Sarah Palin emails show life in Alaska, from tanning bed to Troopergate

Thousands of emails, published by the Guardian and US media, offer intimate portrait of Palin when she was governor of Alaska Tens of thousands of pages of Sarah Palin’s emails released on Friday offer an intimate portrait of a politician caught in an almost daily battle on issues ranging from oil exploration to an ethics investigation. The emails, produced by the Alaska governor’s office after a three-year media push under freedom of information laws, show Palin facing a maelstrom of events from the time she became the state’s first female governor in 2006 through to being propelled on to the national scene as John McCain’s vice-presidential choice in 2008. The emails are peppered with the folksy language that have become her trademark, such as “unflippinbelievable”, “holy….”, “ugh” and “thank the lord”. They offer insights into a series of rows from Troopergate to her decision to allow oil exploration in previously protected areas of Alaska. They also cover more trivial issues, such as her attempt to secretly install a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion in Juneau. The Alaskan governor’s office released 24,199 pages of emails and withheld 2,275 pages. Just over 20% of those released contained redactions. One of the emails withheld refers intriguingly to “a meeting with staffer for Vice-President Cheney about gas pipeline and meetings with representatives of Alaska communities about Endangered Species Act”. Cheney, notoriously secret and reluctant to commit to paper, was an enthusiastic supporter of oil exploration. Within minutes of the release of the emails, Palin responded on Twitter referring readers to a semi-official documentary to be shown next month, The Undefeated, about her time as Alaska governor. The email release comes the week after Palin’s highly publicised bus tour of the east coast of the US in which she said she was still considering whether to seek the Republican nomination for the 2012 White House race. Palin’s team saw all the emails before they were published and had prepared a response. Tim Crawford, the treasurer of her political action committee, Sarah PAC, said in a statement that everyone should read the emails. “The thousands upon thousands of emails released today show a very engaged governor Sarah Palin being the CEO of her state,” he said. “The emails detail a governor hard at work,” he said. But critics of Palin claim that, even cleaned up, there is enough in the emails to undermine her chances of winning the Republican nomination. Andree MacLeod, an Alaskan activist who is one of Palin’s fiercest critics and was among those originally requesting the documents, hoped that they would not be used by her supporters to claim she was a hard-working governor. “We do not have a clear picture because a lot of emails are being withheld,” she said. She also questioned the use by Palin of personal emails for government business. Such is the interest in Palin’s prospects of seeking the Republican nomination that almost every major US new organisation sent teams to Juneau for the release. There was a media scrum as about 16 news organisations attempted to leave the narrow government office at once, each carrying six boxes full of emails. The sixth and final box of emails contains material on the investigation into the so-called Troopergate scandal when Palin was accused of dismissing a senior Alaskan official because he failed to act in a way that suited her private family interests. As an investigation was launched by the state legislature into her conduct, she expressed her mounting anger. “I do applogize if I sound frustrated w this one. I guess I am. Its killing me to realize how misinformed leggies, reporter and others are on this issue.” She added: “It’s obvious we could get to the bottom of it all if leggies [legislators] and reporters would just ASK me further questions instead of spending $100g on a fishing expedition.” Her concern about media image rings out many times from the emails. In one exchange, she expresses her displeasure at the way her husband Todd, a snowmachine champion in Alaska, is portrayed in press materials. “Todd asked the picture to be changed a couple of months ago. They’re still using an old snowmachine picture of his,” she complained noting that when she went to a national meeting of state governors, she found that “the other spouses have professional photos and updated bios”. In one email that would have been embarrassing if published when she became vice-presidential candidate, she praises Barack Obama for his energy policy. It was written only three weeks before McCain announced her as his choice. She wrote about Obama: “He gave a great speech this morn in Michigan – mentioned Alaska. Stole ou[r] Energy Rebate $1,000 check idea, stole our TC-Alaska gasline talking points, etc. So …. we need to take advantage of this a[nd] write a statement saying he’s right on.” On the tanning bed issue, Palin is upset over an inquiry about whether she has placed an order for a tanning bed in the governor’s mansion. She denies that there was a work order, but one of her staffers says: “Did Gail at the AK club say that she’d be discreet about your purchase?” Palin, writing to a staffer, acknowledges that she wanted the tanning bed but is more concerned about the potential media damage: “The press from the ADN(Anchorage Daily News) just called about the sun bed. Any idea where this would have come from?” The tanning bed incident came soon after she had championed protection against skin cancer, of which tanning was identified as a cause. Another email appears to lay to rest the conspiracy theorists who say that she was not the mother of Trig and only pretended to have the baby which was actually her daughter Bristol’s. An email dated 2 August 2008 refers to “couple of days off duty when I had Trig, Arpil 18, the day he was born I signed a bill into law and conducted a few state actions while in hospital”. Palin’s critics say she and her allies had stalled a freedom of information request for the emails made in September 2008. But Linda Perez, administrative director to the present Alaska governor and Palin ally, Sean Parnell, denied there had been any obstruction. “It was the sheer volume,” she said. “Nothing else.” The main value of the emails will be in offering insights into her character. Her critics portray her as vindictive, small-minded and paranoid, more focused on celebrity than policy. Her supporters, including members of the Tea Party movement, blame such negative appraisals on a liberal media out to get her, citing bias in their failure to request the emails of Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats. Sarah Palin emails Sarah Palin Alaska United States Republicans US politics Ewen MacAskill Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk

Posted by on June 10, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.