I wrote a pretty scathing article about Sarah Palin a few days back, accusing her of trying to have books banned. According to this article on FactCheck.org, claims about "book banning" are exaggerated.
I don’t claim to know everything, and I did the best job I could checking the facts for myself before I posted. Still, the articles I sited, though factual, seem to have put a decidedly anti-Palin "spin" on the facts without actually lying.
This is important: Sarah Palin never banned any books, and it was inaccurate of me to suggest that she did. If I blame my sources, that only partially exonerates me on this. I can only point out that I did not say that she banned books, I said that she tried to ban books; but even this was in error. She merely asked about the possibility of banning books. (And that fact by itself is plenty chilling.)
What we call "news" is like that these days; on the one hand, you have Fox News, spinning everything to the right, and on the other you have MSNBC doing the same thing to the left. (I should say that I do not mean to imply that MSNBC is as bad about telling the truth as Fox; Fox is truly in a class by itself and when the truth won’t spin, they lie. I’ve never caught, or heard of, MSNBC doing that. But I digress.)
Another problem is when news magazines and papers, unable to contact any better source, simply quote other magazines or papers who may or may not have their facts straight, and then go on to be quoted in yet more magazines and papers. This appears to have happened with the Time article that I quoted in my article; it said that the librarian "...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." (Full article.)
Looking for the truth ain’t easy, what with most of the available sources spinning one way or the other and others unwittingly telling each other’s lies.
(The Palin article on FactCheck also debunks claims that Palin cut funds for "special needs" kids in Alaska [she didn't], that she was a member of the separatist Alaskan Independence Party (she wasn't), that she supported Pat Buchanan for President [nope], and that she tried to bring Creationism into the curriculum of Alaskan public schools [not this one either]. These claims are all false. Spreading lies serves no one, especially when there’s enough on Sarah Palin for liberals to feed upon for a lifetime.)
As for Sarah Palin, I sincerely apologize for saying that she tried to ban books; it appears that she didn’t. But she was certainly thinking about banning books; one wonders what would have happened if that librarian had answered "I’m fine with that." That question remains...and in my mind it’s still enough to preclude her from the office of Vice President.
I’m going to close this by quoting myself:
"As I said, I find banning books to be un-American. If Sarah Palin tried to have books banned, then she is un-American; too un-American for me to consider her for the job of Vice President. But notice I said "if.." Since I was unable to find a true list of the books involved, if indeed such a list exists, I can’t say whether or not there were any "extenuating circumstances" in this case.... But without such details I have to judge the story on what we actually know: that Sarah Palin wanted to ban books.
"Bad, bad Sarah."
The Blues Viking
Links from the original post:
The original article in Time
Confirmation from the Anchorage Daily News
The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.
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