Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (48 page)

Unfortunately, times
had
changed. Ivy's cry for help met with limited success. Her uncle, Mat-Su master campaigner Don Benson, faithfully submitted the only letter.

The lack of enthusiasm indicated the troops now felt weary of constant minicrusades, and rallying them was no longer a simple matter.

And while shortly thereafter—by mid-February 2009—I'd be brought back into the inner circle as tightly as before, I too felt that fatigue. We worked as hard as ever but with dwindling enthusiasm. And as the Palins' prospects for fame and wealth grew, so did the deterioration of our dream for a better Alaska. Blind allegiance was being substituted for Sarah's blind ambition. Our Queen Esther was about to forget about saving her people.

Punishing enemies and wealth accumulation became a full-time job.

30
 

Sleeping Dogs That Lie

D
uring the McCain-Palin campaign, I found myself often in Sarah's penalty box (brought back in the game only during a crisis), subject to that well-executed freezing-out process. Because she needed my knowledge of her darker secrets kept close, I managed to survive this excommunication. Upon her return in late November, my cooperation held less value. Had I resubmitted my resignation, it's likely that security would have had me on the street before the ink dried. But unlike others, such as former campaign manager Kelly Goode and chief of staff Mike Tibbles, I had fewer options. Given the shellacking to my reputation during Troopergate, I had to closely consider how, if I left my position, I would support my family. In the meantime, I would suffer meetings behind closed doors that did not include me and omission on insider emails.

I continued as director of boards and commissions, but progress slowed to an unsteady drip, as Sarah didn't much care about state business, and I wasn't on her need-to-return email list anyway. Governor Sarah was physically back in office, but distractions mounted, and time was increasingly devoted to either chasing fame and riches or battling what Sarah characterized as the forces of ever-mounting evil. Despite the release and passing of reports from the harsh Stephen
Branchflower and the kind (at least to Sarah) Timothy Petumenos, the odor of Troopergate lingered into the new year. McCain campaign lawyers, who swamped Juneau and Anchorage during the election, had vanished, and the residual legal fallout again landed in our laps.

The remaining issue had to do with legislative subpoenas to testify, issued by Branchflower in September. Attorney General Talis Colberg had earlier advised administration officials they had the
option
but not the
obligation
to comply. Taking Colberg at his word, several insiders, including Todd Palin, Chief of Staff Nizich, Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Ruaro, and confidantes Kris Perry and Ivy Frye, chose the no-thanks option. Four months later, the media and critics put pressure on the legislature to investigate the no-shows. Leading Anchorage television station KTUU used its nightly opinion polls to ask viewers, Should the legislature pursue punishment for ignored Troopergate subpoenas? Wayne Anthony Ross, despite his frustration at having recent requests to meet with the governor spurned, sprang into action. As I'd done when making calls on behalf of the governor and her husband, WAR understood the best way to get back in Sarah's good graces (so long as you are not embarrassingly caught doing so) was to be, using one of her favorite words, “proactive.” He fired off a letter to KTUU stating his objection to the premise of the poll. As we knew from numerous behind-the-back emails blasting him, WAR did not respect or like Colberg, so there was no surprise when he laid the blame on the current attorney general:
“Unfortunately, the AG did not take a clear position on the validity of the subpoenas. As a result, having been left to their own devices due to the indecisiveness of the AG, the involved State employees were forced to obtain their own legal counsel, at great personal expense, to advise them on the proper procedure.”

Ivy Frye, who originally solicited WAR's assistance, recoiled from this strategy. In an oops-that's-not-what-I-meant response, she wrote:

The once tight team was beginning to unravel. Earlier, Ivy couldn't get those effusive letters to the editor out effectively and now she couldn't rein in WAR. He said, “With a friend like Talis, who needs enemies? He makes Pontius Pilate look decisive.”

The January 30, 2009,
Anchorage Daily News
took an alternate view in an editorial written in response to WAR's and Colberg's representations. In part they claimed, “Colberg's discredited advice about the subpoenas helped delay the Troopergate investigation, just as the controversy was heating up in Gov. Palin's vice-presidential campaign. In this case, Colberg's unapologetic defiance of the Legislature (which issued the subpoenas) served the interests of his boss, not of justice.”

In our never-say-die world of counterattack, Talis Colberg was urged by press secretary Bill McAllister to write an op-ed explaining his position on the subpoenas. Colberg suggested we “let sleeping dogs lie.” The attorney general's decision not to respond was strategically sound but politically toxic. He should have known that with sleeping dogs, the Palin way was to tie cans to their tails and jab them with knitting pins. From that moment, I began counting on my fingers Colberg's final days.

A week later, on the morning of February 6, 2009, the Alaska State Senate dealt with the lack of responsiveness during the Branchflower investigation by drafting a Senate Resolution of Censure (SR 5). Hollis French, the chair of the judicial council, made comments on the senate floor that included:

Senate Resolution #5 passed by a vote of 16 to 1. Todd Palin, Ivy Frye, Kris Perry, and seven others were found in contempt of the senate. Maybe because everyone felt a need to recircle the wagons, around this time my position in the inner circle was magically restored. Suddenly I was back on the war wagon, manning my former position as soldier, confidant, and friend. In response to RS #5, Ivy shot off an email to our attorneys, copying back-in-favor me as well:

With Wayne Anthony Ross blasting him and Sarah needing a scapegoat, Colberg found himself in a place nearly every Palin employee eventually fell. Once before, I'd asked myself why Sarah's campaign for governor did not include anyone who had been instrumental in her earlier political efforts. The answer became increasingly clear: surviving her serial dissatisfaction was, ultimately, impossible. Four
days after RS #5 passed, Talis Colberg became Alaska's former attorney general. The governor's office issued a press release:

Republican Jay Ramras, an unfriendly legislator who was only a notch or two below Randy Ruedrich on the Governor's GOP enemy list, saw through the boilerplate PR and suggested of Colberg's resignation, “He took a bullet for the governor.” Funny turn of phrase, as that's exactly what I vowed to do way back in those first days as a volunteer: take a bullet for Sarah if necessary. As for my fellow bull's-eye, I regretted what happened to Talis Colberg. In my opinion, he is a good man who never should have allowed his allegiance to a person trump his duty to Alaska. He too was trying to wrap his arms around a scandal where there were no heroes, nearly everyone on all sides of this issue from Monegan to myself carried some guilt. Like many of us, in that he struggled.