Sarah Palin may be “good-looking in that librarian-with-glasses style” (according to Margery Eagan of the Boston Herald), but as it turns out, the Republican vice presidential nominee has some serious philosophical differences with the ladies (and gentlemen) to whom she is compared.
Way back in 1996, when Palin took over as the mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, she broached the subject of banning books with the town librarian.
According to a recent article in the Anchorage Daily News,
In December 1996, Emmons [the town librarian] told her hometown newspaper, the Frontiersman, that Palin three times asked her — starting before she was sworn in — about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose.
Emmons told the Frontiersman she flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship.
Within a couple months of these exchanges, Emmons
got a letter from Palin telling her she was going to be fired. The censorship issue was not mentioned as a reason for the firing. The letter just said the new mayor felt Emmons didn’t fully support her and had to go.
Emmons had been city librarian for seven years and was well liked. After a wave of public support for her, Palin relented and let Emmons keep her job.
In fairness to Palin, there is no record of any books actually being banned in Wasilla during her term as mayor, and she referred to her questions on the topic as being merely “rhetorical.”
That being said, the frequency with which Palin brought up the subject of banning books suggests she had more in mind than participating in an innocuous intellectual discussion.
Just in case you needed another reason to be nervous about the prospect of a McCain/Palin administration…
Tags: Banning Books, Books, Censorship, Public Libraries, Sarah Palin
September 6, 2008 at 7:55 pm
This is her “experience” – using her power as a bully pulpit to push around independent-minded individuals and in so doing, narrow the world for everyone affected. It’s sad.