This month, a bipartisan panel of state legislators appointed an independent investigator to look into whether Ms. Palin had fired a top law enforcement official in her administration because he had failed to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a divorce with Ms. Palin’s sister.

The Anchorage Daily News has more. Walt Monegan, the Alaska official who Palin fired, has already disclosed that Palin repeatedly harassed him about her ex-brother in law, and he has a sheaf of emails that he plans to show to investigators. The guy who Palin appointed to replace Monegan, Chuck Kopp, had a touching the wimmen problem that Palin knew about when she hired him.

If I had to guess I would say that the investigator’s report will be embarrassing but not fatal. Even granting the worst possible interpretation Palin’s troopergate doesn’t get close to the kind of deep corruption that we expect from the GOP’s DC delegation. It’s the sort of thing that bubbles up during local politics in a small state, especially an isolated petrostate like Alaska. The guy she picked is a little shady but, look, with the population of Austin, Texas Alaska doesn’t have a very deep bench. Compare Kopp with Harriet Miers. Michael Brown. Bernie fucking Kerik.

At the most Palin comes across as flighty, careless with power and shows moderately bad character judgment. By itself that wouldn’t threaten, say, a popular sitting governor who would need to commit a murder to lose her seat. The problem is that Sarah Palin is now running for the Vice President of the United States. Given that she’s a political naif with no relevant experience to call on, those defects are fatal.

Apparently, though, they are serious. The maverick really did nominate someone who is a darling of the Christian right, and I guess all we can gather is that they have learned from the past eight years. The Bush administration corrupted the Justice department, they corrupted NASA, they corrupted the FDA, hell- they polluted every aspect of the bureaucracy with hacks who simply adhere to the same bizarre views, and they never paid a price.

So, with that in mind, why the fuck not someone who shares Sarah Palin’s bizarre views. It isn’t like they have had to pay a price, and who knows, they may just win.

Factually wrong on every point they raise, and yet still insisting their conclusion stands.

I am off to Happy Hour and dinner. Consider this your open thread, and you damned kids behave.

*** Update ***

This is dumber:

By the power vested in Broward County, Florida, Chad Johnson’s name is now legally “Chad Javon Ocho Cinco,” in what he calls a reinvention of the Ocho gig.

“Ocho Cinco 2.0,” is what Johnson is calling it, but what the NFL is calling it remains to be seen. Could Johnson be looking for “Ocho Cinco,” to go across the back of his No. 85 jersey?

“Hint, hint,” he said of the marketing potential. “It’s something I don’t think anyone has ever done before. Have I ever had a reason for why I do what I do? I’m having fun.”

Johnson “changed,” his name to Ocho Cinco for warmups before the game against the Falcons in 2006 and before Carson Palmer ripped off the nameplate to reveal C. Johnson. That was a violation of NFL uniform rules and he was reportedly fined $5,000.

Now he’s done it legally in a move first reported by ProFootballTalk.com. And according to the document from the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, the name change won’t “invade the property rights of others, whether partnership, patent, good will, privacy, trademark, or otherwise.”

[She doesn’t] know much about the Alaska governor

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) used the announcement of his vice-presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, to blast the experience of his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill), arguing that Sen. Obama has never been the mayor of a 5,000-person town.

“The Presidency of the United States of America is the toughest job on the planet,” Sen. McCain said. “And my friends, the best testing ground for that job is being the mayor of a 5,000-person town in Alaska.”

...which grew out of allegations she sacked Monegan for refusing to fire her former brother-in-law from the state police.

Palin acknowledged that a member of her staff made a call to a trooper in which the staffer suggested he was speaking for the governor. Palin has admitted that the call could be interpreted as pressure to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, who was locked in a child-custody battle with Palin’s sister.

“As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?”

Fun!

Update: More fun!!

Yes, I am doing something about it. I will be moving to a new server in the near future.

No, multiple comments informing me the site sucks are not helpful.

No, I do not feel the need to run a fundraiser, but if you want to donate, the buttons are in the same place they have always been.

Yes, I am sick of hearing about how much the site sucks.

Did I mention I am working on it?

Really, the only way I think this helps the ticket is that the McCain campaign can now feign outrage over alleged sexist remarks at the same time they are on the fainting couches decrying some mythical slight to McCain’s honor.

This is just a deeply disturbing and deeply bizarre choice (by comparison, this would be the equivalent of Obama choosing a less qualified Kaine), particularly since there is a chance McCain could win and he is old as dirt. Granted, the chance he wins is much, much smaller after his choice today.

While the entire speech was pretty solid, and I thought had a nice flow, this portion stuck out to me:

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer, and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values.

And that’s to be expected, because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters.

If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.

And you know what? It’s worked before, because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping and settle for what you already know.

I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.

Thomas Franks, call your office. Remember the “bitter” remarks, when supporters like yours truly pointed out that Obama’s comments, while not carefully scripted, were spot on? Here it is again, polished and perfected and still as true today as they were then. The Republicans have won the past few years by in part scaring the hell out of everyone with terrorism and national security issues, but by making elections about nonsense ballot issues that stir up the right-wing b ase but really do nothing for the people of America.

This also was something I have discussed at length:

What the naysayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me; it’s about you.

(APPLAUSE)

It’s about you.

We talked about this before discussing the differences between the standard Clinton speech and the standard Obama speech. yesterday, I was IM’ing a friend that I wish I could get hold of the Obama campaign to tell them to put a line like that in there. Actually, what I wanted him to say was that when the GOP attacks Obama for drawing large crowds and being a celebrity, the people they are really attacking is not Obama, but the crowd. You don’t know what you want, you are just dazzled by a smooth talker. You don’t have critical thinking skills, you are just awed by his celebrity. That is what the McCain celebrity attacks are really saying.

At any rate, a lot can be said about the speech, and I am sure a lot will in the next few days. I think it was a very fine speech, and it got the job done with gusto. Again, the thing that really stands out most to me is that Obama is signaling to everyone- Not this time. Not this candidate. I fight back.

*** Update ***

The Slacktivist makes my second point better than I did:

It’s become fashionable—particularly among a certain kind of Stevensonian elite—to dismiss Obama’s oratory and rhetoric as, by definition, insubstantial. The implication, often explicit, is that his audiences are rubes, idiots spellbound by a lot of pretty talk. But it is precisely the substance, not the style, of Obama’s oratory that has been winning over his audiences. That substance is egalitarian, democratic, inclusive and aspirational—precisely the opposite of elitist or condescending.

Olbermann and Matthews really disgraced themselves with their schoolgirl gushing last night, but Olbermann was exactly right about the AP piece- it was shit. And just as it was the case with many things over the past few years (torture, the failure of this administration, domestic surveillance), Olbermann is the only one to bluntly and explicitly say so.

10:23 pm- So far, so good. This is going really well. Loved the 10% chance for change line.

BTW, mom made the NY Times.

10:32 pm- I told you all to have faith. Loved the celebrity jab.

10:33 pm- Tom Friedman is going to pop wood over this energy plan.

10:42 pm- Bring it on, McCain. “He says he will follow him to the gates of hell, but he will not even follow him to the cave where he lives.”

11:00 pm- That was a pretty damned fine speech. Matthews and Olberman are just embarassing themselves with the praise, though.

11:54 pm- The McCain campaign has no idea what hit them. Here is their response:

“Tonight, Americans witnessed a misleading speech that was so fundamentally at odds with the meager record of Barack Obama,” spokesman Tucker Bounds said. “When the temple comes down, the fireworks end, and the words are over, the facts remain: Senator Obama still has no record of bipartisanship, still opposes offshore drilling, still voted to raise taxes on those making just $42,000 per year, and still voted against funds for American troops in harm’s way. The fact remains: Barack Obama is still not ready to be President.”

Brokaw openly mocked them.

The best thing about the night- as the press is dissecting Obama’s masterful performance, I flipped to a panel on PBS about the speech. Dolores Kearns Goodwin was talking at length, in the shadow of the Obama speech, that McCain needs to show he can use a teleprompter.

They are so well and truly fucked, and they deserve it.

12:45 pm- I am still in the afterglow, and thought I would go for another trounce. Screw the foreplay, here is Pat Buchanan being positively effervescent about the speech: