Friday, February 05, 2010

Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’

I find about half of the items in this article disturbing. Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’

"Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that Todd Palin exchanged with state officials, which were released to msnbc.com and NBC News by the state of Alaska under its public records law, draw a picture of a Palin administration where the governor's husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked 'confidential' from his oil company employer to a state attorney."

Here are some examples, though if you click through to the actual letters, I find these descriptions a little excessive:

*The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.
*Palin and her staff stewed over the refusal of the state Public Safety Department to provide a plane so the children could fly to Todd's family's home in Dillingham; after all, they were going to attend a bill signing, so the travel requests could be justified. Sarah Palin called the decision "outrageous," and an aide said it provides "a great excuse to privatize" the governor's jet service.
*The manager of the Palins' travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification ("I just need one") to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin's daughter, Willow, who made the trip but had missed the event given as its justification.
*When Sarah Palin complained that the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner wrote a critical editorial after she did them the favor of meeting with the editorial board, Todd Palin advised the press chief to "take the news miner off the press release address list for a few days, see how long it takes them to realize their not on the list."
*"Man, that gossip crap bugs me," Sarah Palin wrote after the Anchorage Daily News wrote about mansion repairs in its Alaska Ear political column. "Any time it has anything to do with home or family, it's irritating." A press aide apologized, saying the columnist did not to call check out stories before publishing. The residence director added, "Reminds me of junior high school, where hormonal teenagers are always looking for the drama. ... I'll do my best to avoid giving them any news nuggets.""

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