Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Sarah Palin and Book Banning

There is a list going around that purports to be the list of books Sarah Palin wanted to ban when she was the mayor of Wasilla. This list is bogus. For one thing it contains books that were not in print during this incident. For another details on what books Palin wanted to remove from the library are sketchy.

What is factual is that Sarah Palin asked the library the procedures for removing books from the Public Library, and the Librarian in charge refused. Shortly thereafter the librarian was fired. Those are the facts and even Republicans aren't really denying them.

Instead they are changing the terms of the debate - they will bring up the bogus list of books, for example and say imply that because that list is bogus, the whole issue is bogus. Or they will claim that Sarah Palin never actually censored a book. Which may be true; but she clearly intended to. And of course they will claim that Palin's attempt to fire the librarian had nothing to do with this incident. Community residents at the time clearly felt the two events were linked though.

For more information on this issue, check out this post at the Nation.

No comments: