Hawaii Political Info introduction: Governor Neil Abercrombie (D) is expressing doubts about the authorship of Senator Daniel Inouye's (D) alleged deathbed letter to the governor in December 2012 asking that the governor appoint Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa (D) to replace him as U.S. Senator.
Former Governor Ben Cayetano (D) also previously said he doubted the letter's authenticity. Peter Boylan, formerly Senator Inouye's Press Secretary, and now Hanabusa's Chief of Staff, says that someone typed the letter up for the Senator. Why hasn't that person come forward to testify to that letter's authenticity? Who made the announcement to the media at the time of the letter's existence and why did he or she do that when the letter was marked "personal"?
What Abercrombie says in the article below about Inouye's stating the decision was "up to you" rings true. The Senator used the exact same words when HPI asked for his permission to make public this insightful talk by him to a group of veterans less than two months before he passed away. To our inquiry, made right after his talk, about whether it was all right with him that we take the video public, he smiled warmly, with great charm, and said, "It's up to you!"
---
Los Angeles Times
By Mark Z. Barabak
April 11, 2014
HONOLULU — For political and emotional drama, it’s hard to top this: U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, the most beloved and respected figure in Hawaii state history, makes a death-bed request to name his successor in Washington.
But the governor, a fellow Democrat who has clashed with Inouye, spurns the dying senator’s plea and appoints his own lieutenant governor to the seat.
The result, playing out more than a year later, is a closely fought and emotionally wrought primary battle between the novice senator, Brian Schatz, and Inouye’s choice, Rep. Colleen Hanabusa: a Democrat-on-Democrat fight tinged with ethnic and generational tension and haunted, inevitably, by the ghost of Inouye and his last wish.
Read more . . .
