Time on Palin

[Elaine]

Well, I'm not here to convince you of anything, Laney. :)

 

However, I can't help but feel that the "field day" that's going on is because there is so much fodder out there. I'm not saying there is truth to all the rumors. It just seems that Palin is disproportionately surrounded by controversy for as short a time as she's been in politics. The media may be exploiting the stories, but the stories were there to be exploited. And that's what they get paid to do.

 

Suffice it to say, I disagree.:001_smile:

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

No. What I am saying is he does not need to resort to smear campaigns because the liberal media does it for him. Look here and here to see what I mean.

 

The liberal news media is having a field day, a disgusting field day, the likes of which I have never seen. Obama is thier guy and nothing anyone says here can convince me otherwise.

 

Do I believe he got where he is by keeping his hands clean and staying out of pigsties? Abso-freakin'-lutely not.

 

It's overload. I'm gettin' hives, girlfriend. (Think "glitter" as the equivalent. :lol:) Is there some RELIABLE media outlet that is smearing Palin? Allowing smears via op-ed, other than disagreements about record or issues or investigations? Or is it individual diarists on sites such as on Kos? Liberal bloggers? (Kos diarists that your linked blogger is complaining about are being deleted, much as nasty threads here are deleted -- I wouldn't say this is exactly a liberal or conservative site because of the people who post here. But she seems pretty mad that Kos has deleted them, for some reason. ??) US World idiot-types and tabloids?

 

HELP me.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. And I'm sorry I feel that way about others. It's a messed up world.

[Elaine]

It's overload. I'm gettin' hive, girlfriend. (Think "glitter" as the equivalent. :lol:) Is there some RELIABLE media outlet that is smearing Palin? Allowing smears via op-ed, other than disagreements about record or issues or investigations? Or is it individual diarists on sites such as on Kos? Liberal bloggers? (Kos diarists that your linked blogger is complaining about are being deleted, much as nasty threads here are deleted -- I wouldn't say this is exactly a liberal or conservative site because of the people who post here. But she seems pretty mad that Kos has deleted them, for some reason. ??) US World idiot-types and tabloids?

 

HELP me.

 

I'm sorry you feel that way. And I'm sorry I feel that way about others. It's a messed up world.

 

 

Reliable? Like NYT? or CNN? or Huffington?:lol:

 

Yeah, I think that I am done now. I really can't take it anymore.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

Reliable? Like NYT? or CNN? or Huffington?:lol:

 

Yeah, I think that I am done now. I really can't take it anymore.

 

I'm trying to be conversational, Elaine. I honestly am. Am I being unkind or harsh? Please know that was NOT my intention.

 

Yes. NYT, that would be a GREAT link. But they are a pit-bull paper. I do expect hard liberal reporting from them. Not smear. So I'd love the link. And yes, for CNN.

 

I guess I don't really consider Huffington mainstream. (Correct me, someone? Or am I just hung up on the traditional definition of "mainstream media"?)

[PamJH]

Candidates would have a very tough time getting their messages across, positive or negative. The very media Sarah Palin just vilified ("I'm not going to Washington to get the media's good opinion") is right now providing her with a forum. When she debates Joe Biden (if debates are scheduled), where would either of them be without the media to publicize it? If the media didn't cover these campaigns, what would either party do?

 

 

America has a very large appetite for political garbage. If we didn't provide the interest, the media wouldn't provide the stories. Just by examining the general board and reading the message from SWB, I can see overwhelming interest in these matters.

 

The liberals are just as bad as the conservatives. I certainly wish these campaigns could deal with issues instead of personal junk. But that will never happen.

 

Hmm. I've become quite the jaded journalist.

[Jumping In Puddles]

No. What I am saying is he does not need to resort to smear campaigns because the liberal media does it for him. Look here and here to see what I mean.

 

The liberal news media is having a field day, a disgusting field day, the likes of which I have never seen. Obama is thier guy and nothing anyone says here can convince me otherwise.

 

Do I believe he got where he is by keeping his hands clean and staying out of pigsties? Abso-freakin'-lutely not.

 

I know you can't be convinced but let me just add to the conversation that this works both ways (remember the swift boating of Kerry? Although it did turn out that lawyers from the Bush campaign were directly involved) I'm sure that the untrue stuff about Obama did not come directly from McCain but was perpetuated by the conservative media. Fox news and other conservative pundits and people like Ann Coulter can do it for him. You may not have been sensitive to all of the Obama smears because you weren't supporting him but for those not against Obama it became intolerable. All the emails, all the threads on forums and all the pundits spreading lies. McCain didn't have to because it was being done for him.

 

Honestly, trying to discredit your opponent happens on both sides. For example, when Carl Rove thought Obama was going to pick Va. Governor Tom Kaine for VP, he had this to say: link to video

 

With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it’s smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It’s not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I’m really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?

 

(see link above): Rove argues that Kaine’s mayorship of Richmond (pop. 200,000+) is insignificant and that his 3 years as Governor of Virginia (pop. 7,712,091, GDP $383 million) has been “indistinguisahable.” If Rove was intellectually consistent, wouldn’t that mean Palin’s mayorship of Wasilla (pop. 8,000+) and 20 months as Alaska governor (pop. 683,478, GDP $44.5 million) makes her even less qualified than Kaine?

 

 

 

Yet on Sarah Palin Rove (on Fox News) thought Palin was a good choice as McCain’s vice presidential nominee because she was “mayor of the second largest city in Alaska”(Watch the video here

 

Honestly it's spin, spin, spin. Up is down and left is right in politics these days. On both sides.

[Saille]

I'm listening to the tone of the RNC right now. Mr. Giuliani (who I happen to admire on one level, so it makes me sadder) is laughing, snickering, making fun. And I just want to weep for my country.

 

This is why I didn't watch the DNC pre-speaches. I assumed it would be much the same there.

 

Where's the vomit emoticon?

 

I just watched Palin, and I never, at any point during the Democratic Convention, heard this much booing or this many backbiting jokes.

 

That kind of disrespectful negativity is...inexcusable. And I've got to say, I have no clue how she could refer to people using a platform of change to further their own careers with a straight face.

 

I'm compelled to point out the hilariously funny camera shot of her little girl licking her hand to style Trig's hair.

[Elaine]

I'm trying to be conversational, Elaine. I honestly am. Am I being unkind or harsh? Please know that was NOT my intention.

 

Yes. NYT, that would be a GREAT link. But they are a pit-bull paper. I do expect hard liberal reporting from them. Not smear. So I'd love the link. And yes, for CNN.

 

I guess I don't really consider Huffington mainstream. (Correct me, someone? Or am I just hung up on the traditional definition of "mainstream media"?)

 

No, you're not.:001_smile: I meant done with political threads, and after this post I really am.

 

The reason that I am done is because these political threads do nothing, in my opinion only, to change anyone's mind concerning who they will vote for. I have yet to see anyone say, "Wow! You really opened my eyes, maybe I will vote for Obama." Or, "Man! That link you provided about John McCain changed my view." All I have seen here is party lines sharply drawn.

 

Dunno. It's likely me. I have really just had enough.

 

 

 

And, Pam, unkind and harsh are words that I would be hard-pressed to use to describe you.:001_smile:

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

No, you're not.:001_smile: I meant done with political threads, and after this post I really am.

 

The reason that I am done is because these political threads do nothing, in my opinion only, to change anyone's mind concerning who they will vote for. I have yet to see anyone say, "Wow! You really opened my eyes, maybe I will vote for Obama." Or, "Man! That link you provided about John McCain changed my view." All I have seen here is party lines sharply drawn.

 

 

 

 

:grouphug:

 

Phew.

 

I can understand having that perspective. As a searcher, I guess I started with a different one, so likely I don't get the visceral response that you do.

 

High blood pressure isn't pretty. So I'll have to catch you on the "let's chase Laney with the glitter pen" threads, I guess. Good thing you're in such good shape, eh?

[sarahli]

I think "troopergate" will prove to be a bigger story than it might seem right now.

Here are some videos on Youtube with footage of KTVA Alaska. Gov. Palin clearly contradicts herself with the reason she fired the public safety commissioner. The first story starts 30 seconds in.

 

 

 

[Peek a Boo]

Link to vid of Palin on CNBC

 

 

 

 

um, it was a RHETORICAL QUESTION, lol.

 

i mean, really, do y'all think she REALLY didn't know what the VP does???

you don't end up as the talk of being a possible VP w/o taking a gander into what is really entailed in the position. She's not exactly someone who sits back and doesn't look into a situation.

 

She knows EXACTLY what the VP does.

It was a question used to downplay her possible pick as VP --to let her state know that she still considers HER STATE pretty important TO HER.

 

in context:

 

 

Like back when Kerry made a fool of himself about being stupid makes you end up in Iraq? how many people REALLY thought Kerry was disapargaing the TROOPS or that he actually meant something else?

 

even without hearing the whole explanation from Kerry, I was thinking that there HAD to be something more than that to this.

 

and there was.

[Peek a Boo]

Reported by Laura McGann:

 

ANCHORAGE — Tuesday afternoon, the Mat-Su Frontiersman, in Wasilla, hosted me in their offices so I could dig through their print archives to get a sense of Gov. Sarah Palin’s tenure as mayor there.

I photocopied one story, from December 1996, about Palin’s run-in with Wasilla’s director of libraries, Mary Ellen Emmons. The article is in line with what several commenters mentioned here a few days ago. Emmons says that in October and December, 1996, the year Palin took office, the new mayor asked her if she would tolerate censorship of library books.

According to the article, Palin’s response to the accusation was to say that the discussions were “in the context of a professional question being asked in regards to library policy.â€

The next month Palin left a letter on Emmons desk asking her to resign. It said, â€I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment ….â€

The Anchorage Daily News reported at the time, as did the Frontiersman, that the conflict was over whether to restructure the local library and museum operations. After some discussions, Palin seems to have decided Emmons was willing to toe the line. She kept her job as library director.

 

 

so basically, we know that the mayor quizzed the local librarian "professionally" on various policies --including that of censorship. a 20- questions kind of thing that probably included "do you support a minor's right to privacy wrt their library account."

 

and then later on, after some other issues cropped up, the librarian was asked to resign.

 

nowhere do we have any evidence whatsoever of Palin SUPPORTING banning books.

nowhere do we have evidence that it was actually the comment about banning books that caused the rift between librarian and mayor.

 

there is nothing but more speculation.

 

and this speculative story doesn't bother me nearly as much as Obama's verified voting record on right to life and banning second amendment rights.

[SFP]

From today's Anchorage Daily News:

 

Palin pressured Wasilla librarian during first term

TOWN MAYOR: She wanted to know if books would be pulled.

By RINDI WHITE

rwhite@adn.com

(09/04/08 01:49:40)

 

WASILLA -- Back in 1996, when she first became mayor, Sarah Palin asked the city librarian if she would be all right with censoring library books should she be asked to do so.

 

According to news coverage at the time, the librarian said she would definitely not be all right with it. A few months later, the librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn't fully support her and had to go.

 

Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.

 

It all happened 12 years ago and the controversy long ago disappeared into musty files. Until this week. Under intense national scrutiny, the issue has returned to dog her. It has been mentioned in news stories in Time Magazine and The New York Times and is spreading like a virus through the blogosphere.

 

The stories are all suggestive, but facts are hard to come by. Did Palin actually ban books at the Wasilla Public Library?

 

CONFRONTATION WITH PALIN

 

In December 1996, Emmons told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her -- starting before she was sworn in -- about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose.

 

Emmons told the Frontiersman she flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship. Emmons, now Mary Ellen Baker, is on vacation from her current job in Fairbanks and did not return e-mail or telephone messages left for her Wednesday.

 

When the matter came up for the second time in October 1996, during a City Council meeting, Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla housewife who often attends council meetings, was there.

 

Like many Alaskans, Kilkenny calls the governor by her first name.

"Sarah said to Mary Ellen, 'What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?" Kilkenny said.

 

"I was shocked. Mary Ellen sat up straight and said something along the line of, 'The books in the Wasilla Library collection were selected on the basis of national selection criteria for libraries of this size, and I would absolutely resist all efforts to ban books.'"

 

Palin didn't mention specific books at that meeting, Kilkenny said.

 

Palin herself, questioned at the time, called her inquiries rhetorical and simply part of a policy discussion with a department head "about understanding and following administration agendas," according to the Frontiersman article.

 

TEST OF LOYALTY

 

Were any books censored banned? June Pinell-Stephens, chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, checked her files Wednesday and came up empty-handed.

 

Pinell-Stephens also had no record of any phone conversations with Emmons about the issue back then. Emmons was president of the Alaska Library Association at the time.Books may not have been pulled from library shelves, but there were other repercussions for Emmons.

 

Four days before the exchange at the City Council, Emmons got a letter from Palin asking for her resignation. Similar letters went to police chief Irl Stambaugh, public works director Jack Felton and finance director Duane Dvorak. John Cooper, a fifth director, resigned after Palin eliminated his job overseeing the city museum.

 

Palin told the Daily News back then the letters were just a test of loyalty as she took on the mayor's job, which she'd won from three-term mayor John Stein in a hard-fought election. Stein had hired many of the department heads. Both Emmons and Stambaugh had publicly supported him against Palin.

 

Emmons survived the loyalty test and a second one a few months later. She resigned in August 1999, two months before Palin was voted in for a second mayoral term.

 

Palin might have become a household name in the last week, but Kilkenny, who is not a Palin fan, is on her own small path to Internet fame. She sent out an e-mail earlier this week to friends and family answering, from her perspective, the question Outsiders are asking any Alaskan they know: "Who is this Sarah Palin?"

Kilkenny's e-mail got bounced through cyberspace and ended up on news blogs. Now the small-town mom and housewife is scheduling interviews with national news media and got her name on the front page of The New York Times, even if it was misspelled.

[Saille]

I feel every bit as strongly about the First Amendment as anyone on this board feels about the Second.

 

And you don't send five people resignation letters as "a test of loyalty". That's completely inappropriate.

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

Kilkenny's e-mail got bounced through cyberspace and ended up on news blogs. Now the small-town mom and housewife is scheduling interviews with national news media and got her name on the front page of The New York Times, even if it was misspelled.

[/size][/font]

 

So *that's* who sent that email. I was giving it no credence at all. I figured someone made it up. :001_huh:

[Peek a Boo]

I feel every bit as strongly about the First Amendment as anyone on this board feels about the Second.

 

And you don't send five people resignation letters as "a test of loyalty". That's completely inappropriate.

 

 

Being fairly involved in the politics of a little town where loyalties play a HUGE part in gvt, i absolutely understand the "test of loyalty" --esp when those public servants publicly campaigned against you. The walls that go up in change of an administration --even a small one like mayor of a little town-- are horrendous. There's always more involved when a test of loyalty comes up --and it is often prefaced w/ an action on the part of the person being tested as having made a statement either publicly or off the record about the new administration.

 

there's also a lot that happens behind the scenes that doesn't come through during a regular city council meeting. Unless she's talking w/ those councilpeople on a regular basis and actually involved in what all goes on in making even smaller decisions I still wouldn't give the reaction of a regular ciouncil meeting member much credence. It does reinforce that Palin asked, but it adds NO evidence or details whatsoever of history of the subjects involved, intent, or why this played out like it did afterwards.

 

i wouldn't be surprised if she asked the librarian those questions cuz Palin might have knowledge that the librarian HAD banned books from the libarary on the recomendation of a previous administration. there's a lot of angles this could be seen from.

 

so considering the source and STILL an admitted lack of evidence on the subject, I'll wait to see what comes of it in the next couple weeks before lumping her as a book banner. i do agree there are a lot of inappropriate conclusions being drawn.

[Peek a Boo]

for clarity, change one part to:

 

Unless she's talking w/ those councilpeople on a regular basis and actually involved in what all goes on in making even smaller decisions I still wouldn't give the reaction of a regularly-attending-council-meetings person much credence.

 

it won't let me save changes for some reason......

[Mrs Mungo]

I'm listening to the tone of the RNC right now. Mr. Giuliani (who I happen to admire on one level, so it makes me sadder) is laughing, snickering, making fun. And I just want to weep for my country.

 

I agree. Hubby made me turn off the RNC when Giuliani was speaking he was so disgusted.

 

Elaine, the media is hardly all liberal. Come on, you can do better than that tired old liberal media nonsense. I hardly think you can use Kos as an example of a member of the media. That's like saying the emails claiming Obama is a Muslim are from the media or that McCain had something to do with them. For every Keith Olbermann there is a Bill O'Reilly.

 

eta: funny piece about this issue:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13143.html

 

And I have to agree with Saille when she said:

I just watched Palin, and I never, at any point during the Democratic Convention, heard this much booing or this many backbiting jokes.

 

That kind of disrespectful negativity is...inexcusable. And I've got to say, I have no clue how she could refer to people using a platform of change to further their own careers with a straight face.

[cathmom]

No, you're not.:001_smile: I meant done with political threads, and after this post I really am.

 

The reason that I am done is because these political threads do nothing, in my opinion only, to change anyone's mind concerning who they will vote for. I have yet to see anyone say, "Wow! You really opened my eyes, maybe I will vote for Obama." Or, "Man! That link you provided about John McCain changed my view." All I have seen here is party lines sharply drawn.

 

Dunno. It's likely me. I have really just had enough.

 

 

 

 

 

My dh says to me every day that if you like somebody, you'll interpret everything in the best possible light and it won't sway you from voting for them, and if you don't like somebody, you'll interpret everything in the worst possible light and use it to confirm how you felt about them all along. This country is sharply, deeply, divided and I will join you on not reading more political threads (if I can help it :))

[tinag]

 

And the reason that Obama comes out smelling like a rose for not participating in the mud slinging is because he doesn't have to! The liberal media does it all for him.

 

:iagree: