As I watched Keith Olbermann on MSNBC last night, they ran through a series of emails Sarah Palin sent to McCain staffers during the campaign that discussed things like her appearance on Saturday Night Live and her interview with “The Perky One”, Katie Couric. It was funny and all, watching her get lambasted for lying by the very douchnozzles we all hated just 18 months ago (Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, etc.) But I was struck by something else entirely.
Every one of the emails she sent were also copied to Todd Palin.
There’s more here than meets the eye and it’s worth looking at, at least briefly, to highlight the hypocrisy of Sarah-the-so-called-feminist.
And, yes, she did refer to herself as a feminist during the campaign:
Couric asked Palin whether she considers herself a feminist.“I do,” Palin said. “I’m a feminist who, uh, believes in equal rights and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway.
During the campaign, there was a fair amount of discussion about Todd Palin’s role in his wife’s gubernatorial administration. As Andrew Halcro lays out in his blog Shadow Governor?, Todd was involved in Alaskan state business in a variety of ways that he, frankly, should NOT have been.
Regarding the firing of Walt Monegan:
In the aftermath of the Walt Monegan firing, one question keeps surfacing over and over again; why does the governor’s husband, Todd Palin appear to hold so much power? […]The stories started last year when Representative Ralph Samuels told me about going into a meeting, he thought would be private, with Governor Sarah Palin. Much to his surprise, Todd Palin was there and proceeded to sit through the entire meeting.
Other lawmakers have shared similar stories and were shocked at how inappropriate Todd’s presence was at meetings with the governor.
Regarding the firing of Governor Palin’s former trusted advisor, John Bitney:
Bitney didn’t leave his post, he was unfairly and unceremoniously fired and even after serving as a loyal employee was never given an answer as to why he was dismissed by the governor.According to Bitney, “Todd’s words have so much weight”.
And, finally,
The most alarming indication of Todd Palin’s reach into state government came just yesterday.Last month, a group of Alaskans filed a freedom of information act for emails sent from the computers of both Frank Bailey and Ivey Frye. Along with several boxes of documents, they received a cover letter along with 78 pages detailing the emails that were not released due to “Deliberative Process and Executive Privilege”.
The serious concern about these emails is that they were prohibited from being released to the public due to executive privilege, even though Todd Palin was copied on these same emails.
Todd Palin is not a member of the executive branch, nor is he even a government employee. Todd Palin is a member of the general public.
Well, the involvement of Todd Palin into the political life of his wife apparently didn’t end when she was invited to be John McCain’s running mate. Here are a couple of examples of emails sent to campaign staffers. Note the cc: line.
So, what do you think? Was Michelle Obama copied on important internal campaign strategy discussions? How about Cindy McCain? Or Jill Biden? I’m thinking not.
Republicans, many of whom appear to worship or at least adore Sarah Palin, had their skivvies all up in a bunch when Hillary Clinton played a role in her husband’s administration. Although she was at least qualified, they felt she should be in the White House kitchen baking cookies rather than worrying her pretty little head about such important topics as universal health care coverage:
You know, I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was to fulfill my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.
— Hillary Clinton in a PBS interview, March 26, 1992
They derisively called the two of them “Billary”.
And now we have their idol, Sarah Palin, a self-declared feminist involving the First Gentleman “First Dude” “First Snowmobiler” in the running of the State of Alaska and her campaign to be the president of the United States. The man has no experience in governing. He’s an oilfield worker, fisherman, snowmobiler and moose hunter. Period. To the extent that he has any political history at all, it was as a member of the separatist Alaskan Independence Party that seeks to have Alaska secede from the USA and become its own country.
So why does Sarah Palin involve him in nearly everything she does? Why is this self-avowed feminist running everything by her husband?
Sarah Palin is no feminist. She never was and likely never will be. She’s a decent actress with a face for television but if she were truly independent and “equal”, she’d have a career that didn’t involve having her husband in on every detail. Todd Palin may be in the shadows but he’s playing a major role in his wife’s political career. There is no question about this given the information that has come out.
More and more I’m convinced that Sarah Palin is the pleasant face that fronts for a very unpleasant couple and their simplistic, radically-right wing worldview. Last year we dodged a bullet when we kept Sarah Palin and her right-wing separatist husband, the “First Snowmobiler”, in Wasilla, Alaska, far, far from the White House.
