Chief Brody: (slinging chum off the back of the boat) "Why doesn’t he come on down here and chum some of this shit?"
(Looks behind him, see the shark, jaws agape, break the surface. Terrified, he stumbles backwards into the cabin.)
Brody: "You're gonna need a bigger boat."
Jaws
1975
Reading the details of "Troopergate" – Sarah Palin’s, not Bill Clinton’s – it looks to me like John McCain should have paid a little more attention to his Alaskan beauty queen’s potential liabilities before plucking her from obscurity and casting her into the savage waters of an American presidential campaign.
I've been wrong before (and the institutional pressures in the media to go easy on McCain’s speed date soul mate clearly are enormous) but I think the story has the potential, at least, to turn into a classic media feeding frenzy – probably in about a week or so, once Gustav is finished (without a repeat of Katrina, God willing) and the white power rally that is the typical GOP convention is finally out of the way.
At that point, the media pack is going to be ravenous for fresh political meat, and I doubt gnawing the old bones of Rev. Wright's sermons or Joe Biden’s old speeches will be enough to sate the hunger impulses in those tiny, shark-like brains.
In other words, the McCain camp better come up with some fresh slices of Obama slander PDQ, or Alaskan mooseburger could be replaced on the media menu by Alaskan Hockey Mom – delicately roasted over the coals of her small-town, family-friendly brand of GOP corruption.
In my (admittedly rusty) journalistic judgment, Troopergate II has almost as many ingredients for a full-scale feeding frenzy as Jaws III. Consider:
- It represents a flagrant abuse of power for the pettiest of motives -- ie. retaliation for a family member’s messy divorce.
- It involves the state’s most important public safety agency. Law enforcement is any governor’s primary responsibility (particularly in the huge, sprawling state like Alaska). As such, the scandal directly impeaches Palin’s meager claim to executive experience.
- It's easy to understand. There are no complicated financial dealings to unravel or arcane legal details to explain. This is purely about the personal abuse of official power. And, as always, the personal isn’t just political – it’s an irresistible media substitute for the political.
- Based on the coverage so far, it appears likely that Palin is guilty of illegally interfering in a state personnel matter – or, at the very least, has made a number of grossly false and misleading public statements about her involvement.
- Hard evidence of her guilt – in the form of incriminating emails and, who knows, maybe even taped phone conversations – appears to exist and could be rapidly forthcoming. (A lot of people, including a lot of Alaska GOP officials, seem to have scores to settle.)
- The most important witness against her is a cop – what’s more, a highly respected career law enforcement official. I’ve seen his TV interviews, and he oozes credibility.
Add a candidate who bears more than a passing resemblance to Bambi, and a week of subjecting journalists to the mindnumbing banality of a GOP convention (which generally have all the pizazz of a Lawrence Welk marathon crossed with a meeting of a Soviet military committee on tank production) and you can see how easily things could go south for Gov. Palin.
I’ve seen feeding frenzies up close and personal -- I was in the scrum the day Geraldine Ferraro went before the press to defend her husband’s shady financial dealings, and I saw the raw fear in her eyes. So take my word: They’re not the place for a rookie just up from the minor leagues to try to prove he/she has got the right stuff.
Palin is supposed to be a passionate fisherwoman. But if this story catches on as I think it might – emphasis on the might -- she’s be about to find out what it feels like to be the fish – or even worse: the chum.
Update 9/1 1:00 am ET: Front page of today's Washington Post:
Long-Standing Feud in Alaska Embroils Palin
For the past several years, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has been embroiled in a bitter family feud that has drawn in the state police, the attorney general, the governor's office and the state legislature.
A bipartisan state legislative panel has appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether Palin improperly brought the family fight into the governor's office. The investigation is focusing on whether she and her aides pressured and ultimately fired the public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, for not removing Palin's ex-brother-in-law from the state police force.
Interviews with principals involved in the dispute and a review of court documents and police internal affairs reports reveal that Palin has been deeply involved in alerting state officials to her family's personal turmoil.
This will probably get lost in the Gustav coverage today and maybe well into the week. But the marker has been laid down.
Once the New York Times jumps in, it will be game on.
If I had graphics capabilities here, I'd photoshop Palin into that Jaws poster: The one of the girl swimming in the water while the shark noses up from underneath.