The case of the governor's husband

Sherlock Holmes came into the America Wants to Know offices this morning with a newspaper in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other.

"Have you seen the New York Times this morning?" he asked, his eyes sparkling.

"No."

Holmes sat down in a leather armchair and stretched his legs out in front of him. "Most interesting," he said. He folded back a page of the newspaper. "Young Mrs. Palin, a most handsome woman, is married to a man who races... snow machines."

"Yes," we said, "What about it?"

"What do you suppose he knows about state budgets?"

"State budgets?" we asked. "Why would he know anything about state budgets?"

"Precisely," Holmes said. He leaned forward and held the magnifying glass over the newspaper. "When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget," he read out loud in his clear, clipped manner, "she avoided the legion of frustrated legislators and mayors. Instead, she huddled with her budget director and her husband, Todd, an oil field worker who is not a state employee, and vetoed millions of dollars of legislative projects."

Holmes leaned back in the chair again and smiled.

We waited. We love to watch him think.



"Has Mrs. Palin released her family's financial records yet?" he asked.

"No, not yet."

"Most interesting."

He sat in silence for a moment. Then he stood and paced. "I expect that she will not release more than a summary of her financial records," he said. "You can see, of course, that there can be only one possible explanation for her husband to be consulted on millions of dollars in state spending."

We didn't see anything.

"Graft," he said. "The governor's husband is a conduit for payments to the governor in order to influence her decisions."

"Oh, that can't be," we said. "In this day and age? Too many people would know about it, this isn't Tammany Hall, for goodness sake."

"Isn't it?" Holmes asked. "How many Alaska lawmakers have been indicted? Several state politicians are already in prison, if I'm not mistaken, and U.S. Senator Ted Stevens is about to go on trial."

"That's completely separate," we said. "Sarah Palin cleaned up the corruption, she's not part of the corruption."

Holmes smiled as if he was trying not to.

"I can't stay," he said. "When Mrs. Palin releases her financial records, look closely for business deals that enriched Mr. Todd Palin beyond what a prudent investor might reasonably expect. Look for extraordinary luck and very fortuitous timing. Then look closely at his business associates and the business they had with the state government of Alaska." He laid the magnifying glass on the desk. "I think you'll find that Mr. Todd Palin had a very good reason to be in those budget meetings," he said. "You simply can't run a patronage system properly unless someone keeps track of the patrons."


Copyright 2008

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