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My Take on Sarah Palin

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Message Anne Kilkenny
Hello,

Thank you for emailing me with your thoughts and questions about Sarah Palin.  Some of you have waited for AGES for my reply; I apologize for my slow response, but I have received over 13,600 emails and I have just not been able to keep up!  I apologize for the length of this email, but there’s no way I can individually respond to all 13,600 emails with personalized replies.

Who am I?
I am a real person.  Since the beginning of September you might have seen me on NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams, the Today Show, and Good Morning, America.  You also might have heard me on NPR,  ARS Pacifica, and several satelite radio programs.

I am the writer of an email dated 8/31/08  about Sarah Palin that “went viral”.  SOME PEOPLE HAVE RECENTLY RECEIVED A DISTORTED, EDITED VERSION OF THIS EMAIL.  I urge you to go to the website listed below to see what I actually wrote and confirmation that I am who I say I am  (with an addendum I wrote on Sept 9th), or see below (and get a clean copy of it).

http://community.adn.com/adn/node/130537.

On Sept 4th, I asked the Anchorage Daily News if they would post on their website my original email.  I asked them to do this for several reasons:  1)  they are the largest newspaper in Alaska, 2)  they are not aligned with either party, 3)  I was being told that people were changing what I wrote,  and 4) --importantly--they know me.  When I go to City Council meetings there is always a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News there; they can verify that I am a resident of Wasilla and frequently to go City Council and other meetings.

IF YOU GO TO SNOPES.com you will see that they have updated their report and apologized to me.

I HAVE NEVER BLOGGED.  I DO NOT HAVE A WEBSITE.  If you find other things with my name attached, it is campaign dirty tricks.

I am not working for either campaign, however, by now I assume they both are aware of my letter.  I am not an official spokesperson for any group.  Nobody connected with either campaign suggested that I write my email, nobody has paid me, and nobody has asked me to stop answering my email.  Sitting next to my keyboard as I type, however, is the most beautiful bouquet of flowers which were sent to me by a total stranger in Conneticut in appreciation for the time I put into writing it!

I am a fiscal conservative and social liberal.  I believe that government serves an important function in society: doing for the common good what individuals and the private sector cannot.  Primary government responsibilities include infrastructure and guardianship of our rights.  I always vote.  My commitment to my family has precluded me from running for office until my family is grown.

How & why did I write my email?
My piece about Sarah Palin evolved over a 3 day period in response to questions I got from friends and relatives who live outside Alaska.  By the afternoon of the 3rd day I was getting replies from friends of friends of friends--in other words, people who didn't know me--and they were asking "Who are you?"  and "Why did you write this?", so I added those sections to my email and then sent it out to about 30 people on my email list with whom I had not yet communicated.  Within a couple of hours a friend of a friend of a friend posted it AGAINST MY WISHES on a website. From there, it was posted on numerous other websites.

I had no idea it would "go viral".  For years, I had drafted PTA newsletters that went electronically to hundreds of people, and THEY never went viral!  In fact, I have reason to believe most of the time they weren’t even read! ha!

Some people have picked up on my anger, but most are mistaken as to its cause.  I am as frustrated as anyone about the incessant “spin” and “image control” that permeates our campaigns.  What gets me is when people claim to be or are portrayed as something that they aren’t!

How do I know anything?
I have been a Wasilla resident since 1981. I went to many City Council meetings because in 1996-7 I was the author of a new chapter in the city of Wasilla Municipal Code, and it took a year to shepherd this new code through the City Council.  (It passed unanimously).  After that, I went to meetings periodically:  when there was something on the agenda of interest to me and around election-time.

How can you verify the truth of what I wrote?
Many people have asked me if what I have written is true. Your request for facts to check is appropriate and fair, however with over 13,600 emails to answer, I do not have the time to supply all the information you would need to substantiate everything I have written.  I have become aware of some factual, grammatical, and personal errors, but none of these errors substantially change what I wrote.  These errors are addressed in the addendum to my email which is posted on the Anchorage Daily News website referenced above and is included below

I have been interviewed by many newspapers, and NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN (but not FOX).  I have supplied them with all the names of the individuals involved, etc. so they could fact-check what I wrote.  I suggest that you go to the following sites to check out what  the mainstream media has reported on so far.  I am so impressed with the reporters I’ve met; they are literally working around the clock to get to get up to speed  and to prove/disprove the things I wrote about.

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Anne Kilkenny is a long-time resident of Wasilla, Alaska, and the author of a far-flung email about Sarah Palin.
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