Tucker Carlson Pubbie Logic--Warning! Palin related!

So Carlson just challenged Mike Barnicle (guest-hosting HARDBALL yesterday), asking if he (Barnicle) were the Governor of a state, wouldn’t he fire the PSC too if the PSC refused to punish a state trooper with dismissal after the trooper had tased a family member, drunk beer in a squad car, and committed the list of rotten things that Palin’s brother-in-law is alleged to have committed.

To his everlasting shame, Barnicle bought it, said “I’da fired him yesterday!” bbbyyy.

The correct answer, of course, is that Troopergate is all about abuse of power: the reason the Governor should not be able to punish the PSC for punishing the trooper insufficently is that WHETHER THE GOVERNOR AGREES WITH IT OR NOT, the trooper has already received sanctions for these actions by the appropriate sanctioning body (forget who) and that body has meted out punishment to the trooper which ends the case. Does Carlson, in all his outrage, or Barnicle, in all his glorious regular-guy sticking up for abused family members dimwittedness, not realize that being Governor does not allow one to mete out punishment above and beyond that punishment meted out legally? Would either of these douchebags enjoy being punished by one body, only to discover that the Governor of their state, who happens to be a pissed-off in-law, has decided to order a whole new, and much worse and far more severe, level of punishment?

I’m almost madder at Barnicle than that smug faux-outraged asshole Carlson, because being from Massachusetts he should recognize Carlson’s logic as being the same logic that screwed Dukakis in 1988: the reason that a victim’s family member is the least appropriate person to mete out punishment in a criminal case is that that person has an emotional stake in the case. If Dukakis’s wife is raped, and Dukakis is the judge in the rape case, under the rule of law he must recuse himself from the case precisely because he cares so much about the outcome, which is also why Palin had ZERO business interjecting herself into her brother-in-law’s legal situation.

Carlson just sidetracked the discussion into “How much do you like your family, Mike?” and Barnicle swallowed it whole.

In fairness to Mike, he was probably plagiarizing.

You’re upset because a politician (or a supporter) first distracted a question with a total irrelevancy and then completely side-stepped it?

Don’t watch any of the debates, my friend, you’ll go ballistic.

In any case, a better response is that the allegations are dubious. Note that a judge warned Palin & her relatives to cease and desist from “badmouthing” Trooper Wooten, which strongly suggests that the charges are the sort of BS that too often gets thrown out in bitter divorce cases on the off chance that it will stick.

(Presumably, this is why Palin does not herself offer this argument; it would put her in contempt of court. She’d better hope that there are no direct links to the surrogates spinning this tale, or that if they are she is able to keep them covered up.)

Now THERE’s a ship that’s long since sailed.

I don’t know if Carlson makes me crazier, for putting ludicrous partisan spin on the elevation of “You’d do the same if you was her” over the, you know, illegal issues in the Governor’s taking inappropriate personal revenge here, or Barnicle for going “Yuppers, Tucker.”

I think Barnicle.

Relevant video.