Appointees serve at the pleasure of the governor, period..........

I'm a state employee and have learned much in the past years - the governor chooses you, hires you, and can in a heartbeat, fire you. In Iowa, the best that could happen is that you collect unemployment, but you have to prove there was no basis for your firing. In this case, I'd say there sure was!
Gov. Palin had every right. I'd have been really POed had one of my staff acted like that.
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Last night, the McCain campaign released documents to show that Gov. Palin did not fire her political appointee, Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan, because he refused to fire state trooper Mike Wooten, Gov. Palin's former brother-in-law. An internal state trooper investigation found that Wooten had threatened that Palin's father would "eat a f---ing bullet." Palin had raised concerns to Monegan about the fact that Wooten was still carrying a gun and working for the state, but Palin's legal counsel contends that the decision to sack Monegan was not related to Wooten.

Rather, Palin's lawyer writes, the decision was "based on [Monegan's] refusal to execute her Administration's policy on fiscal and budget matters, a refusal that between late 2007 and the middle of 2008 blossomed into outright insubordination."

Ed Morrissey usefully outlines Monegan's record of insubordination:

* 12/9/07: Monegan holds a press conference with Hollis French to push his own budget plan. * 1/29/08: Palin’s staffers have to rework their procedures to keep Monegan from bypassing normal channels for budget requests. * February 2008: Monegan publicly releases a letter he wrote to Palin supporting a project she vetoed. * June 26, 2008: Monegan bypassed the governor’s office entirely and contacted Alaska’s Congressional delegation to gain funding for a project.

The release of these documents came as the McCain campaign announced that Gov. Palin will not cooperate with the ethics probe "as long as it remains tainted."
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