As Pathetic Media Scours, Palin Emails Provide No Big Bombshells

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palin-emailsReporters lined up in Juneau and in front of computers across the country spent the afternoon poring over 24,000 newly released emails from Sarah Palin’s first year and a half as governor, hoping for a bombshell.

But none immediately emerged.

Many of the emails deal with the mundane business of government. Others show her corresponding with aides, admirers and members of her administration about everything from her views on dinosaurs to fisheries policy.

They show her acknowledging encouraging notes from constituents who hope John McCain will pick her as the running mate, as well as startlingly nasty hate mail and death threats. Palin herself is intensively involved in dealing with the press, monitoring her image and complaining about unfair treatment long before she became a national figure known for diatribes against the “lamestream media.”

Her tight-knit gubernatorial staff was put on the defensive when she was picked for the 2008 GOP ticket and national reporters swarmed the surprise new political celebrity, the emails show. There’s even an unsolicited note from Newt Gingrich among the flurry of email traffic between Palin and her advisers looking for ways to respond to the media inquiries that ran from the comprehensive to the unusual.

In a Sept. 15 email to Palin, her spokesman, Bill McAllister, relayed questions about who paid for the tanning bed in the governor’s house; “Is it your belief that dinosaurs and humans co-existed at one time?”; and “Do you have a favorite poem?”

McAllister seems to suggest that the answer to the second question might be “yes,” based on the Bible. “There is an interesting reference to ‘Behemoth’ in the Old Testament,” he writes.

Palin replied the same day with exasperation.

“I am so sorry that the office is swamped like this! Dinosaurs even?!” she wrote. “I’ll try to run through some of these in my head before responding. And the old, used tanning bed that my girls have used handful of times in Juneau? Yes, we paid for it ourselves. I, too, will continue to be dismayed at the media and am thankful you and Sharon [Leighow, the deputy communications director] are not part of the stange (sic) going’s-on in the media world of today.”

Palin’s office also sought to respond to more serious requests.

In response to a Washington Post reporter’s inquiry about her travel expenses, Michael Nizich, Palin’s chief of staff, offered talking points aimed at showing a favorable contrast between Palin and her predecessor as Alaska governor, Frank Murkowski.

Bullet points included “Governor Palin does not travel with an entourage” and “Governor Palin prefers to drive herself – no chauffeur,” as well as outlining ways they had saved the state money by reducing her security detail.

The team’s frustration and a bit of paranoia were evident in a Sept. 13 email from McAllister.

The New York Times, he reported to Palin, had called the day before. “It seemed like a trap; he bypassed the press office at first,” McAllister wrote. “Wasn’t sure what I could say, anyway. If I am going to respond to everything, I need more guidance.”

Though the emails show Palin complaining about the media, they also show her proactively anticipating inquiries on matters of substance.

In a message with the subject line “Bears,” she wrote to her environmental conservation commissioner, Larry Hartig, and fish and game commissioner, Denby Lloyd, that they should be prepared to field questions about environmental issues.

“Hi guys! Checkin in, I anticipate folks will be inquiring about our polar bear issue, though it hasnt cropped up yet that I’ve heard of,” she wrote on Sept. 15. “Climate change is a top issue of course. Just head’s up. Also, predator control’s been quiet, but let me know if the issue’s volume gets turned up and I need to respond to anything. Thanks guys! Hang in there. I appreciate you sincerely.”

Palin had opposed listing polar bears as an endangered species, and the state sued the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service over the listing after it occurred.

The emails show Palin was deeply concerned about media perception long before she ascended to the national stage.

In December 2007, she complained bitterly and in detail about a perceived double standard on the part of the Anchorage Daily News editorial page. The paper, she charged, let others spread unchallenged falsehoods about her in columns while her own “op-eds are scrutinized so thoroughly before printing.”

And in July 2008, she was apparently peeved enough by a “goofy” letter to the editor about her non-appearance at a beauty pageant that she drafted a letter to the editor in response – but asked that it go out over someone else’s signature so as not “to come from me.”

Palin’s response defends the governor for having the right priorities and notes, “significantly, First Gentleman Todd Palin spend (sic) two days judging the event.”

The 24,199 pages of emails from the first 21 months of Palin’s term in office were released to reporters at the Alaska statehouse at 9 a.m. Juneau time (1 p.m. Eastern) on Friday.

Seventeen news organizations – Alaskan, national and international – picked up sets of five 55-pound boxes of the printed-out emails, delivered on a hand truck. Each organization paid $726 in copying costs for the trove.

The state of Alaska fought the emails’ release but courts eventually ordered it based on a September 2008 Freedom of Information Act request by Mother Jones magazine, later joined by other media outlets.

The emails being released are from her start as governor in January 2007 through the time of the request. Correspondence from the rest of her time as governor has also been requested, but not yet released.

Palin’s camp tried to preempt any revelations in the emails with a statement Friday afternoon.

“The thousands upon thousands of emails released today show a very engaged Governor Sarah Palin being the CEO of her state,” Tim Crawford, treasurer of Sarah PAC, said in an email. “The emails detail a Governor hard at work. Everyone should read them.”

{Noam Amdurski/Politico/Matzav.com Newscenter}


2 COMMENTS

  1. Is this news? MSNBC (among others) is truly pathetic. How about finding out something about the President? His grades? His thesis? Foolish Democrat freak show. You all should be ashamed.

    You also might cover the 4 wars we are spending money on. Just a thought.

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