Joe Conason: A Bush-Style Whitewash

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



A Bush-Style Whitewash

Posted on Oct 16, 2008
By Joe Conason


For anyone who followed the story of how and why Sarah Palin fired her state’s public safety commissioner, last week’s release of a legislative investigation that found she had violated state ethics statutes was anticlimactic. After all, everyone knows that she and her husband, Todd, tried to push Walt Monegan, then Alaska’s public safety commissioner, to fire a state trooper named Mike Wooten, who was involved in a bitter divorce from Ms. Palin’s sister—and that after Mr. Monegan refused, he lost his job.

But while the state probe’s conclusions were unsurprising, there is still something to be learned from its findings and the McCain-Palin campaign’s response. From beginning to end, this episode demonstrates a disregard for the rule of law and a contemptuous attitude toward truth that are all too familiar by now.

Here, too, the election of the Republican ticket will mean more of what we have already experienced for the past eight years.

It is a pattern that can be traced back through the years of the Bush administration whenever a whiff of scandal arises: Promise a thorough investigation and full cooperation with the lawful authorities. Then stonewall and withhold evidence and testimony so that the investigation can never quite be completed. Insist that the partial investigation is actually a full and complete exoneration, even if official reports and prosecutors clearly indicate otherwise. Create a “reality” that will be mirrored and echoed by friendly media and the partisan base, while denigrating any effort to discuss actual facts as a conspiracy by the “liberal” media.

Whitewash, rinse and repeat. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081016_a_bush_style_whitewash/