The state of Alaska has finally released more than 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin emails from when she was governor. The emails were handed out to media outlets as over 600 pounds of printed photocopies for $725 each. We love the irony in this Internet age that 21 months worth of Sarah Palin emails were only provided as hard print copy.
Of course, only giving reporters a hard copy of the Sarah Palin emails makes it a lot more difficult for them to search the documents for interesting tidbits. Several media organizations have enlisted the help of regular citizens to pitch in and review the emails or assist in translating them to electronic form. Can you imagine having to go through 24,000 pages of photocopied emails? Ouch!
Although it sounds like a ton of possibly juicy source material for greedy journalists, we’re betting that in the end there won’t be anything that extremely provocative to be found in Sarah Palin’s emails. The state of Alaska redacted quite a few emails and simply refused to release others. The list of what the state of Alaska did not feel the public had the right to see was 189 pages long all by itself!
Sarah Palin emails judged not fit for public consumption include ‘privacy’ protected communications under the Alaska Constitution, attorney-client protected discussions about such issues as “legal advice on petroleum profits tax” and ‘executive/deliberative process’ emails an email about “re. potential cuts to governor’s staff” for example. Quite a few of these emails included her husband, Todd Palin, and/or attorney as one of the people in the loop.
Palin’s attorneys reportedly were allowed to review all all the emails before they were released, although they allegedly did not ask for anything additional to be redacted or withheld.
In addition, the state did not release emails from Sarah Palin’s term as governor from September 2008 until she suddenly resigned her position in the summer of 2009. The state claims it has not finished reviewing those emails and has not said when they might be released. Palin was also known to use private email accounts during her term as governor. Palin allegedly “gave the state a CD with emails from her Yahoo account” but it is unclear how much of those emails will ever make their way to the public.
Sarah Palin told Fox News that she has no problem with the mass email release because her term in office has been gone over in detail already. However, she did hedge a bit by saying “a lot of those emails obviously weren’t meant for public consumption” and some statements in them could be taken out of context.
You might have thought that Tina Fey‘s impersonation of Sarah Palin would have brought her show 30 Rock nothing but positive attention, but Fey seems to think that exactly the opposite is true. Â In her new book, Bossypants, Fey says she believes that by poking fun at the Palin family, she actually hurt 30 Rock’s chances of becoming more successful.
Joan Rivers, who was booked on Fox to promote her upcoming television series, found her spot suddenly and suspiciously canceled after she made some less-than-complimentary remarks about Sarah Palin. Â Fox claims that the cancelation was a simple mistake, but Rivers isn’t buying that story – she says that she’s paying the price for crossing one of Fox’s most important assets.
There’s a lot of debate right now as to whether Sarah Palin’s Alaska will be coming back for a second season, and because the answer is definitely leaning toward “no,” sources are saying this means that Palin has chosen politics over a likely more lucrative career as a television spokesperson. Â The show has been very popular, and TLC would happily renew the contract if Palin were to decide to continue.
Barbara Walters has announced nine of her “Ten Most Fascinating People” for 2010, and the names on it, with a couple of exceptions, are enough to make you wonder if Walters has succumbed to a sudden bout of dementia.
Suspicion and anger are growing as to why Bristol Palin continues to remain a contender on Dancing with the Stars, despite the fact that she’s a terrible dancer and is consistently given the lowest scores every week. Â Palin is still in the running to win the entire competition, a prospect which some say is due to her mother pulling some strings.
There seems to be some confusion over the cause of some off-camera booing that happened on Dancing with the Stars last night.  After Jennifer Grey and Derek Hough finished their dance and retired to the dancers’ lounge to speak with Brooke Burke about their performance, booing was heard from the direction of the auditorium… which was where host Tom Bergeron was setting up to interview Sarah Palin, who was there to support her daughter, Bristol Palin.  Questions about the booing were neatly side-stepped, leading many viewers to believe that Palin had been the target of the vitriol.  ABC executives claim that the audience were simply reacting to unpopular scores given by the judges, and that Palin had nothing to do with the booing.  When the interview with Sarah Palin actually started, the audience had settled down and clapped politely.  If they were booing Sarah Palin, why wouldn’t they keep booing when she was actually on camera?