Tonight NPR did a report on Anne Kilkenny, the Wasilla, AK, housewife who wrote the email about Sarah Palin that's gone viral. The NPR report refused to relate any of Kilkenny's substantive statements, other than saying they were critical, merely told the story of how the email came about, and the national response it's drawn. This is weakkneed, NPR should at least have noted that Kilkenny first locked horns with Palin when Mayor Palin tried to censor the library. The reason the email's getting around is it is so beautifully written, straightforward and factual. It is simply the best character portrait we've yet seen of Sarah Palin, from someone who knows her. At last we are getting some of the psychological depth that I had been hoping for.
The things that leap out:
Palin is a truly devoted hunter, and a political operator. She has no ideas at all, apart from a basic conservative program. She grapples on to ideas that will get her attention and funding. She opposed listing the polar bear as an endangered species, has doubted whether global warming is melting the ice cap. She is extremely wily and secretive. She refused to endorse her own mother-in-law when she ran for office. Kilkenny says the greatest political risk Palin took was taking on the head of a state oil and gas commission, on which she served, for ethical violations, and Kilkenny says Palin did it because she didn't want to do all the traveling the job required and wanted to quit. Men have voted for her because she's a babe (just what my chimney sweep told me this morning). No one knew she was pregnant for 7 months, and yes it's her baby, says Kilkenny. Makes me wonder whether she was thinking of other possible choices?
Just asked my wife whether Palin is going to be in our lives for the next 30 years. She shook her head, No. Hope she's right.
Palin sounds like a typical Republican politician.
And I don't, Phil, think Kilkenny's letter is "beautifully written." It is merely competent.
You have a chimney sweep?
Yeah. He lives in the chimney sweep quarters.
I suppose this is good info to have on Palin, but there is really nothing that couldn't just as easily be given a more sympathetic spin. And why didn't Kilkenny identify the titles involved in the library fracas? This seems pretty important. (My guess is that they're of the silly "Sally Has Two Moms" variety.)
Best read in conjunction with Gravel's piece in CounterPunch.
'You have a chimney sweep?'
Shay it ain't sho, Phil.
Does he call you 'guv'nor'?
For the hayseeds who dont know what a chimney sweep is for, allow me to enlighten you. :-)
If you have a real fireplace and chimney and you live in the woods, as Phil said he does, you need your chimney cleared out every two years, at least, to get rid of the soot. It can catch fire. Ditto if birds settle in during the summer months.
A chimney fire means your house burns down. Ever seen the movie Downdraft?
We nearly lost our family cottage by not knowing for ten years to hire a chimney sweep after we became heirs to the thing. It was only through a chance remark overheard by someone who makes his living cleaning chimneys with his son that we discovered the anomalies of our fireplace meant no one had cleaned it for a decade. (We had birds nesting on soot shelves, and the fire would smoke into the room.)
We, too, thought chimney sweeps were a 19th C fiction. When we saw what came out of the chimney and were shown how flammable it was, we felt really stupid.
does a nuke powered chimney require sweeping? if so how often? might want to consider.
The portrait of Palin in the email could equally describe most small-town conservative leaders across America.
In sum, it's that of a medieval-minded opportunist untroubled by reason or scruple who is set against modernity in all but its avenues for profit.
She'd fit in well on a Taliban council were it not for the cleavage. I still say she'll go over gangbusters in exurbia where books, banned or otherwise, are of little moment.
I wish we could read Palin's letter about her neighbor.
Hi Philip (author of this),
This is YOUR neighbor. I think you are an idiotic, left-wing nut job. You are also the biggest gossip in town. You spread more more lies and other CRAP about people than anyone I know. Just wanted you to know that we (your neighbors) do not like you either. You gonna send out my private emails too?