Investigating Palin
The Page by Mark Halperin — ... Before her days running as a reformer, Palin played the more conventional politician - and was not afraid to drag polarizing issues into a local race, writes TIME’s Nathan Thornburgh from Wasilla, Alaska. ...

Might Palin Pull a Harriet Miers?
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo — ... well. So does he back up slowly and flip on the hazards? Does Palin resign a la Miers and take one for the team? Joe Lieberman, Tom Ridge, Mitt, any of you guys game for a do-over? ...

Investigating Palin
The Page by Mark Halperin — ... TIME: Before running as a reformer, Palin played the more conventional politician - and wasn’t afraid to drag polarizing issues into a local race. ...

Sarah Palin Wanted To Ban Books From The Library
The Latest on Air America — ... I'm just shaking my head. This kind of blatant attempt at censorship enrages me. Sure her base loves it though. I just scoped the article, but she does not go over well from what I can see. ...

Sarah Palin -- First Amendment Advocate
Rising Hegemon — In Time Magazine -- Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor. McCain is trying to lose, there's no ...

Book Banning
Eschaton — I'd heard the librarian story, but missed the book banning angle. Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." The librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire her for not giving "full support" to the mayor. When conservatives speak of freedom, what ...

Source at TNR: Underestimate Palin at your peril
Hot Air » Top Picks — ... somehow the prom queen ballots got mixed up with the Alaska gubernatorial poll. Trivialize her at your own peril. Sarah Palin is a living reminder that the ultimate source of political power in this country is not the Kennedy School or the Davos Summit or an Ariana Huffington salon; even now, power emanates from the electorate itself. More precisely, power in 2008 emanates from the working class electorates of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Don’t believe him? Read through this indispensable Time magazine story , dateline Wasilla, for a description of the sort of ...

Palin Church Speech Shows Intertwining Of Politics And Religion
TPM Election Central — ... In this light, it suddenly seems a lot more believable that as mayor Palin tried to get a librarian fired for not removing books with foul language. ...

More Gud Nuz for McCain
Martini Revolution — His pick of Palin may help sew up the book burning crowd as well: Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor. ...

Hardball With Sarah Palin
Ace of Spades HQ — Hardball With Sarah Palin A mix of good and bad here, and maybe good and good, depending on how cynical you are, or how much a role you think faith should play in politics. Incidentally, some good background on her step-mother-in-law, Faye Palin, who's announced she might vote against Palin and for Obama, and says she doesn't know what Palin brings to the ticket, apart from being a woman. Let's just say they have the typical sitcom mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship: When Palin, who went on to win re-election by a landslide, was forced out of the ...

Mayor Palin: A Rough Record
Democratic Underground Latest Breaking News — ... it was now — but some national antiabortion outfit sent little pink cards to voters in Wasilla endorsing her," he says. Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the time. "(Stein) figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race," she recalls, "but it turned into something much different than that." Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn't think they had any place in local politics. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,183791...

McCain Media Attacks Become Entrenched Part of Strategy
Political Punch — ... you might revisit when it's over? McCain: [Does not answer.] TIME: Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.] McCain: [Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party. Yikes. At some point the media is going to want to ask Gov. Palin questions. And some of those questions are going to be tough -- as Mayor of Wasilla did she in fact seek to ban books at a local library, for instance, as one rival claims? And I don't know how much the American people will think those questions ...

The Christianist Crusader
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — Palin is hard-core, judging from reports of her tenure as Mayor of Wasilla: Vicki Naegele was the managing editor of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the time. "[defeated rival John Stein] figured he was just going to run your average, friendly small-town race," she recalls, "but it turned into something much different than that." Naegele held the same conservative Christian beliefs as Palin but didn't think they had any place in local politics. "I just thought, That's ridiculous, she should concentrate on ...

The Next Rounds
Obsidian Wings — ... But going forward, the focus needs to be both on McCain’s rushed judgment and her rather extreme ideology. For instance, maybe someone should ask McCain what he thinks of her position that, if a woman gets raped, she must be forced by the state to give birth. Also, I’d love to hear about her attempts to ban books -- which ones in particular? There's a pretty high correlation between a leader's scariness and the intensity of their efforts to ban books. ...

Did Sarah Palin Try To Ban Books? And Keep Bars Open?
Hit & Run — ... support" to the mayor. [Longtime resident Chas] St. George [a Stein supporter], however, points out that Palin couldn't have seen everything through an Evangelical lens. She did, he says, notably resist calls to restrict operating hours for the bars in town. And even if faith did play an unusually large role in her decision-making as mayor, it may have only reflected the continued rise of Evangelicalism in the valley, a growth that continues to this day. More here. Banning books while keeping the bars open? Not sure how much faith to put in ...

A culture warrior on the ticket
Political Animal — ... later went to work as the administrator for the city of Sitka in southeast Alaska. "The point was that she was a born-again Christian." The result was a mayor who didn't exactly "bring people together." The New York Times added that Palin's first few months were "so jarring -- and so alienating -- that an effort was made to force a recall." The idea was eventually dropped. What was it that locals found jarring? Palin reportedly asked the library, for example, about the process for banning books . One local resident said Palin found some texts "morally or socially ...

And Banning Books Too?
Crooks and Liars — Yes, according to the Republican that Sarah Palin beat to become mayor of Wasilla. [Former mayor] John Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that ...

How Dare Sarah Palin Insult Community Organizers!
Weekly Standard Blog — ... No one denies that civic activism can be meaningful work. Before she was even elected as a city council member, Palin was engaged in grassroots local politics. According to Time magazine, her first leadership role in her community was as one of a few people chosen to create a police department: ...

Problem Palin
culturekitchen - fresh dissent served daily — ... is an attempt to drag out the investigation until after voters decide the fate of her vice-presidential bid. This is typical of the disgusting corruption among Alaska Republicans. Next let me quote from Badger Blues calling Palin an outright liar: An incomplete list of things we know about Sarah Palin: In both of her big campaign speeches, she repeatedly lied about opposing the bridge to nowhere. As mayor, she tried to ban books from the public library, and then tried to fire the librarian who wouldn’t go ...

Mayors and Organizers
Mudville Gazette — ... Can we ever get around to issues? Well, maybe - here's how. Time Magazine has already done an article detailing Palin's time as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. (Short version: no one liked her, she did what she wanted, not what they wanted, and got re-elected "by a landslide".) Now they can do a piece on Obama's time as a "community organizer". They can tell Americans exactly what it is that Community Organizers do, who pays their salaries (or how they get money for food), etc. etc. Then they can turn to Obama specifically. What were his goals? What ...

Janet Ritz: Sarah Palin as George Bush
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — ... ; the wolves she rewards her constituents for shooting; the fact that she does not believe in man-made global warming; her support for the teaching of creationism in schools; her opposition to equal pay, access to health care and those pesky books she wanted banned from libraries. ...

Why They Love Her
The Mahablog — ... As far as the “preposterous demands” go, however, Jeffrey doesn’t tell us what they are. I can only guess they have something to do with Palin clearing up inconsistencies in her record as a politician. How dare they! ...

Why John McCain Should Not Be President
J. Bradford DeLong's Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles — ... Mayor Palin: A Rough Record - TIME: Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor. ...

Wasilla responds
Ben Smith's Blog — ... has put together a useful set of online documents giving its responses to questions about Sarah Palin, including past city budgets, descriptions of her duties, and an answer to the question of whether any books were ever banned from the city library. That response indicates that no books were "challenged" during Palin's tenure, though more recently, the library rejected a challenge to a Jon Stewart opus. It doesn't really answer the question of what that book banning argument was about. (There's also a long list of books Wasilla allegedly ...

McCain Camp Assails Book-Banning Report as a ‘Smear’
Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines — ... on the subject indirectly supports the accusation. As Palin’s mayoral predecessor recalls, “She asked the library how she could go about banning books.” According to the ...

Koch backs Obama, calls Palin 'scary'
Ben Smith's Blog — ... He said he was alarmed by the report that she'd triggered a conflict with the local librarian in Wasilla, Alaska by inquiring about the possibility of banning books. ...

Palin's book-banning efforts
Political Animal — ... Alaska resident had tried to ban a lengthy list of books when she was mayor of that town. "This is categorically false. The fact is that as Mayor, Palin never asked anyone to ban a book and not one book was ever banned, period," McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said, directing reporters to campaign research "debunking this smear." While the purported list is bogus, we do know that something happened with regards to Palin and at least a question about book banning. Time reported last week, for example, that Palin asked the Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, about the ...

Did Palin Approve Charging Rape Victims for Rape Kits?
Outside The Beltway | OTB — ... . Given that the article directly quotes Chief Fallon (a Palin appointee and political ally), the prima facie evidence would lead one to believe she was aware of what Fallon was going to say about the policy. Second, I don’t think that Palin could brush this off as saying that she wasn’t involved in police policy because she was, as mayor, intimately involved with the Police Department. For one thing, she was one of the group of Wasilla citizens who fought to install a Police Department in the first place (to her credit, I might add.) Also, as Mayor, she made several policy ...

Cooking with Gas
Fraters Libertas — ... POTUS at some point, should they win the election. At this rate, Michele Bachmann will be touted as a potential Secretary of State nominee! You can see why I am upset. Wow! With that level of seething and name calling, did Zimmern ever consider becoming a member of the Star Tribune editorial board? First, the easy debunking of the foundations of Zimmern's rage: 1. Book banning - no, never happened. No legitimate source has claimed she has ever done anything of the sort. Even in a hit piece published in Time Magazine, the best they could come up with was a second hand claim ...

Palin's book-banning efforts, redux
Political Animal — PALIN'S BOOK-BANNING EFFORTS, REDUX.... Here's what we know about Sarah Palin's interest in banning books. Time reported last week that Palin asked the Wasilla librarian, Mary Ellen Baker, about the process for banning library books. Baker was reportedly "aghast" at the question. Soon after taking office, Palin, according to a New York Times ...

'Rhetorical' book banning
Political Animal — ... preacher in the nearby town of Palmer, said the church Palin and her family attended until 2002, the Wasilla Assembly of God, was pushing to remove his book from local bookstores. Emmons told him that year that several copies of "Pastor I Am Gay" had disappeared from the library shelves, Bess said. "Sarah brought pressure on the library about things she didn't like," Bess said. "To believe that my book was not targeted in this is a joke." So, what do we know at this point? Time reported last week that Palin asked Emmons about the process for banning library books. Emmons was ...

Sarah Palin And The Integrity Gap
RedState: Conservative News and Community — ... but not previously a political activist, she was elected to the City Council in 1992 after getting involved in a citizens' watch group that wanted Wasilla to have its own police force, ousting ...

Logan Nakyanzi Pollard: Sarah 'plain and dull'
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com — I'm trying to think of where Sarah Palin and I parted ways. There would be the abysmal interviews, the rhetoric whipping up crowds into meanspiritedness, the questionable judgment regarding the firing of her staff and use of her power and money spent on her behalf, but for me it started with the books. As TIME and other news outlets have reported, "She asked the library how she could go about banning books." I was a dull child but my mom took me to the library every week. She'd go up to the adult floor; I'd hunt the stacks with the ...

Palin Defends Church’s Promotion Of Group That Aims For Gays To ‘Overcome’ ‘Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions’
Think Progress — ... In September, an insert in the bulletin of the Wasilla Bible Church — where Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has worshipped for about six years — promoted an upcoming ...