INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST TALKS TO ALASKANS ABOUT SARAH PALIN

In the post that I previously posted, the author wrote a follow-up post. It is posted here with Charley James' permission.

Sarah Palin and Me

Written on September 6, 2008

by Charley James –

Anonymous sources are the bane of a reporter’s existence, and have been at least since Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used them extensively to unmask Watergate and topple Richard Nixon.

Frankly, writing as someone who has been covering news since the late 1960s for everything from local newspapers to major market TV and radio stations to a major business newsweekly, journalists don’t like citing anonymous sources any more than much of the public likes reading pieces that quote people without attribution. Alas, more often than not, the reality is that in a highly-explosive story such as my piece about Sarah Palin published here on Friday, granting anonymity may be the only way to get a source to agree to be interviewed.

So I am not surprised that a number of readers who wrote comments about the article raised questions about my sources. It has happened before, especially when I tackled a subject that raises a lot of dust, and it will happen again. Although I won’t reveal any sources – I honor promises of anonymity – let me explain how the story unfolded and sources came to my attention as I did the reporting.

Desperately Seeking Lucille

When Palin’s name began leaking out the morning of Aug. 30, I sent an e-mail to an old friend from childhood who has been teaching in Alaska since he finished far too much graduate school, basically asking, “Who is Sarah Palin when it’s not raining and what was she before?”

He wrote back with not just a lengthy, invective-filled diatribe against her and the horse she rode in on but also a link to a 63-page vetting report on Palin he said was done up some time ago by Alaska Democrats. After reading it – information in the dossier goes all the way back to 2002 – I wrote again asking if he knew people I could contact for a possible article. A short list of names was provided, including Lucille the Waitress, the much-discussed and oft-doubted woman who seems to have drawn the largest number of questions from commentators on the article.

And how does he know her? Well, like many people living on minimum wage and tips, Lucille holds a second job which, in this case, includes cleaning my friend’s family home every other week.

Lucille was the first person I interviewed. In her late 50s or early 60s, she was nervous even though I provided her with my friend’s name and suggested she call him first to verify who I am. She decided to proceed with the interview, which lasted about 10 minutes. Assuming she knew nothing about having to put an interview “off the record” or on a “not for attribution” basis before the interview starts. I asked Lucille if I could use her name in my article. She let me use her first name but not her last because she said she was afraid she might be fired.

I called my friend after the interview and, relating what’d said, asked if she was trustworthy. I was assured that, “It’d be easier for Lucille to hunt bears bare handed than to tell a lie.”

My old pal’s role in the story ends at this point.

Legwork

Starting with the small handful of other possible sources provided to me, I began dialling. Some people would talk, others wouldn’t; some would refer me on to other possible interview subjects, others told me to go forth, be fruitful and multiply, in much coarser language before slamming the phone in my ear.

In other words, I relied on what reporters have always relied upon to unearth a story: Legwork, or what it was called about a hundred lifetimes ago when I was first starting out. More accurately, I used my phone. To answer one person who penned a comment to the original piece, this is how someone who grew up in Middle America, visited Alaska once in his life and now lives in Canada could do reporting on a story based up there. Flat rate long distance plans have worked wonders for journalism.

As I’ve been doing for 40 years, when I’d finish interviewing one source I’d ask them if they knew anyone else I might call. Thus, one source frequently begat a second which, often, begat a third. Thus, a picture of Sarah Palin began to emerge and the result was Alaskans Speak.

Do I wish more people would have spoken to me on the record and for attribution? Absolutely. Do I regret writing a piece that relied upon so many anonymous sources? Not one bit.

by Charley James

Charley James is an American journalist, author and essayist who lives in Toronto.

Reprinted with permission from The Progressive Curmudgeon

This article also is posted at www.laprogressive.com

LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE...the scary part of unengaged citizens and ENTERTAINMENT PASSED AS NEWS

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Alaskans Speak (In A Frightened Whisper): Palin Is “Racist, Sexist, Vindictive, And Mean”

by Charley James

September 5, 2008

“So Sambo beat the bitch!”

This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.

According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.

“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.

Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.”

Racial and ethnic slurs may be “just Alaska” and, clearly, they are common, everyday chatter for Palin.

Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N’-Fetch-It, “darkie musical” swipe, people who know her say she refers regularly to Alaska’s Aboriginal people as “Arctic Arabs” – how efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description – as well as the more colourful “mukluks” along with the totally unimaginative “f**king Eskimo’s,” according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article.

But being openly racist is only the tip of the Palin iceberg. According to Alaskans interviewed for this article, she is also vindictive and mean. We’re talking Rove mean and Nixon vindictive.

No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type, it’s in their genetic code. So much for McCain’s pledge of a “high road” campaign; Palin is incapable of being part of one.

Tough Getting People Who Know Her to Talk
It’s not easy getting people in the 49th state to speak critically about Palin – especially people in Wasilla, where she was mayor. For one thing, with every journalist in the world calling, phone lines into Alaska have been mostly jammed since Friday; as often as not, a recording told me that “all circuits are busy” or numbers just wouldn’t ring. I should think a state that’s been made richer than God by oil could afford telephone lines and cell towers for everyone.

On a more practical level, many people in Alaska, and particularly Wasilla, are reluctant to speak or be quoted by name because they’re afraid of her as well as the state Republican Party machine. Apparently, the power elite are as mean as the winters.

“The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here,” an insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, explained. “It’s corrupt and arrogant. They’re all rich because they do private sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.”

“Once Palin became mayor,” he continued, “She became part of that inner circle.”

Like most other people interviewed, he didn’t want his name used out of fear of retribution. Maybe it’s the long winter nights where you don’t see the sun for months that makes people feel as if they’re under constant danger from “the authorities.” As I interviewed residents it began sounding as if living in Alaska controlled by the state Republican Party is like living in the old Soviet Union: See nothing that’s happening, say nothing offensive, and the political commissars leave you alone. But speak out and you get disappeared into a gulag north of the Arctic Circle for who-knows-how-long.

Alright, that’s an exaggeration brought on by my getting too little sleep and building too much anger as I worked this article. But there’s ample evidence of Palin’s vindictive willingness to destroy people she sees as opponents. Just ask the Wasilla town administrator she hired before firing him because he rebelled against the way Palin demanded he do his job, or the town librarian who refused to hold the book burning Walpurgisnach Mayor Palin demanded.

Ironically, Palin was pushed into hiring the administrator by the party poobahs who helped get her elected after she got herself into trouble over a number of precipitous firings which gave rise to a recall campaign.

“People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day,” states Anne Kilkenny, a Wasilla resident and one of the few Alaskans willing to speak on-the-record, for attribution, about Palin. In fact, Kilkenny actually circulated an e-mail letter about Palin that was verified and printed by The Nation.

For good measure, Palin booted the Wasilla police chief from office because, she told a local newspaper, he “intimidated” her.

Running on Extreme Fringe Evangelical Views
Sarah Palin drew early attention from state GOP apparatchiks when, during her first mayoral campaign, she ran on an anti-abortion platform. Normally, political parties do not get involved in Alaskan municipal elections because they are nonpartisan. But once word of her extreme fringe evangelical views made its way to Juneau, the state capitol, state Republicans tossed some money behind her campaign.

Once in office, Palin set out to build a machine that chewed up anyone who got in her way. The good, Godly Christian turns out to be anything but.

“She’s doesn’t like different opinions and she refuses to compromise,” Kilkenny notes. “When she was mayor, she fought ideas that weren’t hers. Worse, ideas weren’t evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.”

Sound familiar? Palin may well be Dick Cheney’s reincarnate.

Something else has a familiar Republican ring to it: Her tax policies, and a “refund surpluses but borrow for the future” attitude.

According to Kilkenny and others in Wasilla as well as Juneau, Palin reduced progressive property taxes for businesses while mayor and increased a regressive sales tax which even hits necessities such as food. The tax cuts she promoted in her St. Paul speech actually benefited large corporate property owners far more than they benefited residents. Indeed, Kilkenny insists that many Wasilla home owners actually saw their tax bill skyrocket to make up for the shortfall. Two other Wasillian’s with whom I spoke said property taxes on their modest, three bedroom homes rose during the Palin regime.

To an outsider, it would seem hard to do, but an oil-rich town with zero debt on the day she was inaugurated mayor was left saddled with $22 million of debt by the time she moved away to become governor – especially since nothing was spent on things such as improving the city’s infrastructure or building a much-needed sewage treatment plant. So what did Mayor Palin spend the taxpayer’s money on, if not fixing streets and scrubbing sewage?

For starters, she remodelled her office. Several times over, as a matter of fact.

Then Palin spent $1 million on an unnecessary, new park that no one other than the contractors and Palin seemed to want. Next, Sarah doled out more than $15 million of taxpayer money for a sports complex that she shoved through even though the city did not own clear title to the land; now, seven years later, the matter is still in litigation and lawyer fees are said to be close to at least half of the original estimated price of the facility.

She also worked hard to get voters approval of a $5.5 million bond proposal for roads that could have been built without borrowing. Anchorage may not be the center of the financial universe but, like good Republicans everywhere, Sarah Palin knows how to please Alaskan bankers and bond dealers.

For good measure, she turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots.

Sarah Barracuda
En route to the governor’s igloo, Palin managed to land what Anne Kilkenny says is the plumb political appointment in the state: Chair of Alaska’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (OGCC), a $122,400 per year patronage slot with no real authority to do anything other than hold meetings. She took the job despite having no background in energy issues and, as it turned out, not liking the work.

“She hated the job,” an OGCC staff member who is not authorized to speak with the news media told me. “She hated the hours and she hated what little work there was to do. But she couldn’t figure out a way to get out of the thing without offending Gov. Murkowski” and the state Republican Party regulars, some of whom were pissed off they didn’t get appointed.

But ever the opportunist, Palin quickly concocted a way. First, she waged a campaign with the local news media claiming that the position was overpaid and should be abolished – despite the fact that she lobbied Murkowski hard to get it. Then, mounting what she saw as a white horse, Palin raised a cloud of dust by resigning from the OGCC and riding away with an undeserved reputation as a “reformer.”

But when a local reporter dared to suggest that the reformer Empress has no clothes, Palin tried to get her fired.

“She came at me like I was trying to steal her kids,” said the targeted reporter, who now works for an oil company in Anchorage. “I heard she had a wild temper and vicious mean streak but it’s nothing like you can imagine until she turns it on you.”

Not surprising since some of her high school classmates still openly call her “Sarah Barracuda,” Kilkenny insists.

Still, as a Republican Party hack Palin managed to get herself elected running under the false flag of a “reformer.”

And what did she bring to the job? No legislative experience other than a city council of a village of 5,000 people, which is smaller than some high schools in Chicago. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; after all, she needed to hire a city administrator to run Wasilla. No executive experience, except for almost being recalled as mayor. A philosophy of setting public policy based on one word: No.

And what has she done since winning the job?

According to Kilkenny, nothing. Well, nothing other than suggesting the state’s multi-multi-million dollar, oil-generated surplus be distributed to residents and finance future state needs by borrowing money. Gee, doesn’t that sound precisely what George Bush did with the surplus he inherited from Bill Clinton in 2001 and we all know in what great shape Bush’s economic policies left the nation.

It may explain why, when asked by reporters, including me, what she thought about Palin being picked to be McCain’s running mate, her mother-in-law replied with a sardonic, “What has Sarah done to qualify her to be vice president?” Of course, when the woman – said by many I spoke with to be well-respected in Wasilla – was running to succeed Palin as mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her, so that may explain the family tension.

As Governor, Palin gave the legislature no direction and budget guidelines, according to the chair of a legislative committee. But then she staged a huge grandstand play of line-item vetoing countless projects, calling them pork. “They were restored because of public outcry and legislative action,” the aide said. “She vetoed them mostly because she had no idea what they were or why they were important.”

But it was enough to get the McCain, who is mostly unobservant of the world around him anyway, to think Palin has a reputation as being “anti-pork”.

In fact, Juneau observers note that Palin kept her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork ladled out by indicted Sen. Ted Stevens. She only opposed the “bridge to nowhere” after it became clear that it would be politically unwise to keep supporting it, these same insiders assert. Then, Palin fell back on her old habits and publicly humiliated him for pork-barrel politics.

As for being “ready on day one” to be commander in chief, despite the repeated public claims she’s made, the Alaska National Guard commander said that, “she has made no command decisions, other than sending some troops to help fight a few brush fires and march in parades at county fairs.”

“Sambo Beat the Bitch”
“Palin is a conniving, manipulative, a**hole,” someone who thinks these are positive traits in a governor told me, summing up Palin’s tenure in Alaska state and local politics.

“She’s a bigot, a racist, and a liar,” is the more blunt assessment of Arnold Gerstheimer who lived in Alaska until two years ago and is now a businessman in Idaho.

“Juneau is a small town; everybody knows everyone else,” he adds. “These stories about what she calls blacks and Eskimos, well, anyone not white and good looking actually, were around long before she became a glint in John McCain’s rheumy eyes. Why do I know they’re true? Because everyone who isn’t aboriginal or Indian in Alaska talks that way.”

“Sambo beat the bitch” may be everyday language up in the bush. Whether it – and the outlook, politics and worldview Palin reflects when she says such things in public – should be part of a presidential campaign is another thing altogether. The comment says as much about McCain as it does about Palin, and it says a lot of things about Americans who overlook such statements (as well as her record) and vote anyway for McCain.

by Charley James

Reprinted with permission from The Political Curmudgeon

This is what Charley James writes about himself on The Political Curmudgeon
If you were born in post-war Milwaukee, you were born a Democrat. So I gravitated naturally to liberal politics, first as journalist and then an activist. I've been writing since I was eight years old and, after working far too long in newsrooms - local newspapers, major market television and radio stations, assistant editor of a major business newsweekly - I've spent much of the past decade as an independent investigtative jouralist. When not covering and writing about politics, John McCain or George Bush, I scribble out essays on the peculiarites of modern times.

and see the above article at www.laprogressive.com

FREEDOM APPARENTLY WASN'T ALL THAT IMPORTANT FOR JOURNALISTS AT RNC

"As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of the change in the air--however slight--lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." William O. Douglas

Journalists on Republican National Convention policing:
"Dark days for press freedom in the U.S."

Source: www.minnesotaindependent.com

By Anna Pratt 9/6/08h Palin, John McCain, OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT, BIDEN FOR VICE-PRESIDENT, John McCain is A Liar, Freedom of Speech, MAKE VOTE OUTCOME BETTER THAN LAST TIME,SAY GOOD-BYE TO BUSH CHENEY VOTE DEMOCRAT, Republicans TALK FALSE HOPES

As crews picked up after the RNC in downtown St. Paul Friday morning, a handful of local and national journalists went to City Hall and delivered 50,000 signatures pressuring St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and the city and county attorneys to immediately release journalists who were recently arrested in connection to convention protests and to drop all charges against them.

Nancy Doyle Brown (pictured at the microphone above), a media reform organizer from the Twin Cities Media Alliance, said she and others want to send a message that “journalism is not a crime.” Journalists have “been detained and arrested, subjected to raids, pepper-sprayed and more simply for showing up to work. These have been dark days for press freedom in the U.S.,” she said.

According to a separate statement from the national nonprofit organization, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP), which is making similar demands of the city of St. Paul, volunteer legal counsel and news editors/directors tried to negotiate with police commanders for the release of reporters on the scene at the demonstration Thursday evening, “but [Ramsey County Sheriff Bob] Fletcher and [St. Paul Police Chief John] Harrington apparently intervened, they said, and ordered that the journalists be issued criminal citations. Once ticketed, the journalists were released,” the RCFP statement goes on. Others have been tear-gassed or held at gunpoint.

Media professionals had pursued protesters as they marched from the Capitol lawn into the downtown area. “Law enforcement officers flanked the marchers and corralled them on bridges passing over Interstate 94,” and they were detained on the bridges while police processed them,” it continues.

“We’re demanding that all charges against journalists covering the RNC be immediately and unconditionally dropped. We respect the important role officers play in maintaining a safe place for people to exercise their freedom… tragically there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told. They won’t be told because the reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands tied behind their back,” said Brown.

Additionally, in a preemptive attack on journalists, homes where they were staying were raided over the past couple weeks. Twin Cities Daily Planet editor Mary Turck, (shown below) vouched for that, while adding that one of her writers was arrested Thursday night. “Police are now holding personal belongings…and saying they can’t get them back till Monday. That is one example of the use of police power as sheer harassment for journalists,” said Turck.

One person who said he’s been subjected to it firsthand is Sharif Abdel Koubdous, a producer for the national radio/TV show Democracy Now, who was arrested twice this week and is now facing pending felony charges and for being a part of an “unlawful assembly.” “These charges are unacceptable. We are clearly marked as press… We were simply doing our job and nothing more. We shouldn’t be penalized for it,” he said.

Mike Buscko, with the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, which represents more than 450 local journalists, including some at the Pioneer Press, echoed their sentiments, saying, “We’re appalled by the treatment of journalists. It’s had a chilling effect on the coverage of the convention outside and in the street… The police were heavy-handed, and we’re concerned on a local and national basis.”

Inside City Hall, Deputy Mayor Ann Mulholland responded, “I know you take these seriously and as do we. We value your First Amendment rights and we value the rights of the media.” Overall, “We feel we conducted a great convention.” The Mayor “appreciates your rights, interests and abilities to cover stories.”

And in his office, City Attorney John Choi told reporters, “I’m a believer in justice.” Among the numerous arrests, most received citations and weren’t charged with a crime, he said, adding, “We’ll look at all the facts. We only proceed on cases where there’s probable cause to prosecute… This isn’t about politics or making decisions on political whims… I assure you we’ll do the right thing… Justice requires that we review these cases carefully and seriously.”

(Pictured below are the thousands of letters signed by people across the country, with the first 35 pages filled by Minnesotans.)

MnIndy Video: Journos, protestors sound alarm over pre-RNC police behavior

(Video at this link)

Story by Andy Birkey; video by Paul Schmelzer

Reports of media suppression by local law enforcement have activists concerned that their message might not get heard — and that a free press at the Republican National Convention (RNC) will be trumped as police throw homeland security in front of the cameras.

“A Channel 5 reporter was pushed back into the elevator and was told by the police and homeland security that he was not allowed to be there,” said Sheri Honkala of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. The campaign protested a decision by Housing and Urban Development to cancel an appearance at that group’s protest at the RNC, so they took their message to HUD offices on Tuesday. That message was hampered by efforts of police to block reporters access. The only reporter on hand was from Sweden.

“So we had to go by way of Sweden to get news on the television,” said Honkala.

She said she is concerned about the RNC. “Hopefully we’re going to have freedom of the press, and that reporters will not be manhandled just because they want to cover the story.”

Vlad Teichberg of the Glass Bead Collective had his cameras confiscated by Minneapolis Police on Tuesday, an event that prompted the press conference. “We are calling on all of you people, members of the press, and the public in general, to immediately address this issue,” he said. “If this is allowed to continue in this way, the basic rule of law is going to be in doubt.”

He said instead of protesters and Republicans being the story at the RNC, the police could become the focus. “The Minneapolis police run a big risk because they are going to be the central story,” he said. “I do not know if they want to be on national television accused and maybe even implicated in blatant attempts at suppression of public events by seizing people’s cameras.”

Daryl Robinson of Communities United Against Police Brutality said he had a more violent confrontation with police. “A few weeks back I was doing cop-watching down at the shelters downtown and I was viciously attacked by the Minneapolis police. My cameras, my video cameras, my cell phone camera, all that was smashed to the ground and broken,” he said. “I want to put on notice that there will be documentation and cop watching and photographing at the Republican National Convention. There will be accountability for all the law enforcement agencies working the RNC.”

Minneapolis City Council member Cam Gordon was disturbed by the reports. “The health of our democracy, the city, our society depends on people being able to watch and observe and share the stories of what’s going on,” he said. “To have these things come up now … that there’s even the appearance and the impression that the government and police are trying to suppress this kind information is of great concern for me.”

Katrina Plotz of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War told everyone not to be intimidated by the recent reports. “There seems to be a pattern of targeting journalists and people with cameras who are there to document demonstration or record police behavior. We are not going to be intimidated by their concerns about ’security threats,’” she said. “I would encourage everyone out in the public who is hesitant to come out now or who doesn’t think it’s safe, to have courage and realize that it is more important than ever to get out there and have your voice heard.”

Gordon said this behavior is nothing new and the community has to be vigilant in fighting back. “What is happening in Minneapolis is reflecting a larger trend in the country in general. We heard today homeland security mentioned and there seems to be a trend of what’s been happening lately,” he said. “Security and safety are being used to tip the scales away from freedom of information and right to assemble and freedom of press. We are not fighting perhaps as hard as we should be and working to preserve those rights that are so valuable and are also valuable to our safety and security.

Palin says she is ready to be President of the USA