At 1:00 PM Eastern today, the state of Alaska released 24,199 pages of Sarah Palin’s government-related e-mails to a crowd of reporters waiting outside the state office building in Juneau. The e-mails cover the time period from the beginning of her term as Alaskan Governor in 2006 through September of the 2008 presidential campaign (stopping short of the actual election and her summer 2009 resignation from the governorship). Seventeen different media organizations and individuals each received five 50-pound boxes of printed out and partially redacted e-mails, both from her state e-mail account and e-mails from her private account to state employees.
Palin's political action committee issued a statement as the documents were released to the public.
"The thousands upon thousands of emails released today show a very engaged Gov. Sarah Palin being the CEO of her state," said the treasurer of SarahPAC, Tim Crawford. "The emails detail a governor hard at work. Everyone should read them."…
The state redacted more than 2,200 pages worth of materials, citing exemptions to public records laws including the privacy provision of the Alaska Constitution, attorney-client privilege, work product privilege and executive and deliberative process privileges.
On Fox News Sunday (starting at about 18:00), Sarah Palin recognized the imminent storm-weathering in her future but showed her resilience in shaking off the MSM's prolific attacks.
“No, because, you know, I think, every rock in the Palin household that could ever be kicked over and uncovered, anything, it’s already been kicked over. I don’t think there’s anything private in our family now. A lot of those e-mails obviously weren’t meant for public consumption. They’re between staff members. They’re probably between family members. So, you know what, I’m sure people are going to capitalize on this opportunity to go through 25,000 e-mails and perhaps take things out of context. They’ll never truly know what the context of each one of the e-mails one or each one of the issues were that I was working on that day, or in that time period, but, whatever, Chris. It’s like, nothing surprises me anymore. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing, I’m going to keep going forward with solutions that I want to see applied to this great country, the challenges that we’re facing. Things like that are going to be perhaps a distraction for others, they won’t distract me.”
As Elisabeth reported, the NYT and WaPo issued invitations to the general public to help them sift through the e-mails and nitpick at details in the epic quest to drag Sarah Palin through the dirt; basically, a big, enthusiastic, “Come join the witch-hunt!” Get ready for some hardcore pathetic Palin-bashing, people – updates surely to follow.
Update: The liberal blogs are already roiling. The Huffington Post has a live blog going, and the New York Times is still asking for readers to point out "items of interest" as the e-mails are being scanned into electronic form. Isn't this just so exciting?
Update II: The situation is escalating, pigs-at-the-trough style. So far, the subheadlines at HuffPo/NYT have read: "A Strained Relationship Revealed"; "We Didn't Eat the Moose Meat"; and "Palin Wanted a Tanning Bed in the Governor's House."
Update III: This one is just silly. In an NYT post entitled "Palin Praises Obama Energy Speech in 2008", the poster criticized Palin for having some praise for a couple items on Obama's gasoline agenda in 2008, but being a fierce critic of his overall energy policy in 2011:
The e-mail exchange could be seen evidence of the idea that Ms. Palin has become far more partisan in her view of Mr. Obama since her failed vice presidential run. But it also suggests that she was aware of the politics of issuing a statement supporting the Democratic presidential nominee.
Gasp! Ms. Palin refrained from intense criticism of Obama until after he was in office and we saw the effects of his policies? And she is aware of how she would be perceived politically if she... supported a Democratic candidate? The shame! The scandal!
The hits just keep on coming.