Is this less important than I think it is, or is it just that what with all the McCain-parachuting-into-occupied-Washington hoohah, it's lost in the shuffle?
According to WaPo, Sarah Palin, Our Lady of Maverickdom and All Things Reform, accepted more than $25,000 in gifts during the first 20 months of her term as governor.
Palin Accepted $25,000 in Gifts, Alaska Records Show
The lede is lovely:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who has made a crackdown on gift-giving to state officials a centerpiece of her ethics reform agenda, has accepted gifts valued at $25,367 from industry executives, municipalities and a cultural center whose board includes officials from some of the largest mining interests in the state, a review of state records shows.
For those of us keeping score at home, that's $1,500 in gifts for every month she was in office. Probably not Ted Stevens-worthy, but not a bad tally for a newbie to big-time Alaska politics.
It's probably not coincidental that
About a quarter of the entities bestowing gifts on the governor are represented by one of Alaska's most influential mining lobbyists, who said in an interview that she was not involved in the tributes.
The Post also notes that 18 of the 41 gifts were accepted after the passage of ethics reform (which Palin championed and is part of her "credentials" as a reformer) that forbid state officials from taking such gifts from entities with pending business before the state. (Hmm, wonder how they define "pending business?")
Okay, so I don't know that a sea otter headband and a $300 woven grass fan are huge ethical issues in and of themselves. But really, here we go again. Is there any principle this she-Cheney won't sell on the stump while all along blithely, and not necessarily for any useful reason, doing whatever the hell she feels like in utter contradiction of said principle?
Of course there's not. I suppose this really is not news. The real newsworthy headline would be "Sarah Palin pushed for gift ban as part of ethics reform; actually abided by rules."