Washington, Oct. 14 : Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin mischaracterization of a report on her abuse of authority while sacking an officer of her government, has not come off well or gone down well with the American public, claims an editorial in the Washington Post.

Her repeated claim that she has "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part" and "no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired," is unfortunate says the paper.

“Ms. Palin does not understand -- or chooses not to acknowledge -- the seriousness of the mess she helped create,” it adds.

In the overall scheme of things, the special counsel''s report concluding that Sarah Palin engaged in an unethical abuse of power in trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as an Alaska state trooper is a relatively minor event.

But the paper says that the report nonetheless offers a revealing and relevant portrait of the governor. It shows her and her husband pursuing a personal vendetta against the trooper, Mike Wooten, despite repeated warnings that they were impermissibly intruding into internal -- and already concluded -- disciplinary issues.

Palin''s decision to also repudiate her earlier pledge to cooperate fully with the inquiry does not offer assurance about how she would conduct herself as vice president.

The editorial says that the McCain-Palin campaign''s response to the inquiry has been internally contradictory, simultaneously assailing the investigation as a partisan witch hunt and mischaracterizing as vindication the report''s finding that Palin was within her rights as governor to remove the commissioner who had refused to act against her former brother-in-law.

The amount of attention that the newly elected governor, her husband and her subordinates -- her personnel director, attorney general and chief of staff, among others -- devoted to getting Wooten fired is also extraordinary, says the editorial.

Palin''s refusal to cooperate with investigator Stephen Branchflower reflects poorly on her, it concludes. (ANI)