Assholes of the Week
All in the family: Republican Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski, left, last week appointed his own daughter, Lisa Murkowski, center, to fill his U.S. Senate seat, which he had to vacate after he was elected governor last month. (The guv has not appointed his wife, Nancy, right, to public office -- yet.)
Republican Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and his daughter Lisa Murkowski are the Assholes of the Week for trying to turn Alaska into their dynasty.
Gov. Murkowski announced last Friday -- politicians always make their shady announcements on Fridays, hoping to minimize the negative publicity -- that he was appointing his own daughter to fill the remaining two years of his current six-year Senate term. He held his Senate seat, which he had to vacate after he was elected for governor last month, for 22 years.
"I felt the person I appoint to the remaining two years of my term should be someone who shares my basic philosophy, my values," the Associated Press quoted Gov. Murkowski as saying.
"We have a great deal in common besides sharing a name," Lisa Murkowski mimicked. "We share the same vision for the state. We share the same values."
I realize that Alaska does not have a whole lot of people from which to choose -- the 2000 census put its population at less than 630,000 -- but surely Gov. Murkowski did not have to name his own daughter to fill his Senate seat.
Lisa Murkowski, according to the AP, is a Republican state representative who last month was re-elected to a third term. The AP noted that she is married, has two children, lives in Anchorage and is, of course, a lawyer.
The AP quoted former Democratic Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles as saying that the vacant Senate seat should have been filled by a special election to give voters a chance to consider Lisa Murkowski's qualifications.
"I don't think anyone knows her feelings on any federal issues and how she presents Alaska's case federally," the AP quoted Knowles as saying.
The New York Times reported that "Murkowski does not actually share her father's views on at least two issues, abortion and tax reform. Unlike him, she supports abortion rights. She has campaigned for new taxes as a way of ending the state's dependence on oil revenues, while her father ran an anti-tax campaign and said the state should rely on more oil drilling for revenues.
"And she is generally perceived as friendlier to environmental issues than is her father, although she favors drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as do most of Alaska's Democrats and Republicans, including her father."
"[Alaska's] Republican Party is quite conservative, and she is not," the Times quoted Jerry McBeath, a political science professor at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks.
The Times also quoted McBeath as saying of Gov. Murkowski, "most people thought he wouldn't appoint his own daughter because it rubs against people's sense of propriety."
A Dec. 24 Times editorial noted: "Ms. Murkowski, on the merits, would not be an implausible choice for some other Alaska governor to make, but elected officials stifle the competitive spirit of American politics when they appoint their own children to public office.
"Political dynasties — from the Adamses to the Kennedys and the Bushes — have long been an American tradition. Ms. Murkowski will be joined in the Senate by a new Pryor from Arkansas, a new Taft from Ohio and a new Sununu from New Hampshire, not to mention Hillary Rodham Clinton and Elizabeth Dole.
"But even though all these other lawmakers have been helped by their names, they were elected in their own right."
Exactly. For abusing his power and for subverting democracy, Gov. Murkowski and soon-to-be Sen. Murkowski are the Assholes of the Week.
11:06:24 AM 
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