Yesterday became Political Nerd Christmas as a trove of 14,482 of Sarah Palin's emails totaling more than 24,000 pages were released almost 3 years after they were first requested, when she was tapped by John "Country First" McCain to be his VP candidate. The emails are from the first 21 months of Palin's time as governor, do not include her final 10 months (those also have been requested) and 953 have been redacted altogether. While the emails are riddled with typos (whose aren't?), exclamation points, and folksy substitutions for curse words ("holy flipping crap") they are largely lacking in surprises. This hilarious graphic from the Guardian tells the tale:
SarahPAC's treasurer says that "the emails detail a governor hard at work," but mostly they chart Palin's transformation from a relatively unknown governor of a small state to a Tea Party darling and long-shot savior of the 2008 presidential ticket. When McCain asked her to run, she seemed as shocked as the rest of the country, emailing one staffer "Can you believe it! He told me yesterday—it moved fast! Pray! I love you!"
But with international attention comes the sort of scrutiny that the Palins had never experienced before. One incoming email asked her about the $35,000 tanning bed the family had installed, and if it was true that she believed "dinosaurs and humans co-existed at one time." Venting to her staff, Palin wrote "Arghhh! I am so sorry that the office is swamped like this! Dinosaurs even?!" She was also subject to rumors of affairs and the "real" parentage of her youngest children, so much so that she wrote "Guys, I may be pretty wimpy about this family stuff, but I feel I'm at the breaking point with the hurtful gossip about my family…I hate this part of the job and many days I feel like it's not worth it when they have to put up with the hate that spews."
Not that Palin didn't talk trash too. Regarding her "negative experience" at a photo shoot for Vogue magazine, Palin tried to backpedal with damage control, asking a staffer to "call her/them and reiterate that it was an honour to get to participate in this, maybe that could un-dosome damage." Palin was also determined to fight against the Troopergate email probe, demanding to know "who, when, etc conducted this search of my bedroom’s computer and the other house computer?”
The Washington Post has the entire database of emails online, and this nifty Guardian feature just takes you to a random one. In the poetic vein of our Anthony Weiner haikus, we'll leave you with this fantastic poem written to Palin by a fan that she felt was good enough to forward to her team:
Her beauty’s said to mesmerize
It clouds the brains of all the guys.
The chicks say that’s a bunch of bunk,
But First Dude… He’s a Super HUNK!
A view so fresh that none would try,
‘Less they went to Wasilla High!
Her style of playing Politics
Is sort of like a Braxton Hicks….
It fakes you out and hurts like hell…
But in the end, it comes out well.
Until her term comes to an end,
There is nothing that she can’t transcend.
