the trooper had threatened to kill him? Give him a promotion?
Seeing as how Wooten threatened to kill the governor's family, I'd say this was a good move on Palin's part.
Does the Times even mention Wooten's threat, the tasering of his kid, the drinking in his car or the fact that Wooten is still a COP?!!
And the problem is?
“Safety Bear” ? huh?
The only people who will find this interesting will be rabid liberals who are looking for anything they can on Gov. Palin. Ho-hum for everyone else.
Who friggin cares. Why dont you ask Obama who the hell he hangs around with and if they heavy arm people. For Christs Sake people!!!
I’d too would be concerned about having a gun-toting loon who has threatened to kill family members being allowed into a secure zone.
It appears to me that this Monegan character was derelict in carrying out his duties. It’s not obsessive to want to live, contrary to this jerk’s weird mental pathology. Not only that the security forces are there to PROTECT, not to ignore or pooh-pooh overt threats.
Good for them.
I thought that had been proven wrong. She didn't have the authority.
So let me get this straight.
He drank in a squad car.
Abused his wife.
Threatened his father-in-law (Sarah’s dad) with his life
Tasered his 10-year-old son.
And still had his gun and his badge.
They would have been wrong not to push for his removal.
Good for them. The SOB deserved to be fired. The good old boy network was protecting him.
Isn’t this the guy that tasered a 10 year old boy?
WHO CARES!
Oops...trigger happy.
On July 11, Ms. Palin fired Mr. Monegan
I thought that had been proven wrong. She didn’t have the authority.
Scratch the above. Wrong guy.
In February, Monegan signed a public letter of support for a $3.6 million project designed to keep troubled teens off the street in Anchorage — even though the governor had vetoed the project last year and hadn't included money for it in her budget this year.
“I am stunned and amazed — do you know anything about this?” budget director Karen Rehfeld wrote to two other high-level staffers when she learned of the letter.
“Think about that: one of the governor's own cabinet members publicly contradicting her veto decision,” Stapleton said.
Monegan acknowledged he shouldn't have signed the letter, because it put the governor in the awkward position of defending her veto decision.
The trooper admitted that he tasered his ten year old step-son. He SHOULD have been fired.
Or his driving a trooper car after drinking. He got into a fight with a guy at a bar. The owner told him to knock it off. He said something like “Do you know who I am” pulling out his badge. Owner called the troopers when he left. The trooper that pulled Wooten over didn’t see the need to give him a breathalizer. He did see fit to drive him home though just because I guess...
needs a ping list....
I’m a little surprised by Serge F. Kovaleski’s obsession with the most granular details of the Palin’s lives. Now he’s investigating some inpenetrable conspiracy involving people in bear suits when he should be investigating Bill Ayers and Obama’s ‘90s campaign to indoctrinate youngsters with Marxist propaganda through their charitable foundation.
It wasn’t Monegan’s issues, it was the AK Trooper’s union that protected Walton, in fact, they complained when he got a 10 day suspension, and it was cut down to 5 days.
I’d like a job where I can drink in the Company Car, Poach Moose, Taser my step kids, and threaten people’s lives.
Unbelievable.
wooten should be grateful he’s in alaska,
in arkansas ma clinton would have had him
arkancided.
si.
the NYSlimes should be given credit for this; any reasonable person who reads this article will understand why Wooten should’ve been dismissed and why Palin was right (page two under the bolded sectons “Watching Mr Wooten”...in fact the NYSlimes goes into great detail on Wooten’s misdeeds compared to any other lame stream media outlet...
NYT warned terrorist Osama(not to be confused with Obama) that his cell phone was being used to trace him. Now they defend a man who threatens to kill the Palin father and Tasers a 10 year old. Can NYT get any lower??
This story is a crock. The real story would have been if Sarah Palin was trying to protect this trooper from being fired after tasering a child, drinking in a squad car and poaching animals. They would have tarred and feathered her for protecting a bum like that.
It’s going no where.
And apparently he was protected by his cohorts.
Can you say "Drew Peterson?"
It's time for McCain to names names and offer up the proof. The video of the fateful hearing is all over the place. with the Democrats blocking action two years ago.
He needs to package up a succinct few paragraphs and go with that ...
You can do it Maverick, just do it. And do it over and over again, and end with it in the next debate. If we can't figure out why and who, how can we figure out what to fix.
And Monegan must have had an obsession about keeping a wife beater on the force - oh yeah, i forgot, Monegan had the same problem i understand. Birds of a feather and now the NYT is suddenly a big protector of domestic abusers. They have never met an opportunity to talk out of both sides of their mouths that they didn’t like.
Agree does she have any commie friends O that’s right never mind.
You’ll have better luck pushing this non-story on DU
Sounds like a perfectly prudent security measure to protect a government official from a court records documented, violent and armed, person.
Exactly
Never mind that Barney Franks’ “friend” was running a gay brothel out of BF’s townhouse......
Move along..... Nothing to see here.....
You can imagine what would happen to a clerk handling 9/11 calls if they had an attitude like that.
I'm amazed that Monegan has supporters ~ these guys must drink entirely too much in those long Alaskan winters.
I don’t see anything wrong with Gov. Palin or her aides asking that Trooper Wooten be fired. If Mr. Monegan had been doing his job Trooper Wooten would have been fired and there would not have been reason for Gov. Palin to request. If she actually did.
Does the Safety Bear now live on the Island of Misfit Mascots?
Maybe “safety POLAR bear” ~ BTW, bears are still known to attack and kill people in Alaska and no one there messes around with Polar bears.
(Yawn) Say goodnight Serge!
Speaking Thursday to CNN's Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston, Wooten gave his account of the Taser incident but denied ever drinking while driving.
He said that he was a new Taser instructor, and his stepson was asking him about the equipment. "I didn't shoot him with live, you know, actual live cartridge," Wooten said.
Instead, he said, he hooked his stepson up to a training aid "with little clips. And, you know, the Taser was activated for less than a second, which would be less than what you would get if you touched an electric fence. ... It was as safe as I could possibly make it."
He said his stepson was on the living room floor surrounded by pillows, that he "was bragging about it," and that the family laughed about it.
Asked whether it was a dumb decision, Wooten told CNN, "absolutely."
I have a stock answer when someone moans about Tasergate, I say "Hmm, how interesting to hear a liberal sticking up for a wife-beating Taser-happy rogue cop who drinks on duty. Guess if his union dues are paid up, he gets a pass from the Democrats, eh?"
-ccm
The democrats and the NYT are pushing for a specious indictment of Gov. Palin just before the election. Its their standard operating procedure. After 2004, they whittled away at the narrow Republican majority in the House of Representatives by this very process. It never works the other way because no one makes the democrat crooks resign.
No,I didn't think so.
Times the paper who will be in line for a Government bailout soon.
Walter Monegan says he was fired from his job as public safety commissioner for not dismissing Wooten, a claim that eventually led to the politically charged investigation just before McCain chose Palin as his running mate in late August.
Palin says she fired Monegan over a budget dispute.
Todd Palin said he never pressured anyone, including his wife. In fact, he says that after repeatedly talking with her about the matter, she finally told him to “drop it.”
“Anyone who knows Sarah knows she is the governor and she calls the shots,” Todd Palin wrote. “I make no apologies for wanting to protect my family and wanting to publicize the injustice of a violent trooper keeping his badge.”
Admitted to using a Taser on a 10 year old
Known poacher.
Says that he didn’t drive in his squad car having drunk beer.
Who wouldn’t fire him? Why wasn’t he fired?
Hi Fellow Conservative Friends,
This is my first post. I love Free Republic! I’ve been lurking for quite some time (couple years or so), so I finally decided to join up.
Anyhow, thought you all might like to see the E-Mail I sent to that so-called journalist at the NY-Obama Times. Here it is:
Listen, you liberal nut job! I really don’t care if Gov. Palin had anything to do with that trooper being fired! That trooper deserved to be fired, no matter how it had to happen. Someone wasn’t doing their job by not firing that trooper, and it wasn’t Gov. Palin! The guy admitted to tasering his 10 year old son, got reprimanded and written up many times (one time drinking in his cruiser). Are you some kind of an idiot or what? You want someone like that “protecting” your streets? I sure as hell don’t. My husband is a retired police officer, and let me tell you, I don’t know how that trooper kept his job for as long as he did. My husband wouldn’t have wanted to work with someone like that. Gov. Palin did her fellow citizens a good service by getting rid of him. And tell me why Gov. Palin has the best approval rating of ANY governor in the U.S. Where as, your buddy Obama and the liberal-majority congress has the lowest approval rating EVER, about 3 times lower than Bush’s 38% approval rating.
Why don’t you cover a story that’s worth something. Oh, I forgot, you and others like you don’t know how to be real journalists. Quit disguising yourself as a journalist, and go back to doing something you just might be good at - maybe flipping burgers or something. Or perhaps you could try to be a true journalist and cover stories that really matter - like your idiot friend Obama and his communist and terrorist goons he likes to hang around with. No? I forgot, that would be too much for you and your ilk. By the way, why don’t you change your name to Serge Barack HUSSEIN Obama. Suits you better.
Memo to Pinch Sulzberger: Hope your resume is up to snuff kid. You are going to be looking for work in less than a year.
Welcome and keep kicking butt!
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