Palin Report Overstates Costs Of Ethics Complaints: $30,000 An Hour Attorney?

McClatchy:

There's some double counting and other problems with a spreadsheet outlining $1.9 million in state costs for ethics complaints, public records requests and lawsuits directed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Read the whole story: McClatchy

Comments

[bebecca]

Am I misremembering this? Didn't Andrea Mitchell ask her a question during her perfect hair/nails/waders interview about Sarah and Todd having to pay $500 mil out of their pockets for legal defense and Sarah blew that off like that wasn't the issue? Now we know why.

[Strywever]

First, Palin said the legal bill was $500 thousand, not $500 million. (Her words, as I recall, were actually "half a million.") Second, the reason Palin isn't worried about that is that a legal defense fund is already covering the bill for the Palins. Odd how the right's paragon of virtue and truth forgot to mention that, isn't it? Yet another misrepresentation of the truth that Saint Sarah's supporters will choose to ignore.

[Wiseronenow]

I honestly feel that she thought in her pea brain, if she just quit the governorship, all those legal bills would just be forgotten about, because, well, she's not the governor anymore. I really believe that might have crossed her mind at one time.

[boilinabag]

facts be damned.... ask anyone in the GOP or on fox..... facts are made up on the fly or deliberately skewed and truncated to fit the lie[s]...........

[breakingnews3]

And swallowed whole by the likes of PumaAnn...........

[pixy242a]

The Department of Law, by overstating its cost, is doing (according to Palin's recent comments) what a good "Department of Law" does, i.e. help throw out any charges against the Chief Executive it serves !

[Whitley2009]

Wasilla Mathematics

$500 @ hour x 60 lawyers equals.....No, $1000 x 30 lawyers equals....Oh, Fudge, $2000 @ hour x 15 lawyers equals.....divide by...carry two...drop three.....John McCain did not tell me how to figure this. Tooodddddd? What did you say it was? $30,000? You sure? O.K. I'll just say $30,000 an hour for the shysters, give or take $500.00. Who'll know the difference? You bet'cha.

[TheHuffingtonEnquirer]

Hilarious!

[AnnfromCA]

I am sure glad I don't approve of the smear jobs on Palin. I would shudder to defend some of what's gone on like so many bloggers here.

[KazooDan]

Don't you get tired of defending a quitter?

[AnnfromCA]

I'm a veteran of the Whitewater years. It is destructive politics. I don't care if it's the GOP doing it or the left-wing.

The country needs better.

[breakingnews3]

I find it charming that you cheerleaded the smearjobs on Obama during the GE and yet can muster up all this fake outrage when it comes to Palin.

You prove yourself to be Palin's less intellectual twin.

[AnnfromCA]

I really didn't defend those at all. I had strong opinions, but I never promoted or agreed with some of the anti-O bloggers.

[JumpDownTurnAround]

fanned & faved

[LetsGetToWork]

Excellent!

Fanned and Faved.

[freethinkergirl]

Fanned!

[Martha T]

AnnfromCA you are in total denial and drinking the Kool Aid cmom girl, get with it, they depend on people like you who seem to believe all the "You Betchas and Yups" will appeal to the common American.....COMMON does not mean gullible! .you're smarter than this.....move on girl and see the light! And, the crap the REPUGS are preaching to you...they would never include you in one of their C STREET retreats so why should you believe them. They rule with superiority and power they believe is given by GOD to white powerful men.....scary things coming out of DC these days, almost as scary as the news about the wacko from Wasilla....................I wish you peace and inner strength to conquer your fear of the TRUTH

[FightTheLies]

But yet the prodigal daughter Ann loves all the smears against our President.

[Wiseronenow]

Smear jobs on Palin? The Palin tr0//s always have a more convenienet memory, don't they...McCain's presidential campaign was the first time (and I've been around a long time) that I ever heard a vice presidential candidate call another candidate a terrorist.

[rabiddog6708]

If McSame would have won the election, he would have been the oldest President and this woman would have been waiting in the wings to take over. Scary stuff, especially since a recent repub poll has 70% of repubs wanting her as their candidate in 2012.

[ClevelandTom]

Agreed. Palin supporters like to opine that Dems must be afraid of her because they spend so much time criticizing her. I don't know about other Dems but as close as this completely unprepared and ill-suited came to being president on the McCain ticket was close enough for me. I am afraid that she might get closer in the future.

[JumpDownTurnAround]

Hey if the Shrub could do it, anything is possible, and that is SCARY!

[AnnfromCA]

Why be afraid of her? I think she might at least bring attention to how the insiders in WA work.

And that goes for the GOP, too.

[haval2]

Once again Sarah's view of reality is tainted and full of inaccuracies. Not ready for dog catcher.

[mia8485]

This isn't just an accounting error.

It's in addition to so many things, including Palin's comments about how much extra the state was spending on lawyers to handle her ethics complaints, 1.9 million, while forgetting that those lawyers got paid by the state no matter what they were working on.

[AnnfromCA]

Alaska's lawyers have plenty of real work that would actually benefit Alaskans.

Do you guys really not get this? These charges, focused only on bringing down Palin, hurt Alaskans.

That is undeniable.

[NOV42008]

Then I think the media should get back to Alaska before she leave and let Sarah explain it. Do not let her leave office without an explanation, otherwise she can say, I am no longer in office and do not have to answer.

Ann what work do lawyers do on the golf course?

[mydwyf]

Um, there would be no charges if there was no suspicion of impropriety,
and personally I would like to see an ethics charge concerning the 'aide'
who gets paid $67,000/year by the state and is nicknamed 'The Babysitter'.

Bet every working mother in the country would like an 'aide' like that !

[Tracy Hale]

You'll have to excuse Ann...she couldn't afford a real vacation so she decided to go to that magical place in her head.

Only problem is, it's hard to get back to reality from there!

[myfatherschild]

The charges were brought mostly by Alaskans who are attempting to force their Govenor to be ethical and do the job for which she was elected.

[LetsGetToWork]

Was this computed by her $1,000/hr accountant?

[Havnagudtim]

Hello, can you say 'Peter Principal'?
How is it that ridiculous accounting mistakes of this type were made? Do these important public officials not have a CPA on staff to actually verify this type of document? This is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE Sarah, it's basic mathematics. Small wonder the state economy is in shambles, with this level of incompetency. She has sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind, you betch. Wink. Wink.

[Whitley2009]

nudge nudge

[AnnfromCA]

I watched, as did most of the country, when the GOP turned Whitewater into an ongoing rumor-mongering commission, costing the country 70 million dollars and destroying the lives of many innocent people. In the end, they had to admit. There was no wrongdoing.

The admission barely was reported by the media.

It didn't matter. The public figured it out. This type of rumor-mongering does not work. The public knows when someone is being smeared after awhile.

It saddens me to see the left using the same tactics as the far-right did.

[breakingnews3]

The vast majority of the ethics compliants were filed by her fellow Republicans in her state and now it is the LEFT that is smearing poor little victim Sarah?

It is as ridiculous as Hillary's "vast right wing conspiracy".

[AnnfromCA]

Hillary wasn't being remotely ridiculous. There was a conspiracy.

[JRsNana]

But don't you see, many of these complaints against Sarah Palin are coming from REPUBLICANS! That is an undeniable FACT. So where does your excuse go now?

[lovable]

i just want a reporter or interviewer to question her about all he inconsistancies and lies!!!!!!!!!!!!

no one will do that . they are mesmerized by her beauty and generalized answers!!! that say nothing . jusr rambling words.

[AnnfromCA]

The reporter asked. The Alaskan office answered. It was a mistake.

[breakingnews3]

So she resigned her elected office over a mistake??

She couldn't take a few minutes to look over the report to make SURE it was right?

I love it!!

[thinkingwomanmillstone]

Well to be fair, as a journalism major, math probably wasn't her strength. An ability to write and speak succinctly and coherently is her forte! You betcha!

[mergina]

Sounds like maybe someone is refunded overpayments to her???

[Yve72]

The one thing she should have learned during her brief stint in the national spotlight was the accuracy of her words.

Just because someone "told" you something or handed you a report doesn't mean its 100% true. It is your job to verify everything before it passes your lips, because when it is revealed as false, you will look like a f.00l. It's as bad as repeating gossip & rumors.

[instagladiator]

No?

[breakingnews3]

That comes from not being very intellectually curious. A mature and thoughtful Gov. would have asked HOW they came to those figures, instead of repeating them verbatim without research.

[jymfrancais]

As this woman EVER told the Truth about Anything??

[CR46]

Nope.

[Yve72]

Her name...?

[Hawaii4Obama]

It' s Holly Hyperbole.

[instagladiator]

You have a comprehension problem?