Over the last two weeks, a vicious smear has spread across liberal outlets and blogs into the mainstream media that as the Mayor of Wasilla, Governor Palin banned several books from the Wasilla City Library. This smear is categorically false and has no basis in fact. It is an urban myth — nothing more. Then-Mayor Palin never asked anyone to ban a book and not one book was ever banned, period.
Please find the facts below: (http://thepage.time.com/mccain-memo-on-palin-and-library-books/)
· As Mayor, Palin never asked to ban a book and no books were ever banned from the Wasilla Library, period. According to the Chairwoman of the Alaska Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee since 1984, there are no records of any books being banned in Wasilla. As the Chairwoman told the Anchorage Daily News this month, she has no record or recollection of discussing threats of censorship with the Wasilla Library Director — who was also the President of the Alaska Library Association at the time.
· When first elected, Mayor Palin asked a rhetorical question of the Wasilla Library Director about the library’s book-challenge policy. It was a rhetorical question — nothing more. As Mayor Palin said at the time, she was merely asking questions about administration policies (the book-challenge policy being pertinent because of the local debate at the time) and that she had no materials in mind when she asked the questions. After these rhetorical questions, no other action was ever taken by her office.
· When Mayor Palin asked these rhetorical questions, Wasilla’s Library Director was working to update the city’s book-challenge policy, and these issues were part of the local debate in the early 1990s — including a contentious book-challenge in Wasilla in 1995. It should not be surprising that the Mayor of Wasilla would ask questions about a policy one of her department heads was working to update. As was reported at the time, “The timing of the issue comes at a time when [the Wasilla Library Director] is trying to get the book-challenge policies of the Wasilla Library and of the Palmer City Library in line with the Mat-Su Borough policy, revised in December of last year.” As the city’s executive, it was only responsible for Mayor Palin to ask about library policies. At the time, the area around Wasilla was engaged in a local debate concerning challenges to books at libraries and the Wasilla library was in the process of reevaluating its book-challenge policy. As the Wasilla Librarian said in 1996, the Wasilla Library did have a book-challenge policy that had been tested in 1995 — before Palin became Mayor.
· Mayor Palin NEVER mentioned any specific books — contrary to the smear emails circulating around the Internet. In the past few days, several reporters have presented the McCain-Palin campaign with lists of books that Mayor Palin supposedly sought to ban. These lists are clearly drawn from smear websites as they are factually inaccurate. For example, one list shown to the campaign by a mainstream news outlet listed the Harry Potter books as supposedly banned by Governor Palin in Wasilla. However, the timing shows this to be completely false: Governor Palin’s involvement in this issue occurred in 1996 and the first Harry Potter book was not published in the United States until 1998.
· Upon taking office, Mayor Palin did ask for several department heads to resign — including the librarian. This was in no way related to Mayor Palin’s rhetorical questions because the librarian ultimately retained her position. The resignations requests were nothing more than Mayor Palin taking over as the city’s chief executive and seeking to have department heads in place who supported her agenda in Wasilla
This New York Times article suggested this book banner situation on September 3rd:
"...Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.
Anne Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.
The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.
In 1996, Ms. Palin suggested to the local paper, The Frontiersman, that the conversations about banning books were “rhetorical.”
Ms. Emmons was not the only employee to leave..." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/us/politics/03wasilla.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=palin%20book%20ban&st=cse&oref=slogin
Also, Obama's official website had a blog chat thread going about this; it seemed like by posting this supposed rumor, it did nothing more than make obama look bad.
Here's one of the last comments posted: By Moonbat from Cincinnati, OH Today at 11:00 am EDT (Updated Today at 11:00 am EDT)
" This is on Obama's official website?
You guys keep doing more and more to fire up the Right, and it's going to come back and haunt you come
election day.
You don't even realize what you're doing. Smart thing would be to sit down and shut up.
But that's not how you do it. You need lies because your candidate is a puppet."
check out supposed banned books list:
http://www.adlerbooks.com/banned.html
WHat do you think??
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