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UCLA Newsroom > Election Blog

Anatomy of a bogus email

September 8, 2008 | 8:34 PMMark A. R. Kleiman
The text below seems to be going around as a chain email. (It's also picking up some website mentions.) I got it from someone I've never heard of, who had gotten it from someone else and forwarded it to an email list.
 
The following is a list of books that Sarah Palin tried to get banned when she was mayor of Wasilla. I am not sure that Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou and Geofrey Chaucer would be considered dangerous to children. Judy Blume give me a break. Harry Potter, who is kidding who. I also fail to see why Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff should be banned.
 
This information is taken from the official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board.
When the librarian refused to ban the books, Palin tried to get her fired.
 
There follows a long list including the usual suspects (Lady Chatterly, Catcher in the Rye, Heather Has Two Mommies, HuckleberryFinn) and the first four Harry Potter books.
 
Now shall we count up all the ways this has to be fraudulent?
 
1. It has no source. "The official minutes of the Wasilla Library Board" is a typical viral-nonsense pseudo-source. A real record would have a date, and perhaps a list of board members. It would also come from someplace (e.g., a newspaper) or have the name of the person who claims to have seen the original record, with some explanation of how.
 
2. "Official" sets off alarm bells; what other sorts of minutes are there? Is there actually a "Wassila Library Board"? If there is, it doesn't show up on the city's website. There's a "Library Steering Committee," a temporary outfit with only advisory functions; there's a non-profit group called "Friends of the Wassila Library;" it has a board, but no official power. That's not proof positive that there was no board from 1996 to 2004 when Sarah Palin was Mayor, but it sure raises some doubt.
 
3. Another warning bell: the existence of a list seems inconsistent with the news stories about Mayor Palin's asking the head of the library about banning books, which claim that the inquiry was general and never got around to specific books. Again, not an air-tight case, but by now your fraud antennae should be humming.
 
4. Those stories do, however give us a date: around 1996, when Palin was first elected. And that, in turn, gives us a smoking gun: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was first published in 2000.
 
Next!
 
I think it's reasonably likely that Palin asked her library director about banning books, either because she meant it or because she was looking for an excuse to fire the library director. It's not impossible (though I'd count it pretty unlikely) that some books were actually banned, perhaps after that director quit and a successor was put in place. But by mentioning the threat to fire the original library director around 1996 and a book that wasn't published until 2000 as parts of a single narrative, the document convicts itself of aggravated bogosity.
 
Whether this is a sincere-but-stupid attempt to discredit Palin, or instead a sophisticated attempt to discredit attacks on Palin, it deserves zero credence. If you get, it, I urge you to do what I did: send it back to every email address that comes with it, recipients as well as sources, explain how you know it's b.s., and urge the senders to relay the word back up the chain.
 
It looks as if the Obama campaign is going to focus on Palin's false claims about pork in general and the Bridge to Nowhere in particular. Even Fox News seems to have gotten tired of retailing the McCain/Palin lies about the Bridge to Nowhere, though the McCain campaign is still pushing the story.
 
That, and Troopergate, and Palin's record of profligacy as mayor, and her wingnut political positions, and her ignorance of national issues are all good talking points. She's a target-rich environment; even putting the ethics of the problem to one side (which I'd be loath to do), it's clear that the banned-books story is one of the decoys.
Permalink
 
On-topic comments that add to the discussion are welcome. Please respect each other and the forum by using your real name and a civil tone. Spam and comments judged by UCLA to be libelous, offensive or abusive may be deleted without notice

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