Posted on 09/06/2008 9:36:28 PM PDT by freespirited
PALMER, Alaska — The liberal blogosphere was abuzz Friday with news that a friend of Sarah and Todd Palin had tried to seal his divorce records.
Surely, the Netroots speculated, that friend must be the unnamed business partner whom this week’s edition of the National Enquirer alleges — without proof so far — was romantically linked to Palin. The McCain campaign's characterization of the story as a "vicious lie" seemed to only fuel more speculation.
And then the moment of truth, as the motion to seal was denied.
The filings, housed in a district courthouse in this town about eight miles east of the Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, contained a lot of hot news — presuming, that is, you’re interested in the child-custody agreement reached by Scott Richter and his ex-wife Deborah Richter, or in the former couple's holdings, which include a recreational property that Scott owns with Sarah and Todd Palin.
That hasn’t stopped a stream of journalists and couriers from NBC, the Los Angeles Times, Court TV and other outlets (including this reporter, presently serving as Politico’s Alaska bureau) from making their way to the Palmer courthouse to photocopy, at 25 cents a page, the 75 or so pages in the Richters’ marriage dissolution file.
Hence, Scott Richter’s motion this week to seal the file, in which he wrote, “I am friends an [sic] landowners in a remote cabin property with [the Palins] and as her campaign moves forward, my phone #’s and addresses are being used thru this file to obtain unwanted contact daily. My cabin life and private life is extremely important to me and my young son, who find ourselves and our lives disrupted by such contact.”
The judge was not sympathetic, writing in a Thursday ruling “there is no legal basis for the request.”
(For the record, Richter, who valued the property he co-owns with the Palins at $12,000, did not return messages left by Politico Northwest at the phone numbers listed in the records.)
Those who couldn’t make it to the Palmer courthouse in person were out of luck for much of Friday, since the court’s website crashed from all the traffic directed to it by a link on Andrew Sullivan’s blog.
The Palin sleuthing in and around Wasilla is getting a little ridiculous, said T.C. Mitchell, an Anchorage Daily News reporter who covers Wasilla and Palmer and was waiting in the Palmer courthouse clerk’s office to make copies of the Richters’ file. He had been there earlier in the day and inspected the most pertinent parts, but wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a peripheral detail and get scooped by the suddenly ubiquitous national press.
Mitchell said the Daily News received a call from a media outlet seeking the rules of the Miss Wasilla Pageant, presumably to determine whether Palin cheated when she won it in 1984.
There’s a growing backlash in and around Wasilla to the prying of the national media into the life of their native daughter and her family.
As journalists from ABC News — and, of course, Politico — on Wednesday leafed through bound copies of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the local newspaper’s Wasilla office looking for a 1996 story detailing then-Mayor Palin’s conversations with the local librarian about censorship, Frontiersman reporter Michael Rovito said he was not going to write about the pregnancy of Palin’s 17-year-old daughter Bristol.
He and another local reporter swapped notes on all the media outlets bombarding them with Palin inquiries, including some from as far as France.
Though some folks in Wasilla brag about how many media calls they’ve gotten in much the same manner that delegates to the national conventions showed off pins they collected, most folks seem to welcome the attention about as much as Scott Richter.
Stopped outside Wasilla’s post office on a blustery afternoon this week, Cynthia Shoemaker said “people in Alaska want to give the national media a mouthful” for scrutinizing Palin’s background. “She answers to God, not reporters,” Shoemaker said.
I actually hope that she DID cheat in the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant and that it plasters the front page of the New York Times for 60 consecutive days.
At this point it’s comedy gold. Dick Morris has almost never been right from what I’ve seen of his election predictions but I do agree with him about this. If they keep this up they may cost him the election.
Can’t wait to see which one will be dinner for a bear.
We drove the AK Highway and it was gravel all the way. I was a child of 7. Two cars, two tents all the way to Tennessee. The media does not understand Alaska period.
Oh, for f***'s sake.
I have no idea what will happen, but it would not surprise me in the slightest if the enormous volume of garbage the press is producing on Palin will have the effect of turning the public against the press. This has been ridiculous for some time, and it grows more ridiculous by the day.
(Correction) I was a child of 7 siblings. Me being the baby.
The ol' Sarah Jessica Parker ploy.
I’m so sick of the Press on Palin! Snooping all over Alaska, digging into every decision she’s ever made. Reporting about every cent Wasilla or Alaska has received from Wash DC. Talking about her daughter, brother-in-law, special needs child...cheating in a beauty contest?
Somebody name me ONE reporter who went to Delaware after Biden was nominated! Have they dug into all his votes, how much Federal money Delaware has received? Do we know anything about his wife,kids or grandchildren? Has anyone interviewed his Amtrak seat mate?
Some would say that Biden is already known. I say, who the hell knows Biden outside of Delaware? Just because he’s on the Sunday morning talk show circuit doesn’t mean America knows him. MOST Americans go to church or go out with their families on Sundays. They don’t stay home and watch TV.
The real story here, is the Media thinking because they know Biden, everyone else does and so they did NO investigative reporting on him as they are doing on PALIN.
And don’t forget to wear your little bells.
The answers to all your questions can be found in Borrow.
It works for baiting crab pots if you cut it up small and let it ferment a couple of days. But for bears you want to keep them alive. The screaming attracts those big browns. ;^)
Someone always has to post a pic of Helen Thomas.
If they don’t get a grip, those reporters better start watching their collective back-sides. Running your mouth off in the bush can be a dangerous past-time. Lots of country up there you can get lost in.
There’s a growing backlash in and around Wasilla to the prying of the national media into the life of their native daughter and her family.
***Good. That means they’ll be sending some reporters on wild goose chases. If there’s any Alaskans from Wasilla freeping, try to get the editor’s name and number so that we can call that editor & ask why they’re not vetting Obama.
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