First, Let’s Show the Crime:

Republicans seem to continually have email problems. 

First, McCain indicates that he “doesn’t do email.”  Another link for that, if you’d like. Surprising, but many elderly are not interested in the technology.  Heck, my mother feels no need to use hers very often, although she checks it once every couple of weeks.

Also, remember when I posted in November about the 5 million emails that the Republicans “lost”?  Oh, and let’s not forget the fact that they were conducting white house business over Republican National Committee emails.

Now, Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account got hacked, and it appears that she may have been using the email for official state business…which is against the law.

The Alaska Governor could also face charges for conducting official state business using her personal, unarchived e-mail account (a crime), with some critics accusing her of skirting freedom-of-information laws in doing so. An Alaska Republican activist is trying to force Palin to release more than 1,100 emails she withheld from a public-records request, the Washington Post reported last week.

Seriously, is it too much to ask the Republicans to get more creative in their illegal endeavors?  It’s one thing to commit crimes, it’s another to repeat crimes done by the failing administration before you that you claim to be completely against. 

Biden was right.  A sequel IS always worse than the original.  We are beginning to see the stumbling truth of that.

Conspiracy Theory?  You bet. 

However, this has deeper, conspiracy-theory implications.  If you read the Time article above about how Sarah was being investigated for several items, it contains this brief tidbit:

After the hacks were made public, both private accounts were deleted — an act that could technically constitute destruction of evidence.

No one can expect you to keep the email accounts active once you’ve been “hacked,” which gives plausible reason to delete the accounts in the name of privacy (4th Amendment).  Once the accounts have been deleted, how exactly is the Palin administration going to turn over the evidence for the inquiries?  How can it be proved that she was using the email for official state business? 

Perhaps this is a little more creative.  Palin’s got the Bush administration experience to know that “losing evidence” works for stalling or even curtailing investigations.  Getting “hacked” allows for an outside force (presumably not under your control) to conveniently lose the evidence.

It even gets MORE creative to see that the Palin administration may have actively studied how to avoid public records laws.  (h/t K-Co) Here’s a quote from the New York Times article:  [emphasis mine.]

Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

This feels sort of like the cronie-like administration we are currently dealing with, complete with the nepotism and favortism given to buddies and insiders to top administration positions of influence.  Business Week magazine opined: “Dads, sons and other relatives reign so widely in this administration that there have never been so many family combos in an administration at the same time.”  The Seattle PI says something similar.  The Bush Administration is built on these sorts of “loyalties” and insider actions. It looks like Palin’s practices continue to follow the same manual, use the same methods, assume the same privileges, even hire some of the same people.  More of the same.

And what’s more, if you speak against it, you aren’t patriotic.   

Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil…or else.