The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin (13 page)

Sarah was outraged that the library had a copy and she told Emmons she wanted it removed. Emmons brought a copy to the next council meeting and suggested that Sarah look at it. Averting her eyes and pushing it away, Sarah said, “I don’t need to read that kind of stuff.”

Wasilla’s evangelicals already had an ad hoc censorship mechanism in place: They would scour the library shelves looking for materials they considered objectionable. Then they would check the books out, sometimes returning them with pages torn out and other offensive passages blacked out with Magic Marker, and sometimes not returning them at all.

This informal policing was not good enough for Sarah. Within days of her election, even before assuming office, she told Emmons she expected cooperation in censoring books that some Wasillans found objectionable. Emmons said she opposed censorship in any form and would not remove books because of citizen complaints.

Sarah raised the issue again at the close of a city council meeting on October 28, a few days after she’d requested letters of resignation from all department heads. She said there were books in the library
that should not be there. “What would your response be if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?” Sarah asked. Emmons, who in addition to being Wasilla librarian was president of the Alaska Library Association, said she would refuse.

“So you would object to my censorship?”

“Yup,” Emmons replied, “and it wouldn’t be just me. It would be a constitutional question, and the ACLU would probably get involved.”

“But suppose people were circling the library protesting about a book?”

“I will fight anyone who tries to dictate what books can go on the library shelves,” Emmons said. “And if people are circling the library in protest, then the ACLU would definitely get involved.”

For Sarah, the issue was far from hypothetical.
Daddy’s Roommate
had been bad enough, but that was only a picture book for preschoolers. Now a more dangerous threat lurked:
Pastor, I Am Gay
by Howard Bess, pastor of the American Baptist Church of the Covenant in Palmer.

Bess was a leader of the pro-choice movement that had successfully sued to force Valley Medical Center to continue to perform legal abortions. A graduate of Wheaton, the Christian liberal arts college in Illinois, he came to the Valley in the mideighties after his uncompromising support of gay rights wore out his welcome even in Santa Barbara, California.

Bess was a happily married heterosexual and the father of three grown children, one of whom was head of the graduate school of architecture at Notre Dame. He began to focus on the difficulties of gays in Christian churches in the 1970s, after a member of his Santa Barbara congregation came to him and revealed his anguish as a closeted gay man and a Christian. Bess’s thinking evolved to the point where, in
Pastor, I Am Gay
, he posited a special position for gays in the Christian hierarchy: “Look back at the life of our Lord Jesus. He was misunderstood, deserted, unjustly accused, and cruelly killed. Yet
we all confess that it was the will of God, for by his wounds we are healed … Could it be that the homosexual, obedient to the will of God, might be the church’s modern day healer-messiah?”

That kind of talk didn’t go over well at the Assembly of God or Wasilla Bible Church or, in fact, at any other church in the Valley. Homosexuality was a perversion and gays were evil, seeking to undermine the moral fabric that—along with military might—made America such an exceptional nation.

For seven years Bess wrote a weekly column for the
Frontiersman
. When the book was published, in 1995, they fired him. In addition, they printed a cartoon of a church with a sign in front that said:
WASILLA CHURCH OF THE COVENANT, HOWARD BESS, PASTOR. ALL SINNERS WELCOME. BIBLE INTERPRETATIONS TO SUIT YOUR “LIFESTYLE.”
Standing next to the sign was a grotesquely ugly, drooling man holding a little girl’s doll in his hand, saying to himself, “Hmmm … They welcome gays—how about pedophiles?” Perhaps embarrassed by it today, the
Frontiersman
was not willing to make a priority of my request for permission to reprint the cartoon.

Waldenbooks, the only full-service bookstore in Wasilla, refused to stock
Pastor, I Am Gay
. One Saturday, Bess rented space in the mall corridor outside their doors and sold more than a hundred copies.

Although Sarah never mentioned by name any of the titles she wanted banned from the Wasilla library, Emmons and many others knew that
Pastor, I Am Gay
was at the top of her hit list. In a mid-December interview with the
Frontiersman
, Emmons said it didn’t matter what books Sarah had in mind. “The free exchange of information is my main job and I’ll fight anyone who tries to interfere with that,” she said.

It would soon become apparent that Sarah wanted to rid herself of Emmons almost as much as she wanted to dispose of Stambaugh.

SHE STARTED in on Stambaugh again the week before Christmas. She sent him a memo saying his officers were not friendly enough while on patrol. “Most businesses would enjoy having them stop in, visit with patrons, drink a cup of coffee, eat a meal, in general spread some sense of belonging and real down-home community,” she wrote. The fact that she put this in writing suggested that, despite what she told him to his face, she was laying the groundwork for his dismissal.

She sent another note to all department heads on December 26. “What a wonderful time of year! As we enter 1997, let’s take this opportunity to start the new year off on a positive note.” Henceforth, she wrote, she expected weekly reports from each department head, with “at least two positive examples of work that was started, how we helped the public, how we saved the City money, how we helped the state, how we helped Uncle Sam, how we made operations run smoother, or safer, or more efficient. Please use numbers when appropriate.”

She made it clear she wanted only good news. “I believe if we look for the positive, that is what we will ultimately find,” she wrote. “Wasilla has tremendous assets and opportunities and we can all choose to be a part of contributing to the improvement of our community … or not. I encourage you to choose the prior because the train is a’moving forward!”

Stambaugh tried to comply with Sarah’s demand for “good news” bulletins. His first weekly report, delivered in January, said that his officers had “assisted 14 individuals by giving them rides or helping them with their vehicles during the cold spell we experienced,” and that “Officer Sonerholm was able to return to full duty—even though he is still having some problems with his knee.”

This was apparently not cheery enough. Stambaugh was at his desk on the afternoon of January 30, 1997, when John Cramer handed him an envelope. Inside was Palin’s notification that he was fired, effective in two weeks.

Cramer dropped a similar letter on the desk of librarian Emmons.
She was shocked. Both she and Stambaugh had supported Stein’s reelection bid, but, as she told the
Frontiersman
, “After the initial roller coaster, we were ready to work for Mayor Palin. I think we were both fired for politics.”

At first Sarah denied that politics had any part in the firings, but declined to go into detail. “I’m going to get myself in trouble if I keep talking about it,” she said to the
Frontiersman
. Then she denied that she’d even fired them. “There’s been no meeting, no actual terminations,” she said.

Stambaugh pointed out that his letter said, “Although I appreciate your service as police chief, I’ve decided it’s time for a change. I do not feel I have your full support in my efforts to govern the city of Wasilla. Therefore I intend to terminate your employment.…”

“If that’s not a letter of termination, I don’t know what is,” Stambaugh said.

After meeting with Stambaugh and Emmons the next day, Sarah announced that she’d changed her mind about Emmons, saying that the librarian supported Sarah’s intention to merge the library and museums into a single operation. She didn’t mention the issue of banning books. As for Stambaugh, Sarah said only, “You know in your heart when someone is supportive of you.”

Nick Carney had had enough. After receiving calls at home from irate constituents, he said there might be no alternative to a recall petition. “I’ve been telling people to hold off,” he said to the
Frontiersman
, “but now all bets are off.”

On February 7, Concerned Citizens for Wasilla, a group headed by Carney, met to discuss a recall motion. About seventy people showed up. The meeting was typical Wasilla. As the
Anchorage Daily News
reported, there were “two hours of sometimes raucous debate, which was occasionally interrupted by an incoherent man in his socks threatening to sue Carr’s [supermarket] and the local fire marshal.” In the end, the group decided to wait on a recall until after Sarah had
had the chance to respond directly to their concerns. They developed a list of twenty-five questions and asked the mayor to meet with them within two weeks.

She had no intention of doing so. She said her critics were “the same few disgruntled citizens” who had always opposed her, and added, “I don’t remember any past mayors having to face a firing squad.”

By now the
Frontiersman
was in high dudgeon. “Palin seems to have assumed her election was instead a coronation,” one editorial read,

The deputy administrator, John Cramer, advised the Concerned Citizens that they could fax their questions to city hall. The
Frontiersman
noted that Sarah “doesn’t intend to face the hostile group,” adding that “Palin continues to lose public faith sticking by her philosophy that either we are with her or against her.” An editorial said, “Wasilla is led by a woman who will tolerate no one who questions her actions or her authority.”

It also said, “Mayor Palin fails to have a firm grasp of something very simple: the truth.”

Recalling those days, a former city employee told me in 2010, “Sarah Palin ruined the lives of many dedicated, hardworking people who loved the city of Wasilla. There were … houses lost and families separated as wage earners had to leave Wasilla to make a living. She had no sympathy for those families; there was no Christian charity on her part.”

IN JANUARY 2011 I spoke to someone who offered a different perspective on Sarah’s early days as mayor. Soon after her election, Sarah approached a woman named Catherine Mormile in Carrs supermarket. Mormile was a forty-three-year-old physical therapist who lived about fifteen miles west of Wasilla, beyond Settlers Bay on Knik-Goose Bay Road.

In 1991, Mormile had finished fifty-eighth in the Iditarod, Alaska’s most famous sporting event. Competing again three years later, she almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning when she and three other mushers were stricken by exposure to toxic fumes from a propane heater installed inside an airtight tent used as a rest stop along the trail. Mormile suffered significant brain damage, from which she was still recovering in 1996. She’d angered members of Alaska’s close-knit dog-mushing community by filing suit against the Iditarod in 1995. As her suit proceeded through the legal system, Mormile found herself shunned and reviled in Wasilla. It was during this darkest period of her life that she met Sarah.

“I felt this little hand on my shoulder,” Mormile told me, “and I turned around and there was a woman smiling at me. ‘You don’t know me,’ she said, ‘but you’re my hero. You’re the strongest, bravest person I know. Your courage is an inspiration to me. I wish I could be like you.’ Then she walked away and said, kind of over her shoulder, ‘By the way, I’m Sarah Palin.’

“I was hooked. I went home and told my husband, ‘I’ve just met the most wonderful woman: Sarah Palin, the new mayor.’ ”

Sarah approached Mormile several more times over the next few months. “She’d say, ‘Remember me? I’m Sarah. Is there anything I can do for you? I want to help. Just know that I’m here for you, whatever you need. You’re my hero and my role model. I wish I could do what you’ve done.’ ”

Mormile was a Republican, like Sarah. The two women began to attend meetings of the Mat-Su Women’s Republican Club together. Almost everywhere else in Wasilla, Mormile remained an outcast, so Sarah’s support was something she cherished and felt strengthened by at the time.

Later, in retrospect, she would view it in a very different light.

N
ANCY CAME to Alaska with me in the winter of 1975—when Sarah Palin was twelve years old—and became an award-winning reporter for the
Anchorage Daily News
while I researched
Going to Extremes
throughout the following year.

On her twenty-ninth birthday, September 8, 1976, we awakened in our tent near Wonder Lake, in Denali National Park, to find our drinking water frozen and our butane cooking stove needing to warm in the sun before it would ignite.

A couple of hours later, hiking in open country on a bright, clear day, and having walked past several piles of still-steaming, berry-rich bear skat, Nancy saw what looked like a boulder rolling downhill in our direction.