Sarah Palin's leadership style has admirers and critics

Palin pursued the allegations -- as well as ethics charges against another top GOP official -- so vigorously that both had to leave office.

The public acclaim that followed helped propel her into the governor's office a year later with promises of reform and a more open, accountable government that would stand up to entrenched interests, including the big oil companies.

Yet a strange thing happened on the ethics issue once Palin became governor: She appeared to lose interest in completing the task of legislating comprehensive reform, some who supported the cleanup say.

The ethics bill she offered was so incomplete that its supporters had to undertake a significant rewrite. Moreover, when it came to building support for the bill, politicians in both parties say the new governor was often unaccountably absent from the fray.

And the seeming paradox of the ethics reform fight -- the combination of bold, even courageous readiness to take on a tough issue, coupled with a tendency to drift away from the nitty-gritty follow-through -- appears to be a recurrent theme of her record. Some lawmakers were so perplexed by her absence from a recent debate over sending oil rebate checks to Alaskans, for example, that they sported buttons at the state Capitol reading "Where's Sarah?"

A spokesman for the governor's office rejects such criticism. Bill McAllister, Palin's press secretary, said: "She has always been sufficiently informed and engaged. . . . In just two years in office, she accomplished more than most governors in their entire careers."

Even her critics credit Palin with a major role in pushing a state known for its relaxed approach to political ethics into a long-overdue housecleaning. And Palin has pushed hard to make oil companies pay more for access to the state's oil and gas reserves.

At the same time, she has fallen short of her proclaimed goals in other areas, especially concerning how she governs.

Her administration has not been marked by the transparency she promised: She invoked executive privilege in refusing to disclose information about one ethics case, and last week she moved to hobble a legislative inquiry into her role in the firing of a state public safety official.