06 September 2008

Sarah Palin accepted donations from indicted Alaska oil man Bill Allen. As if the news around the new GOP VP nominee can't get any worse!  It seems as if every day a new scandal or questionable connection is breaking around Palin.

Bill Allen ran Alaska's largest oil-contracting firm VECO Corp. He co-chaired the Alaska finance committee during the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, according to reports.

He's also a convicted felon "caught at the center of the largest federal corruption investigation in state history", reports the Alaska Dispatch.

After meeting with Allen, Palin got $5,000 when she was running for Lieutenant Gov. of Alaska; some 10% of all the money she raised during her campaign, according to the report.

More from the reports:

[Allen] and another VECO executive pleaded guilty last year to bribing state lawmakers, making phony campaign contributions, and other corrupt acts.

The convicted felon is also expected to testify in court against another Palin supporter: indicted Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.  Ted Stevens endorsed Sarah Palin for Governor and is currently charged with accepting more than $250,000 in gifts without disclosing it.  And just to bring it full circle, most of those gifts to Stevens came from Bill Allen.

Palin lost the bid for Lt. Governor in 2002.

If the public had to have Tony Rezko shoved down our throats whether we wanted to or not, serious questions should also be asked about Palin's connection to convicted briber Bill Allen.

Would Barak Obama ever ... in a million years ... be able to get away with not having to answer to why he took money from a convicted briber? Or getting an endorsement from an indicted Senator? 

While the McCain campaign continues to hide Palin from media and their hard questions -- questions she should most definitely have to answer before even being considered for vice president -- these mini-scandals will continue to pop up.

Left to grow, weeds can ultimately strangle everything around it. Will all these weeds be left alone to strangle McCain's campaign?

Maybe there is no good explanation for such connections. In which case, Palin should have long since been held responsible in some way -- like perhaps donating the money to a charity or giving it back -- and allowed to move on.

But in the absence of consequences, politicians develop a taste for being allowed to get away with anything.

 

Source Material:
Alaska Dispatch