Funny how media outlets that have been traditionally Republican-sympathetic (to the point of blindness) are suddenly finding it necessary to shine a critical light on Sarah Palin.

First, there was the truly unlikely spectacle of Fox News‘ Chris Wallace pointing out that Palin’s claim to have stopped the Bridge to Nowhere was hogwash.

Then The Wall Street Journal piled on too, with an even sharper denunciation of the Bridge to Nowhere claims in Tuesday’s paper.

Tuesday’s WSJ also offers up a juicy little story about how Palin fired John Bitney, an old friend (from her junior-high band class) who was her legislative director, because he didn’t tell her that he was having an affair with the wife of another old friend of Palin.

Just to be clear, Bitney wasn’t fired because of some moral outrage over the adulterous affair. He was, evidently, fired only because he hadn’t confessed the affair to Ma Palin.

(The woman Bitney had the affair with, incidentally, was also gainfully employed by the great state of Alaska, after having served as treasurer of Palin’s gubernatorial campaign and her inaugural committee. That’s quite a friends-n-family employment plan Ma Palin has been running.)

The WSJ tells the sordid little story well. And ends with this summary of Palin’s firing practices:

In May 2007, less than two months before she fired him, Gov. Palin had publicly declared the legislative session — Mr. Bitney‘s major responsibility — “wildly successful.”

After he was fired, Mr. Bitney landed a job as chief of staff to Alaska House Speaker John Harris, another Republican. “I don’t think it was fair, but that’s just my personal opinion,” Mr. Harris said of Mr. Bitney’s dismissal.

Soon after she was elected mayor of Wasilla, a town of 9,800 people about 45 miles north of Anchorage, in 1996, Gov. Palin dismissed the town department heads, including the police chief, the city planner and the finance director.

State officials are investigating allegations that Gov. Palin fired the Alaska public-safety commissioner she had appointed because he refused to dismiss a state trooper involved in a messy divorce with the governor’s sister. The governor has denied any impropriety in the case.

“Gov. Palin only makes personnel decisions based on one thing — what is best for the people of Alaska,” McCain-Palin campaign spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in a written response to questions about Mr. Bitney’s dismissal. Ms. Stapleton was the governor’s press secretary when Mr. Bitney was fired. She declined to comment on whether Mr. Bitney’s romantic life played a role in the governor’s decision.

(Ms. Stapleton, evidently, has not yet learned that the McCain campaign’s style is to make up baldfaced lies rather than decline to comment.)

Meanwhile, what’s best for the people of Alaska, evidently, is that subordinates of Palin must keep her in the picture when they have affairs with other people’s spouses. And, maybe, what’s best for Alaska today will be best for America tomorrow?