You wouldn't know it if you get all your news from the corporate media but the campaign for the Alaska U.S. Senate seat has taken a dramatic turn. Joe Miller, the candidate chosen by Sarah Palin to take out her enemy, GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, has been accused of ethical violations that appeared to have gotten him fired from his job as a part-time local government lawyer last fall.
Alaska Dispatch took an early lead in investigating the story and has recently sued Miller's former employer, the Fairbanks Noth Star Borough, in an attempt to discover whether Miller was indeed fired or if he resigned to avoid being fired.
He has also been accused of rigging votes when he ran (unsuccessfully) for chairman of the Alaska Republican Party. A job he sought, he said, in order to weed out corruption in the party.
Over the weekend, the Dispatch framed its investigation this way:
Alaska Dispatch is now seeking information from the borough on two distinct issues: the circumstances leading up to Miller's resignation, and a series of entries in his file chronicled over a one-week period in March 2008. That timeframe coincides with the Alaska Republican Party's annual convention and Miller's failed effort alongside the state's newly installed governor, Sarah Palin, to get rid of party chair [Randy] Ruedrich.
The fact that Ruedrich was Miller's target lends an irony to the story:
The activity Miller is accused of is similar to what got Ruedrich in trouble in 2003 when it was brought to light that he was using state computers and e-mail to conduct Republican party business while working for the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. His then-co-worker Sarah Palin blew the whistle on Ruedrich's activities, and he ended up paying a $12,000 state ethics fine.
More irony: Palin's ethics charges against Ruedrich helped raise her political profile in the state, which eventually led to her successful run for governor — a job from which she resigned before her term was up, at least in part because she grew weary of fending off ethics charges.
The current controversy blew up this week after Miller did the one thing a politician at the center of a scandal should never do. On Monday, he invited the media to a news conference where he announced that he would no longer respond to questions about his activities at the borough:
JOE MILLER:We've drawn a line in the sand. You can ask me about background, you can ask about personal issues — I'm not going to answer. I'm not. This is about the issues. This is not about continuing the personal attacks, it's not about continuing the diversions based in illegal acts. This is about moving the state forward. And that's our commitment.
As a result of Miller's announcement, former Fairbanks North Star Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker came forward to confirm that the anonymous allegations are correct:
"It did make me angry," said Whitaker, who was mayor … from 2003 to 2009. "That event (politicking on borough time) happened on my watch, and I am obligated to tell the truth."
According to Whitaker, Miller — a part-time attorney for the borough from June 2002 to September 2009 — used other employees' computers to send "proxy votes to get himself elected as the chairman of the Republican Party."
According to another source, Miller's campaign platform included ridding the Alaska GOP of corruption. "That's what this is all about," Miller said during the 2008 campaign, "to make sure the public understands that the Republican Party is a party of ethics and not corruption."
Despite allegedly voting for himself multiple times, Miller lost the election for party chair.
So why is the corporate media ignoring this story? It is not because Miller's candidacy is insignificant. His upset over Murkowski in the primary was big political news.
To give them the benefit of a doubt, maybe it's because they don't have the assets on the ground in Fairbanks to do the shoe leather work required to assess what is really going on.
But more likely the corporate media's lack of interest in the scandal comes from the fact that they have settled on a narrative for the Alaska election. They have already written the headlines for November: "Palin Pick Elected Senator" and "Joe the Tea Bagger Goes to Washington."
They're simply not interested in allowing something as complicated as investigating ethics complaints disrupt that narrative now.
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