The Battle of Fairbanks – Alaska’s Tea Parti Senate Candidate Joe Miller Flattens Truth In 1st Round!
Let’s Not Get So Technical!!
For many months these allegations doggedly followed Miller’s Tea Party campaign. FSNB’s ethics policy declares that “public office, facilities or employment are not be used for personal gain” and includes “political activities while in work status” as a violation of the policy. Amid calls for disclosure of Miller’s personnel file, and legal action by a few Alaska news agencies, the issues were quickly bogged down in questions of privilege and privacy, i.e. client-attorney privilege between FNSB and Miller, and visa versa. In addition, questions arose about the application of privacy laws to Miller’s employee records.
Answering who may release documents and who may authorize document releases resembled more a game of ping pong than a argument about legal issues. Miller, when it suited him, took the position that it was FNSB who must authorize and release, or they must authorize Miller to do so. Naturally enough, FNSB, when it suited them, used the same arguments to block Miller. Rather than ping pong, it was a game of COA (Cover One’s Ass), heartily played.
Can You See the Problem?
Finally, in July 2010, FNSB helpfully released some 148 pages of documents and a 16-page log that listed documents that could not be released. These records, though, reveal nothing more than the exceptional power and utility of redaction. And it works for both FNSB and Miller! Here’s an example:
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| “Hey honey, can you hand me my glasses and an eraser?” |
On October 13th former borough mayor Jim Whitaker alleged that during the 2008 Alaska GOP convention Miller used multiple borough computers to engage in “proxy voting” in an attempt to unseat party Chairman Randy Ruedrich, and that Miller was reprimanded by FSNB for this. Whitaker’s accuracy, honesty, and partisanship, however, were questioned by Miller, of course, but by others, including Mr. Ruedrich at whom Miller’s efforts were apparently aimed.
So, on October 13th, Miller’s spokesman, Randy DeSoto, sought to clarify by commenting on all this by refusing to comment much on it at all.
“We’re not going to comment further on this, but the campaign released records this past July conclusively demonstrating that Joe was not fired, but resigned, on his own accord, in September of 2009.” DeSoto said in an e-mail.
In summary, Joe Miller would like to make an unequivocal statement about the circumstances surrounding his resignation from public service with the Borough: “There was no personal scandal, nor were there any negative performance issues relating to my voluntary resignation. I resigned voluntarily and, as demonstrated by the attached documents, there is no truth to any of the charges, salacious or otherwise, being spread by the opposition’s whisper campaign against me. It is time for the slander and lies to stop. Saul Alinsky has no place in a Republican primary.”
Miller acknowledged to CNN that he was disciplined and said that the incident had nothing to do with his decision to leave his post. “Well, the event in question is something that happened on my time off,” he said. “So it was during the lunch hour.” He left, he said, because he disagreed with the “direction of that local government.”
“I’ll admit I’m a man of many flaws,” Miller continued. “I’m not going to sit back and say that I’ve conducted my life perfectly. I will tell you that anything that I’ve done that’s not right, it’s been accounted for and it’s been taken care of and I move on and I learn from mistakes.”
Miller expressed his principled position in re the press when responding to questions about his past as a Fairbanks North Star Borough attorney until his September 2009 resignation or termination (a la Hamlet, “that is the question”):
“We’ve drawn a line in the sand,” he said. “You can ask me about background, you can ask me about personal issues, I’m not going to answer them. I’m not. This is about the issues. … This is about moving this state forward, and that’s our commitment.”
According to the Alaska Dispatch court complaint against the borough for accesss to these records,
“the Miller Documents in the possession of FNSB that have been requested by Alaska Dispatch, but not produced by the Borough, would explain the circumstances of the termination of Mr. Miller’s employment with FNSB more fully than has been done publicly to date, and would allow the public to better assess the accuracy and candor of any assertions by Mr. Miller that his resignation was completely voluntary.”
Lately, Mr. Miller proclaimed that, to the contrary, thanks to that pesky 4th estate, the public “knows virtually everything about us.” Now, though, thanks to the intrepid Alaska Dispatch editor, Joe Hopfinger, it’s inevitable that we’re soon to learn a lot more about what Miller cagily meant by “virtually everything.”
Virtually is just another word for “I did it.”
QUESTION RE: “LUNCH HOUR” SEE IF THERE ARE RECORDS OF HIS TIMES ON FNSB COMPUTERS
he and wife Kathleen struggled, like many others, and needed the help.
Miller also acknowledged his family also received Medicaid for a period and that his wife briefly received unemployment benefits.
In recent weeks, it has been reported that Miller, who has called for an end to the “welfare state,” received federal farm subsidies for land he owned in Kansas in the 1990s and that he and his wife received low-income hunting and fishing licenses when they first moved to Alaska and he was fresh from law school.
