Sarah's Way--or the Highway
By Barbara Koeppel

The idea that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is experienced, ethical and
wise would be laughable if it weren't so alarming, and millions have
fallen for the fable. In truth, the pretty woman's story is not so pretty.



While a majority of Alaskans are thrilled their local beauty queen is
center stage, some are horrified.

Her populist persona--the "just plain hockey mom"--is preposterous, her
notion of decency defective, her ambition unbridled, her compassion
counterfeit, her actions extreme, her intelligence limited and her
judgment flawed.

Fearing retribution, only one of the more than twenty elected state and
city officials, lawyers, doctors, health administrators, librarians,
clergy and just plain residents I interviewed while in Alaska and over
the phone agreed to be named.

"It's Sarah's way or the highway," claim many who've worked with her. As
one state representative confided to me, "the public doesn't know the
real Sarah Palin."

After elected mayor of Wasilla in 1996, one of Palin's first victims was
Irl Stambaugh, the longtime police chief who opposed her NRA-backed plan
to allow concealed guns. Then, too, he wanted to close the bars at 2 am,
instead of 5 am, due to the high number of alcohol-related road
accidents. But as the bar owners and NRA were among her base, Palin axed
him. She then installed her own chief, who, besides following her line
on bars and guns, slapped a charge of $300 to $1,200 on rape victims for
medical tests for injuries and sexually transmitted diseases--fees
previously covered by the city. Since medical staff at the same time
also offered morning-after pills to rape victims, this was anathema to
Palin's anti-abortion agenda. Outraged, then-Democratic Governor Tony
Knowles pushed through a bill banning her tactics, and the tests were
once again free.

Other victims are now well known, like Mary Ellen Baker, the librarian
who wouldn't ban the books that offended Palin. Originally fired along
with other city department heads who backed Palin's mayoral opponent,
Baker (also president of Alaska's Library Association), was reinstated
because several hundred residents protested the sacking. But, according
to a librarian who knows Baker, Palin met with her several times,
pressuring her to remove books from the shelves--among which was Pastor,
I Am Gay by Howard Bess, an American Baptist minister in Wasilla. Baker
finally resigned in 1999 and moved away. The librarian friend says Baker
is keeping silent: "Why wouldn't she? The period was so painful that
after she left her job, she had a breakdown."

Then there's Dr. Susan Lamagie, an obstetrician who practices in Wasilla
and delivered Palin's first two children. She also performed abortions
at what was then called Valley Hospital. While Palin was on Wasilla's
City Council, members of her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God, and
its minister, picketed Lamagie's office. Because the doctor held her
ground, the group ousted the hospital board and installed a new one,
whose first act was to ban abortions. Lamagie and Howard Bess organized
a group that sued the hospital in a case that went to Alaska's Supreme
Court, which ruled the hospital had to allow abortions, as before.

For the rest of this sad saga:



http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/koeppel