Governor Sarah Palin has all the class and style of a tinpot dictator:

On the eve of a report on a legislative panel’s abuse-of-power investigation into Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, campaign officials released their own report clearing her of any wrongdoing. The report the McCain-Palin campaign released Thursday night says the firing was based on a budget dispute.

Since then, the report says, the matter has been muddled with innuendo, rumor and politics.

These aren’t even state officials — these are paid campaign hacks who “investigated” and then “cleared” Palin of the charges.

Meanwhile the real investigation is going forward, after attempts by McCain/Palin to squelch the investigation failed before the Alaska Supreme Court.

If OJ Simpson had been smarter, he could have just had one of his paid attorneys investigate the allegations of armed robbery at a Las Vegas Hotel, and issued a report clearing him of all charges.

By GOP political operatives attempting to seize the US Department of Justice, who are not going to be prosecuted:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Tuesday rejected the idea of criminally prosecuting former Justice Department employees who improperly used political litmus tests in hiring decisions, saying he had already taken strong internal steps in response to a “painful” episode.

Two recent reports from the Justice Department inspector general and its internal ethics office have found that about a half-dozen officials at the Justice Department — all but one now gone — systematically rejected candidates with perceived “liberal” backgrounds for what were supposed to be non-political jobs and sought out conservative Republicans.

Meanwhile, the ground seized by this illegal invasion is being gifted to the invaders:

Mr. Mukasey also said it would be unfair, and possibly illegal, for the department to go back and reassign or dismiss those lawyers and other employees who were hired in part because they were seen as trusted conservatives. “Two wrongs do not make a right,” he said.

Got that? Mukasey is not going to prosecute the political hacks who violated the law and hired less qualified political cronies selected for their political views and loyalty to the GOP cause — sort of a retarded Fuhrer principle. And he’s going to protect the illegally-hired underqualified cronies and GOP loyalists, thereby insuring that the original objectives of the illegal scheme are enduring achievements, because they are now protected by the same Civil Service laws which their very hiring violated.

“Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”

“That’s some catch, that catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.

– Joseph Heller, Catch-22

(via Sadly, No!)

THE SOLUTION! (from Phoenician in comments):

“Don’t fire them. Reassign them to the Green Zone.”

Somebody write Mukasey. . .