I liked Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska and our most recent Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, before. I love her now. She has just appointed Wayne Anthony Ross as Attorney General of the state of Alaska.

Anyone who knows Wayne realizes that it’s probably more than coincidence that his initials spell WAR. He is a ferocious (but always noble) combatant in trial, and is much the same in politics. Longtime readers of Backwoods Home may recall that back when Wayne was running for the Gubernatorial nomination in Alaska in the early part of this century, I went up there to campaign for him. He didn’t win the nomination, but the tremendous support he garnered with his advocacy of armed citizens’ civil rights made such an impression on the eventual winner that Vermont-style carry was thereafter enacted. This means that citizens of Alaska, and any visitors there, are now legal to carry loaded, concealed handguns for the protection of themselves and their loved ones without a permit required. They are merely forbidden to do so if they are convicted felons or have been adjudicated mentally incompetent.

Wayne was for many years a director of the National Rifle Association. Like Governor Palin herself, Wayne’s life has a lot in common with that of Theodore Roosevelt. Wayne Ross is not just a knee-jerk “law and order” guy. He began his career as an assistant Alaska state attorney general, and has prosecuted his share of cases. But, for the last 32 years, he has also been a defense lawyer and senior partner in the law firm of Ross and Minor in Anchorage. I got to know him several years ago, when he brought me up to speak for an armed citizen who was being charged after shooting an intruder in his home. Wayne got justice done for that good military vet, and I got to see first-hand the enormous respect that the prosecutors had for him…and I got to see why they held him in such high regard.

Ross has worked both sides of the street, and he knows that justice is a two-way street. If you only go in one direction on two-way streets, I discovered early in my life, you only know half of what is going on around you…and, ultimately, you will end up going in circles.

Congratulations to Wayne Ross on becoming the new Attorney General of the State of Alaska…and ditto to Governor Palin for her wisdom in appointing him.

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