Reporters load boxes of Sarah Palin's emails
June 13, 2011 8:21 AM
UK: American press - not Palin - looks stupid
The view from across the pond:
American Way: Sarah Palin email frenzy backfires on her media antagonists
The trove of more than 13,000 emails detailing almost every aspect of Sarah Palin's governorship of Alaska, released late on Friday, paints a picture of her as an idealistic, conscientious, humorous and humane woman slightly bemused by the world of politics.
One can only assume that the Left-leaning editors who dispatched teams of reporters to remote Juneau, the Alaskan capital, to pore over the emails in the hope of digging up a scandal are now viewing the result as a rather poor return on their considerable investment.
If anything, Mrs Palin seems likely to emerge from the scrutiny of the 24,000 pages, contained in six boxes and weighing 275 pounds, with her reputation considerably enhanced. As a blogger at Powerline noted, the whole saga might come to be viewed as "an embarrassment for legacy media".
Mrs Palin, who suddenly resigned as Alaska governor in July 2009, is no longer a public official. She holds no position in the Republican party. Despite the media hubbub that surrounds her every move, she is unlikely to be a candidate for the White House in 2012.
She is, however, viewed with a kind of horrified fascination by many in the media, who faithfully records everything she says and does while at the same time decrying her as ignorant and even evil.
Whether or not she runs for the White House - and the solid consensus among Republican leaders is that she won't - the scramble over the Palin emails confirms her status as a pivotal figure in the race to challenge President Barack Obama next year. . .
Mrs Palin has repeatedly said that she believes Mr Obama can be defeated and that she will do everything to achieve that. With her popularity among independent voters very low, despite the intensity of her core support, throwing her weight behind a stronger candidate would be a better way of preserving her political capital and earning power than being one of the losing candidates in the Republican primaries.The notion of Mrs Palin as White House kingmaker would have seemed wildly improbable if anyone had raised it before August 2008. . .
This was a world, as the emails reveal, in which the then Alaska governor fretted about things like there being alcohol in her official residence, that might be a temptation to the teenage friends of her children.
In May 2007, she sought help from her staff in keeping the alcohol in the governor's mansion away from young people, stating that it should be boxed up and "removed from the People's House" - both for practical reasons and as a statement about her administration.
"Here's my thinking: with so many kids and teens coming and going in that house, esp during this season of celebrations for young people - proms, graduations, etc, I want to send the msg that we can be - and 'the People's House' needs to be - alcohol-free. There's a lot of booze there - its too accessible and may be too tempting to any number of all those teens coming and going."
In a February 2007 exchange, one adviser recommended that when she was in Washington she meet Pete Rouse, a Senate official who had lived in Alaska. "He's now chief-of-staff for a guy named Barack Obama," the aide wrote, adding that Mr Rouse "wants to help Alaska however he can". Far from shrinking at the idea of conferring with a Democrat, Mrs Palin replied: "I'm game to meet him."
The emails will finally confirm - in all but the darkest recesses of the world of Left-wing conspiracy theories - that Mrs Palin is, in fact, the mother of her youngest son Trig, who has Down's Syndrome.
After relentless promotion by Andrew Sullivan, the British blogger who now works for Daily Beast/Newsweek, of the proposition that the mother was in fact Mrs Palin's daughter Bristol, a teenager at the time, the subject had become part of mainstream debate.
The emails show Mrs Palin's determination to protect Bristol but also her desire for a degree of privacy. "I wish I could shame people into ceasing such gossip about a teen, but I can't figure out how to do that," she wrote.
Communications from her children and husband make her family appear close and loving.. .
Love,
Posted in Media Bias, Sarah Palin | Permalink
