Truly clean government would require sometimes accepting the opinion of a referee that you, or your guy, committed a foul. And the people in the business of politics -- people who I might note are even farther removed from average Americans than your normal key-punching journalist -- believe they (or their guy or their gal) can do nothing wrong, could never do anything wrong, and would never to do anything wrong.

This is the nature of American politics.

This is a not a Republican behavior or a Democratic behavior or a Tea Party behavior or a Libertarian behavior. This is a behavior common to all politicians and all their many political hacks: "My guy (or gal) can do no wrong because he's my guy (or gal).''

If Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards engages in some hanky panky in which he shouldn't be engaging, it's OK because John Edwards wouldn't engage in any hanky panky that wasn't OK. Edwards clearly didn't think it was wrong for him to father a love child.

Edwards's staff apparently didn't think it was wrong. And reporters who knew decided it was so unwrong that they didn't report it. Had not The National Enquirer reported on Edwards and his girlfriend, his tryst might never have seen the light of day. But it did see the light of day. Edward's response was to try to get a friend and political crony to cover by claiming the love child was his.

Why? Because clean government isn't really for John Edwards; it's for the other candidates.

Alaskans have gotten a double dose of this sort of thinking on the state level in recent weeks. First, there is Gov. Sean Parnell who hired Rep. Nancy Dahlstrom, R-Eagle River, to work for him after -- wink, wink -- she resigned from her position as a legislator. It would, of course, have been flat-out illegal for the governor to hire her while she was still in the Legislature.

One cannot legally serve in both the executive and legislative branches of government at the same time in this state. Likewise, talking to the executive branch about a job while serving in the legislative branch is also frowned upon. It's that sticky old balance of power thing.

But Parnell and Dahlstrom talked about a job when she was in the Legislature, and then she resigned and Parnelll hired her, and a predicable political thunderstorm blew up. Parnell could have cleared the skies -- in the name of clean government -- by simply asking Dahlstrom to resign, but he didn't because he's Gov. Sean Parnell and he believes in clean government.

Thus, if he hired Dahlstrom it has to be OK. It can't be wrong. The problem has to be, as Parnell charged, that pesky local radio talk show "entertainer'' who made an issue of this. Talk show entertainers, like the general public, should know they are supposed to shut up and let the governor do as he pleases because the governor knows best.

Yes, the governor knows best, and the ex-governor.

Now comes former Gov. Sarah Palin, the woman who resigned to allow Parnell to move into the governor's seat, and her supporters to follow the lead of Parnell and his supporters into that world where those in power can do no wrong. A trust fund Palin set up to raise money when she was governor was this week ruled illegal by attorney Tim Petumenos, a special investigator for the Alaska Personnel Board.

This is the same Tim Petumenos who in a similar role cleared Palin of any wrongdoing in trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his job as an Alaska State Trooper when she was still governor. The Alaska Legislature took a different view on Troopergate. They said Palin abused her power. Palin and her supporters were happy to have Petumenos's ruling then. They pointed at it and said it absolved Palin of any wrongdoing.