Friday, February 5, 2010

Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’ He Was The Shadow Governor..


Palin e-mails reveal a powerful ‘first dude’
In Sarah Palin administration, her spouse was active in state business Nearly 3,000 pages of e-mails that the first gentleman, Todd Palin, exchanged with state officials draw a picture of his influence on policy in the Sarah Palin administration. Other e-mails are still being withheld by the state of Alaska.Todd Palin: Alaska’s ‘Shadow Governor’E-mails obtained by msnbc show that during Sarah Palin’s time as governor, Todd Palin was consulted on everything from budgeting to judicial appointments. “Game Change” author Mark Halperin and Democratic strategist David Bonior discuss. Officially he was the first gentleman of Alaska. More people called him the "first dude." But newly released e-mails show that Todd Palin was busy doing more than snow machine driving and salmon fishing during Sarah Palin's two and a half years as governor and vice presidential candidate.

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.

While 1,200 separate e-mails were released this week, 243 others were withheld by the state under a claim that executive privilege extends to Todd Palin as an unpaid adviser to the government. Still, just the subject lines of those e-mails provide a glimpse of the ways the Palins divvied up their responsibilities when she became governor in December 2006, less than two years before Republican Sen. John McCain pulled her onto the national political stage by nominating her as his vice presidential candidate.

The still-secret e-mails between Todd Palin and senior officials reach into countless areas of state government and politics: potential board appointees, constituent complaints, use of the state jet, oil and gas production, marine regulation, gas pipeline bids, postsecondary education, wildfires, native Alaskan issues, the state effort to save the Matanuska Maid dairy, budget planning, potential budget vetoes, oil shale leasing, "strategy for responding to media allegations," staffing at the mansion, pier diem payments to the governor for travel, "strategy for responding to questions about pregnancy," potential cuts to the governor's staff, "confidentiality issues," Bureau of Land Management land transfers and trespass issues and requests to the U.S. transportation secretary.

Also withheld: a discussion of how to reply to "media questions about Todd Palin's work and potential conflict of interests." 'That gossip crap bugs me' The e-mails that were released open a curtain on the behind-the-scenes preoccupations of the Palins, particularly the flash points of family and the media, personal finances and state finances.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." Private e-mail accounts Many of these e-mails on public policy issues were written using private e-mail accounts on Yahoo and other services. The governor and her top aides set up accounts outside the state system, supposedly outside the reach of the public records laws. Outside accounts also helped avoid any violation of the state law against using public resources for campaigning.

Todd Palin's e-mail address at that time was named for his hobby as a four-time champion driver in the 1,971-mile Iron Dog snow machine races: fek9wnr@yahoo.com, or Iron Dog winner. The governor wrote mostly from gov.sarah@yahoo.com and sometimes from gov.palin@yahoo.com, until that account was cracked in September 2008 by an anonymous Internet user, who boasted that he figured out the answers to her Yahoo security questions by browsing her Wikipedia page. A 20-year-old student at the University of Tennessee, David C. Kernell, was indicted and is awaiting trial; he was an Obama supporter and the son of a Democratic state legislator.

Few of the e-mails to and from the Palins twin Blackberrys show Todd Palin performing the traditional ceremonial duties of a governor's spouse, though he did judge the Miss Alaska competition, and he held a tea to honor former first ladies. Video. Several e-mails deal with purely personal matters, as the governor juggled a new job, a family that grew from four children to five soon after she became governor, the 574-mile trip from her office in Juneau to her home in Wasilla and a husband whose work took him away for weeks at a time to the North Slope and snow machine races.

At one point, Sarah Palin sent her husband instructions to stock up on "fresh fruit and veggies" for the kids, and "as little processed foods as possible." Todd Palin tried repeatedly over a period of three months to get a staff aide to remove Todd's photo from the National Governors Association Web site, because it showed him in a T-shirt. In another e-mail, the couple discussed a rare opportunity to enjoy a date night out without the kids; they saw "Juno," the film about a teenager with an unplanned pregnancy, on March 7, 2008, just short of 10 months before their unmarried 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, gave birth to a son. Redacted Of the e-mails released this week, dozens have information redacted, or blanked out, sometimes leaving little more than a subject line. One example: Sarah Palin's head of boards and commissions, political aide Ivy Frye, wrote to Todd Palin on June 26, 2007, asking about a member of a state commission on domestic violence, an appointee of her predecessor, Gov. Frank Murkowski.

"Hey, Todd, Do you know Kim Williams from Dillingham? She has a term expiring on the Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault Board and I wanted to see what you knew about her. Thanks."Dillingham is Todd Palin's hometown.His reply the next day is completely deleted in the documents released this week, with the word "Redacted" in its place. But the public can see Frye's reply, "Thank you. That was very helpful." At her home in Dillingham on Thursday, Williams told msnbc.com that she was not re-appointed, and was never told why. But she didn't sound upset. "Todd and I grew up together. I guess this summer I'll have to ask Todd what he said about me," she said with a laugh.She said she wouldn't be surprised if the governor bounced a lot of subjects off of her spouse. "It's the first time we've ever had a first dude, right? I think he was more of a sounding board for her."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that moron does have different shoes on, lol

Anonymous said...

oh crap, lol

Anonymous said...

Click your heels together Dorothy:)