Via the New York Times: Retracing Palin’s Long March to a Short-Notice Resignation. Excerpt:
In mid-spring, as the country grew alarmed over the swine flu, Ms. Palin skipped a briefing for administration officials on the outbreak by her chief medical officer, Dr. Jay C. Butler.
A spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, noted that the teleconference took place about a month before the first case of the flu was reported in Alaska and that at the time the governor was meeting with top staff on the issue of federal stimulus funds.
Since then, the state has had 122 confirmed cases of the H1N1 flu.
Dr. Butler said he resigned his post in June in part because the administration asked one of his highly regarded division heads, the state public health director, Beverly Wooley, to resign.
“I felt that it was not a good time to be downsizing,” said Dr. Butler, who is now working on a swine flu vaccination at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Butler said the governor’s office apparently deemed Ms. Wooley insufficiently supportive of the parental consent [for abortion] bill backed by Ms. Palin.
Ms. Leighow would only say, inexplicably, that Ms. Wooley had been terminated by the health department, not the governor.
