Brian Ross of ABC has been digging into some of the myriad scandals swirling around Sarah Palin. In this report, he addresses Palin’s inquiry into removing books from the Wasilla town library, and her interactions with the librarian.
The transcript of the ABC report is below the fold.
Contrary to reports all over the intertubes, there is no list of books that Palin requested the removal of. However, the transcript has plenty of information from locals on the wingnuttery of Palin on other matters:
ROBIN ROBERTS: No doubt Sarah Palin has a huge following already. So many love her, but many want to know more about her resume. The details of her tenure as mayor and governor are still coming into focus. And this morning, we have new information on one battle she waged as mayor of Wasilla, a battle that brought her toe-to-toe with a local librarian over which books were appropriate and which were not; something her critics say crossed the line into censorship. Our chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross has the details. Good morning, Brian.
BRIAN ROSS: Good morning, Robin. As the mayor of the town Wasilla, Sarah Palin raised questions about removing books in the public library and then tried to fire the town librarian. She says the two were not connected. Sarah Palin was elected the mayor of Wasilla in 1996, with the strong backing of her church, the Wasilla Assembly of God.
REV. HOWARD BESS: It wasn’t just simply a matter of her using the religious right to get elected. She was one of them.
ROSS: Palin has since changed churches. But Assembly of God ministers are well-known in Wasilla for taking strong positions on moral issues, including this recent sermon by the current pastor.
ED KALNIN: Everybody in the world has a guilty conscience. That’s why homosexuals wants laws of the land to justify their sickness; they have a guilty conscience.
ROSS: Around the time Palin became mayor, the church and other conservative Christians began to focus on certain books available in local stores and in the town library, including one called “Go Ask Alice,” and another one written by a local pastor, Howard Bess, called “Pastor, I am Gay.”
BESS: This whole thing of controlling, you know, information, censorship, yeah. That’s a part of the scene.
ROSS: Not long after taking office, Palin raised the issue at a city council meeting of how books might be banned according to news accounts and a local resident, a Democrat, who was there.
ANNE KILKENNY: Mayor Palin asked the librarian, what is your response if I ask you to remove some books from the collection of the Wasilla Public Library?
ROSS: The Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Edmonds, the then president of the Alaska Library Association, responded with only a short hesitation.
KILKENNY: The librarian took a deep breath and said, the books in the collection were purchased in accordance with national standards and professional guidelines, and I would absolutely not allow you to remove any books from the collection.
ROSS: A former town official and Palin ally says Palin’s questions were only rhetorical.
JUDY PATRICK: There were no specific books that were ever banned from the city. Mayor Palin did enquire of the librarian about the policy of removing books from the library.
ROSS: A few weeks after the council meeting, the mayor fired the librarian, although she was reinstated after a community uproar.
JUNE PINNELL-STEPHENS: You’d like to hope that elected officials understand the role of the librarian in democracy; that is to provide access to information to everybody in the community.
ROSS: The Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Edmonds, left two years later, and according to friends, because it was just too hard working for Sarah Palin. In a conversation with me yesterday, the librarian said she could not recall Palin ever asking for specific book titles to be removed from the shelves, but she acknowledge her treatment by Palin had been very rough – “I just don’t care to revisit that time of my life,” she told me.
ROBERTS: I’m sure. Brian, you know there’s so much out there on the internet. And much of the information is wrong. In fact, in response to your story right there, the McCain campaign sent out this three pages to us. And they’re trying to shoot down as much as they can. In fact, there was on the internet about a list—a long list of books. That just wasn’t true.
ROSS: That not true, that long list of books that some may have seen on the internet, that’s simply made up. That was not part of this discussion. The mayor did raise the question of how to get books off the shelf. If people were picketing the library, would you take books off the shelf? The librarian was offended by that, as were members of the Alaska Library Association, who to this day remain very wary of Sarah Palin.
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Wow. I am surprised to see this on ABC. Perhaps there is hope for some real journalism to happen in this race. (Damn I hate it when I start thinking like that, the letdown when it doesn’t happen is so painful...)
Because it’s ultimately not about the books. It’s about her penchant for firing people she disagrees with and her ties to a whacko church.
I remain torn over how much you have to take Sarah Palin on if you’re Obama. It’s a distraction, but without Palin, McCain’s losing by three or four points. Her only asset is her “likability”, if you can destroy that, you can destroy her “bounce” for McCain. But that comes with some peril.
Still, if Ross keeps digging and Joe Klein-types keep calling a liar a liar, perhaps the media can do their frakking job for once.
Kudos to ABC for bringing this to light even if it seems to be less of an issue than originally thought (in that they didn’t go so far as to list which books were to be banned. Maybe they backed off a tad when the librarian balked?). I do, however, believe that the librarian was fired because of her unwillingness to cooperate
Kudos to ABC for bringing this to light even if it seems to be less of an issue than originally thought
Um, what?
She FIRED THE HEAD LIBRARIAN FOR NO REASON! It clearly wasn’t “for cause” because she backed down when the people of Wasilla got in her face about it. Then she apparently went ahead and made the head librarian’s life miserable afterward.
That’s insane. And in a just world, this would be huge. Because this sort of bs is exactly what our country doesn’t need.
Maybe they backed off a tad when the librarian balked?
It sounded to me like the librarian balked because the whole thing was so awful she didn’t want to revisit it. Not because there’s no there there. If anything, the statement from the librarian and the fact that she quit two years later because she couldn’t deal with Palin adds more fuel to the fire.
<b>Because it’s ultimately not about the books. </i>
Isn’t it both? For the past 8 years we’ve had a guy in the White House who doesn’t want people to read things he disagrees with. Has that worked out well?
Go Ask Alice? When I was a whippersnapper, we read that for eighth grade English class. Was it the sex, the drugs or the accurate portrayal of horrible parents that ticked Palin off?
From this and the Wooten matter, it appears the Palins have a wide vindictive streak. I personally find this extremely alarming; however, it seems to be a good fit for the Republicans.
I’m pretty much the same age as Sarah Palin, and believe me this is a person I recognize. She is that dangerous combination of politically shrewd, intellectually stunted and smugly self-righteous that fairly oozed out of every College Republican whose path I had the misfortune of crossing (as a PoliSci major in the ‘80s at a conservative university in the South - trust me, it’s a large number). It’s a type I loathed then, and I can see that the passage of years has only confirmed the correctness of that original impression.
The MSM should indeed be encouraged to get up off their lazy asses and actually do some - whatchacallit?- reporting on her. Unfortunately, they’ve already laid back too long and let the Republicans set the frame so that now anyone who asks even the most legitimate of questions about Caribou Barbie is just a big sexist meanie who hates small towns and mothers and poor babies with Down’s and is probably an abortoatheistislamofacistterrormonkey to boot. They’ve spread Palin’s skirt wide and apparently intend to have her hide behind it for the remainder of the campaign.
Go look at what happened to library funding controlled by the Wasilla council in between teh librarian being reinstated and her leaving due to working with Palin being too difficult. I’m willing to make some bets on the trend there…
I hope that potential voters who sit on the fence get this news and take it in. I already knew that the list of banned books going around on the Web was not part of librarian business. The right wing is misrepresenting the banned books business by presenting the issue as if liberals are saying that the entire story is about Palin delivering that long list of books to be banned. That’s twisting what is actually going on. Palin did want to know what was involved in banning books, the librarian balked, and she was later punished. That’s true, and ABC finally put that truth in the public eye. Of course, censorship won’t matter to the McCain/Palin base because that’s what it wants. The right wing wants to ban books it does not like. The key is to get the attention of the undecided voters, and to educate them so that they don’t fall for the Maverick/Soccer Mom myths. I also think that censorship and banning books from libraries could anger more undecided voters than Palin’s lies about the “Bridge To Nowhere”. It’s more personal, and it’s something people can relate to.
Go Ask Alice? The “doing drugs is bad, mmmkay kids?” Go Ask Alice? What, did they just read the back flap and decide that anything with a mere mention of sex and drugs would necessarily lead kids down the road to ruin? Because from what I remember of that book it was all pretty much “holy shit, don’t do this!”
In my mind it’s generally a good idea to know what something’s about before you declare it evil.
If anything, the statement from the librarian and the fact that she quit two years later because she couldn’t deal with Palin adds more fuel to the fire.
The fact that she had ABSOLUTELY no problem finding a new job, within commuting distance, in ALASKA speaks volumes about who was the small time shit-head hypocrite with a vindictive control freak problem, and who was the connected, competent professional in high demand now doesn’t it?
What PiatoR said. The follow up potential on this is fantastic-- I did not know she’d resigned because Palin continued to cause problems. I want full dirt-- library hours cut? Pay cut? Doing “road repairs” and “parking lot improvements” for weeks at a time, effectively shutting down the library?
Because America needs to know that Palin is petty and vindictive. Do we want Cheney’s peppering his lawyer incident part 2?
I liked the Wasilla library when I was there in 2006 (my wife’s parents live just outside of Wasilla). I heard about the library scandal from them. Also, the sports complex that has been written about has a kick-ass playground for kids, but was otherwise not a very big deal to my eyes.
Where did the librarian go after leaving Wasilla?
Palin’s like many small town/suburban PTA presidents and scholarship committee members I’ve met (no offense to the fine community members on this blog who might have held those posts - I don’t mean YOU).... controlling, snide, kissing the ass of anyone with money, doling out scholarships to those they “approve of” (ie, cheerleaders, jocks, rich). She has that same sneering, self-righteous tone to her voice. Basically a petty tyrant with a little local power.... my mind shudders at the thought of her having MORE power.
Wow. I am surprised to see this on ABC. Perhaps there is hope for some real journalism to happen in this race. (Damn I hate it when I start thinking like that, the letdown when it doesn’t happen is so painful...)