Always mystify, mislead and surprise the enemy

Anybody who has been paying attention knows that the Troopergate investigation has bipartisan support and that Palin has been engaged in a no holds barred cover-up for weeks. And yet, a CNN.com article published this evening allows allegations of partisanship to go unchallenged.

The five Republican state lawmakers who filed suit said the two Democrats and the former Anchorage prosecutor leading the probe "are unable to hold the balance between vindicating their own political interests and the interests of those who are being investigated."
...
The lawsuit alleges that Elton, French and Branchflower "are conducting a McCarthyistic investigation in an unlawful, biased, partial and partisan political manner in order to impact the upcoming Alaska general and national presidential elections." |CNN|

This kind of uncritical stenography is shoddy journalism, but it's also the world we live in. The Obama campaign is staying so far away from Troopergate that they aren't even on the media's call list. The predictable result is that Palin's attack dogs are given a free hand. And hey, guess what, Palin is accusing the Obama campaign of politicizing the investigation.

Here's a tip for the Obama campaign. Call Tony Knowles.

Here's a tip for CNN. For your next story, call Tony Knowles.

Update: Isikoff on Maddow again. Two interesting reports. First, the McCain campaign has heavyweight lawyers on the ground in Alaska acting as advisors to Thomas Van Flein. No real surprise there. The second one is great. Remember when Thomas Van Flein, in an attempt to change the venue of the investigation to the Palin controlled Personnel Board, filed an ethics complaint against the governor? Well, according to Isikoff he has now filed to have his complaint dismissed.

...and as long as I'm updating, I found the transcript of Isikoff's Friday appearance. Here's the relevant part:

ISIKOFF: Right. Right. And just sort of adding on to that, what was so intriguing about this little rabbit trail in this, is that Branchflower said that when he first called the head of the workman‘s compensation office, or the contractor who is handling it, the woman denied that there had been any pressure put on Wooten‘s worker‘s compensation claim.

He then checked with other people in the governor‘s office and they, too, denied that there had been any pressure.

And then he gets a phone call on his tip line from the woman who actually handled the claim. And she said I have some information for you—pressure was put on this case.

So there do seem to be some real contradictions in what people are saying. And, you know, look, it‘s the old Washington adage applied here to Alaska—it‘s often the cover-up that seems—that is worse than the crime.

I think what‘s at least raised today by Branchflower‘s presentation is that people had not been truthful with him. |source|

Double Plus Update: The news is pouring in. The Speaker of the House of the Alaska State Legislature has called for the Legislative Council to come into session no later than September 23rd. This is the same body that authorized the investigation unanimously on July 28th. It's not clear to me yet whether the Speaker is acting at the direction of Palin or is intending to provide another demonstration of the investigation's non-partisan bona fides, but I'd say it's worth marking your calendar. And, yeah, we've got primary sources (pdf!) on this.

...Ok, it's clear that Harris is a Palin apparatchik. His Chief of Staff is Palin's former Legislative Directore. More importantly:

Democratic state Sen. Kim Elton, chairman of the Legislative Council, the 14-member panel that authorized the probe, had no immediate comment on Harris' request. Under an unusual power-sharing agreement, the council is made up of 10 Republicans and 4 Democrats. |MSNBC|