Forget the laws for a moment and look at the damage he caused.....
It was an embarassment to The McCain/Palin ticket and caused serious disruption to the campaign....
It caused the Palins a large amount of personal embarassment and discomfort.....
Now look at the perp, a college kid with no prior record who did something incredibly dumb thinking it was funny, cute or whatever......He was not a political operative although the baseline for what he did was political....
He should be sentenced to 5 years and eligible for parole after 18 months.
A classy ending would be for Sarah to be present at the sentencing and ask for leniency for the kid....Possible alternative sentence of some sort....
But that’s just me....
No FRiend...he should be sentenced to the Maximum of 50 years in prison, and when Sarah Palin is President in 2012, THEN she should issue a clemency and set him free (keep him paying of the $1mm fine though) ....FWIW.... ;)
Did you know who this “kid’s” father is? I wouldn’t count on him NOT being a “political operative”. His father is a Democratic Representative in the Tennessee General Assembly.
He is the son of Mike Kernell (D-Memphis Dist. 93).
His dad’s page at the TN General Assembly website:
http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/house/members/h93.html
Did he do it to make Daddy proud? OR, did he do it via someone else’s REQUEST? That’s the question I would want answered, frankly. Perhaps Daddy thought son could get away with this vs. someone else (since he probably boasted about his “skillz”). I don’t think he did this on a “lark” to see if he could. I think rather he thought he would NOT be caught — or if he was that Daddy could get him off the charges...