Include conservative political analysts among those puzzled by Sarah Palin’s abrupt and rambling announcement last week that she was resigning as governor of Alaska. The move makes sense if her aim is to make money and spend more time with her family, they argued, but not if she has higher political ambitions. “Giving up on an executive job a year and a half early isn’t the best way to persuade voters you’re ready for the more demanding rigors and scrutiny of the White House,” a Wall Street Journal editorial argued. Commentator George Will said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Palin is now “not even a first-term governor.” And former Bush adviser Karl Rove said of Palin: “She marches to the beat of her own drum, and it’s going to be very interesting to see how she pulls this off.”
Robert McNamara, who died today at age 93, had a remarkable career as president of Ford Motor Co., president of the World Bank and as a long-serving secretary of defense. “But more than 40 years after the fact, he was remembered almost exclusively for his orchestration of U.S. prosecution of the war in Vietnam, a failed effort by the world’s greatest superpower to prevent a communist takeover of a weak and corrupt ally,” the Washington Post reported. “For his role in the war, McNamara was vilified by harsh and unforgiving critics, and his entire record was unalterably clouded. For the rest of his life, he would be haunted by the Vietnam ghosts.”
How much overtime is too much at state agencies? A new state audit suggests they need to do a better job of managing their employees’ overtime hours, identifying $13.1 million in overtime pay in the 2007-08 fiscal year and more than 150 employees who earned at least $10,000 that way. The Kansas Department of Transportation spent $4.2 million on overtime. The Kansas Highway Patrol spent $2 million, including $29,000 to an explosives expert. Two Kansas Lottery employees worked more than 700 hours of overtime, increasing their annual income by nearly 50 percent. (At least the state was reimbursed for some of that overtime by a Rhode Island contractor, according to Ed Van Petten, executive director of the Kansas Lottery.) A physician at the Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka augmented a $40,000 salary with $36,000 of overtime. Unfortunately, the remedy recommended by state auditors — hiring more permanent staff — will be hard until the budget crisis passes.
The state’s approval this week of $700 million in budget transfers will enable it to make payments to school districts and pay tax refunds. That’s good. But the transfers also reflect the rocky condition of state finances, which has already required $160 million in allotment cuts this month and still has no margin for error. Authorizing certificates of indebtedness in July isn’t unusual. But this year’s transfers are about double the normal amount.
While President Obama is in Moscow this week, he ought to take time to deliver a Cairo-style speech to the Russian people, suggests Paula Schriefer, director of advocacy at the nongovernmental organization Freedom House. Currently, she said, the media mostly spout nationalist propaganda and portray freedom and democracy as bad things. Speech is stifled. Elections are meaningless. “Russians don’t like being preached to by foreigners any more than Egyptians, Turks, Iranians or, for that matter, Americans do,” Schriefer wrote. “Yet they may respond to a frank and respectful speech that emphasizes America’s real desire — not for a weak and subservient Russia — but rather a strong Russia that shares its democratic values and that can be a real partner in tackling some of the world’s growing list of crises.”
