wrote:
On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 14:33:54 -0700, Tim wrote:
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.
Sure, after talk of recalling her, then the inquiries were "rhetorical".
Note that it's inquiries, not inquiry. The librarian was asked about
removing books at least three times.
http://news.bostonherald.com/news/2008/view.bg?
articleid=1117009&srvc=2008campaign&position=15
Worth reposting for B'rer Tim:
alin asked Wasilla librarian about censoring books
By Rindi White / Anchorage Daily News | Thursday, September 4, 2008
| http://www.bostonherald.com | 2008 Pres. Campaign
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 [NYT] 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?
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.
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.
Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at
www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.
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http://tinyurl.com/4q88t6