About That Per Diem Scandal That Isn’t…

About that scandal the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind is attempting to manufacture out of Governor Palin’s per diem and travel expenses. Let’s go to an organ that leans just slightly to the right of Lenin (which means light years to the right of the New York Times, of course)–

WaPo:

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official “duty station” is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor’s daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

Oh, my! Governor Palin claimed expenses allowed under the law! Scandal! Horror! Run for the hills!

Of course, let’s see if anything she did ameliorated even this horrible, legal use of benefits specifically allowed her…

—Fired [Retasked/transferred to another more useful-to-the-taxpayers job elsewhere in the state government] the Governor’s personal chef, an expense to the taxpayers of around $45,000/year. Hmmm… seems the per diem was offset by a factor of about 2.7.

Advantage: the people of Alaska.

Travel expenses:

–Palin’s family: $43,490 “in the first nineteen months” of her tenure in office. Let’s see, that works out to an annual amount of about $27,467.37

The previous administration? Governor Murkowski’s wife spent $30,637.25 in state travel expense money, mostly going on shopping trips.

So, no loss to the people of Alaska, and since there’s documentation–even the WaPo admits that–to support the official use by Palin’s family that trumps Mrs. Murkowski’s shopping trips, advantage: Palin.

And what of Palin’s travel expenses during her first nineteen months as governor? Was she a wastrel or did she indeed save the people f Alaska money?

The previous governor, Murkowski, spent $463,000 in his last year alone. Palin’s expenses for her first nineteen months have amounted to $93,000.

Advantage: the people of Alaska.

And naturally, in order to protect the WaPo’s false claim to objectivity, mitigating information is mentioned, but buried deep under the lede to attempt creating a false impression of inflated and somehow illegitimate “per diem” expenses. Oh? Near the foot of an “investigative” article,

“…under state policy, all of the governor’s children are entitled to per diem expenses, even her infant son” but as of August 5th, such expense reimbursements had been declined by the family.¹

Buried deep, where subliterate Americans are unlikely to venture, in a WaPo article, of course.

And at the foot of that same article,

“…during the Murkowski years, that practice was questioned, and the state attorney general’s office produced an opinion saying laws then in effect required reimbursement for spousal travel.”¹

But here’s the kicker–also buried in areas where few subliterate Americans dare to tread in the WaPo:

The popular governor collected the per diem allowance from April 22, four days after the birth of her fifth child, until June 3, when she flew to Juneau for two days. Palin moved her family to the capital during the legislative session last year, but prefers to stay in Wasilla and drive 45 miles to Anchorage to a state office building where she conducts most of her business, aides have said.¹

So, let me get this straight: the scandal is that Palin’s per diem allowance was paid while she worked from home on the business of the people of Alaska for a while after the birth of her fifth child, Trig. Oh! My! What an evil woman! That she didn’t simply claim maternity leave and tell the Alaskan people to go shove it but continued to do her job, or instead commute into Anchorage or Juneau and back and forth with a newborn ( legitimately charging for both her travel expenses and a per diem for herself and Trig while doing so) OR move her whole family into official digs, sop up the life of Riley with a personal chef and guzzle at the public trough like previous governors is evil, evil, evil! Yes, evil, I tell you!

*feh* Is that the best the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind and its spores at DailyKos and Dhimmicrappic Underpants can do? Only absolute idiots will buy that crap. (But then again, by at least semi-objective criteria, about half the American public is made up of idiots, if one believes the polls that have the two presidential races at a virtual tie… )

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