It is a testament to my acute interest in this presidential campaign that I have been reading the Branchflower (aka Troopergate) Report – the bipartisan Alaska legislative report into Sarah Palin’s effort to turn the Alaska State Government into her personal vendetta apparatus – during a playoff game involving my beloved Boston Red Sox.  But it has paid off richly, and the Sox have managed so far despite my divided attention.

The basic storyline, as you know, is that Sarah and Todd Palin ("The First Gentleman," as the Report puts it)  want State Trooper Michael Wooten – who had been involved in bitter divorce and child custody dispute with Sarah Palin’s sister – fired.   They really, really want him fired.  They and their underlings present to  Commissioner of Public Safety  (and Palin appointee) Walter Monegan , and others  in the state police, a variety of reasons why Wooten needs to go.  The reasons are the normal litany of allegations you always hear when a powerful public official seeks to use her power to crush an opponent in a bitter family rivaly:  moose-shooting without a license; snowmobiling while on worker’s comp; dropping off by a single dad police officer of his kid in his marked police car; child-tasing.

The Palins’ quest for SWEET VENGEANCE   is zealous.   But it is also just a bit indiscriminate.    Thus, when approached separatedly by Todd and Sarah about Wooten’s unfitness for his job, on the ground that Wooten unlawfully shot a moose without a license (i.e., Wooten lacked the license), Monegan pointed out that the Palins’ concern that Wooten had not been prosecuted for the moose-take was itself problematic.   In particular, he pointed out that (1) Sarah’s sister – and Wooten’s husband – did have a permit at the relevant time, and had been hunting with him when he shot the animal; and (2) Palin’s father had butchered the moose, making him a potential in any potential prosecution of Wooten for the allegedly unlawful moose-kill.

As Monegan put it in his testimony:

Well, the wife, it was her permit. She willingly allowed someone else to use it. 

It also – once the moose has been shot, it had been drug – according to Todd – by Wooten in the back of the truck to location where it was butchered by the Governor’s father.   And so I pointed out that there are people also involved in this incident that theoretically could also be charged. And he [Todd Palin] said, I don’t want that, I only want Wooten charged.  Well, we’re not that way.   If there’s somebody who’s guilty, we have to hold everybody accountable for their actions and their decisions.

Of less rustic charm, but greater civic significance, is the revelation on page 50 by Officer Wheeler, a state trooper assigned to Sarah Palin’s gubernatorial security detail, that First Gentleman Todd Palin spends half his time in Governor Palin’s office.    As is evident throughout the report, the guy is an essential – nay, central -- part of Palin’s operation.  Sort of the Cheney to her Bush.

Since Todd Palin plays such a central role is Sarah’s administration, shouldn’t it matter that the guy was a longtime member of a secessionist political party founded by an America-hating extremist who died in an explosives deal gone bad shortly before he was to give an anti-US screed at the United Nations at the behest of the Islamic Republic of Iran? 

Last night McCain  asserted that Obama's position that the US should attack Bin Laden in Pakistan if Pakistan's government cannot or will not represented the opposite of Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly, but carry a big stick" adage.  Obama tartly responded that McCain is not in a position to accuse anyone of undiplomatic bluster, given that he "is the one who sang Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran."

Here is the exchange, from CNN's debate transcript.

Obama: Sen. McCain, this is the guy who sang, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of "speaking softly."

This is the person who, after we had -- we hadn't even finished Afghanistan, where he said, "Next up, Baghdad."
[* * * *]

McCain: And, Tom, if -- if we're going to go back and forth, I then -- I'd like to have equal time to go -- to respond to...

Brokaw: Yes, you get the...

McCain: ... to -- to -- to...

Brokaw: ... last word here, and then we have to move on.

McCain: Not true. Not true. I have, obviously, supported those efforts that the United States had to go in militarily and I have opposed that I didn't think so. I understand what it's like to send young American's in harm's way. I say -- I was joking with a veteran -- I hate to even go into this. I was joking with an old veteran friend, who joked with me, about Iran.

Problem is, millions of Americans have seen McCain singing his reckless and stupid "Bomb Iran" ditty with their own eyes, either on the news, or on this popular YouTube video.

As the familiar video shows, McCain sang his "Bomb Iran" song in front of cameras and in response to an audience question at a primary campaign event.  His effort to dismiss it as part of a joking one-on-one discussion with an "old veteran friend" is directly contrary to immediately accessible visual evidence.  

This is downright bizarre behavior.    McCain lied about something millions of Americans have already seen with their own eyes, and that is readily available to others.  What is up with him?  

I hate to be a johnny one-note, since I blogged on this after the first Obama-McCain debate, but tonight McCain again proposed a federal spending freeze.

That on the same night that he praised the $700 billion bailout bill, and proposed a massive but undefined new federal program to take up bad debt.

This is crazy stuff in a terrible economy.  It shows he is completely clueless on economic "fundamentals."  His cluelessness needs to be driven home.