G. Frink's

The Troopergate report tells us that Sarah Palin violated a basic, well-understood, widely known ethics standard which is codified in the law of the state of Alaska.

Early in her first year as governor of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential nominee abused her power, working largely through her husband, to persecute a former family member who was a state employee.

In its first finding the report [download in .pdf format] says:

For the reasons explained below, I find that Governor Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act. Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) provides:

"The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust."

She broke Alaska state ethics law by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper, concluded the 263-page report. He was involved in a bitter divorce and custody battle with her sister, and that kind of judgment-biasing personal interest required her to keep her hands and those of her husband off the matter.

Her dismissal of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan is not the central issue, although the McCain/Palin campaign is trying to persuade us that it is. Monegan's firing was lawful, as the report found, because he served at the governor's pleasure.

It is important that, as the report also found, Palin let the family grudge influence her decision-making regarding the dismissal. Monegan was fired at least in part because he resisted the Palins' personal vendetta against StateTrooper Michael Wooten.The applicable ethical standard is clear, widely acknowledged and it is understandable that Monegan would have preferred dismissal to presiding over its violation.

Yet Palin still admits no reservations about having lent the powers of her office to the elaborate and now well-documented pursuit of her former brother in law, and she denies the obvious about her dismissal of Monegan.

It is almost an aside that Palin is revealed by all of this to be willing to keep her campaign promises in the breach. Palin was elected governor of Alaska on a platform heavy with promises of accountability and transparency, neither of which is evident in the behavior documented in the report by Stephen E. Branchflower, a respected former prosecutor, or in her response to it.

Her use of high public office to unethically pursue a personal vendetta, and refusal to deal honestly with her error when caught, should in my view disqualify Palin from serving a heartbeat from the presidency of the United States./p>

Amplified by the powers of the presidency, Palin's willingness to apply the powers of office to personal vendettas, complicated by a refusal to learn from and repent error, would endanger us all.