Again, we are not using the same evidenciary standards to “prove” an allegation as in a court of law. In many cases it would be appropriate to downplay non-airtight allegations that don’t have a very good chance of being true, but in this case, most of the data points are true, the only thing questionable is what sort of censorship she was planning on implementing. Looking at the track record of censorship it is only logical to conclude that she mostly likely was planning on banning one of the widely-read, widely-carried, and widely-challenged books of the sort in the top 10 lists given in this thread, and refusal to rebut this only makes it more likely.
After all, it would be political gold to take an easy anti-NAMBLA stance if those were the sort of books she disliked having in the library.
Granted it is different than a typical job interview. However, the political opponents are the ones keeping the other side honest. If there was no opponent to ask the hard question and point out issues a given party/politician cannot be trusted to hire the “best” candidate. It is in their interest to hire for loyalty or political expediency or to hand out favors (see Bush & Co. for a prime example).
Unfortunately opponents tend to throw everything and the kitchen sink at each other and legitimate questions can get lost in the barrage of irrelevancies. Naturally, as you mentioned, it is not in a candidate’s interest to jump to every accusation and only the ones that stick must they deal with regardless of the underlying truth.
I am with others here though in deeming book banning to be repugnant on the face of it and see it as a critical flaw in a potential candidate of any stripe. To me it does go against fundamental principles this country holds dear. Yes, there can be cases for censorship/banning but they must be looked at individually and with great scrutiny with the default stance being nothing will be banned till proven to be absolutely necessary and appropriate. The idea of one person being a city’s thought police is sickening.
As such I think this is a HUGE question Palin should respond to. Unfortunately people on her own side are not only likely to overlook this but quite possibly actively agree with wanting to ban certain books they find offensive. So it falls to the rest of us to raise a stink and hope it rises to the level of unavoidable for her to answer.
That depends on a lot of things other than law - and where there is law, it is (as I’m sure you can understand) apparently really convoluted - at least here. In Minnesota, towns have different types of charters. There are strong mayor towns where the mayor would have some authority over employees, there are strong council towns where the mayor has almost no power other than being a vote on the council. For the most part, however, these sorts of things are handled by the office of the city manager - which is overseen by the council.
My town has had endless legal bills and settlements because our mayor got in and decided to clean house - and did so in such a way that has cost us a ton of money. and a lot of our reputation as a decent city. We almost lost our city insurance this year because of the irresponsible way our mayor chose to handle “cleaning house.”
Bricker, you know burden of proof doesn’t work like that. I can’t say there’s a dragon in my garage and you have to believe me until you prove me wrong, especially if I won’t let you in my garage. It’s absurd. Why are you being so disingenuous about this?
We have nothing of the sort. She inquired about how one would go about it. She said it was a rhetorical question. There is nothing to show otherwise. There’s not even meeting minutes or anything. There was no attempt to ban any book or any sort. It’s a reasonable question to ask. We can debate whether or not any books should be banned (and I’ll say that the Anarchist Cookbook should not be in general circulation, at least) but can anyone really state that simply asking about bannings is evil?
There is nothing to show the firing of the Librarian was connected, esp as she wasn’t really fired. It’s not uncommon for the new Chief Executive to ask that her underlings of the other pary resign. She did the same with the Chief of Police.
That is rock-solid evidence that Palin wasn’t trying to ban anything that reasonable people could argue doesn’t belong in the library in the first place – if that had been the case 1)the town wouldn’t have opposed her to the point of forcing her to flip-flop and 2)she would have been careful to make the matter part of the public record so that she could benefit from it during future political endeavors.
Librarian is not a political position. If a librarian of 20+ years experience was fired directly after Palin took office, the only reasonable explanation can be that there was a personality clash of some kind.
Whether that has to do with banned books or not, we’ll probably never know.
What other criterion was there? Though I agree that, in principle, there may have been a cornucopia of voices whispering betrayal, it seems kind of academic. If this was not a criterion for determining support, then why ask at all? And if it was a criterion, then that is enough for me to boo her down.
That’s the question: did she “target” the librarian? Sounds to me from the Salon article that she simply fired everyone more or less indiscriminately:
There is, so far, exactly zero proof that the firing of the librarian had anything to do with book-banning - other than the bald insinuation to that effect.
While the reasons given in the Salon article may also reflect badly on her (starting out one’s term with a mass firing for “loyalty” seems a trifle bizzare and paranoid), they are not the same as those imputed to her. Seems she demands total loyalty from the chief of police to the dog-catchers and librarians - which isn’t ther same thing as playing the amateur Inquisitor with book-bannings.
Why assume there was any sort of relationship at all between an alleged question about book-banning and the firing? There may be one, but it takes at least some evidence to establish a link.
The fact that she was firing a whole slate of other small-time municipal officials at exactly the same time indicates that the librarian wasn’t being “targeted” for this issue.
Bricker, the probability is that she didn’t even know which books she wanted to remove from the collection – and that’s a bad thing, not a good thing. It’s certainly not evidenciary, but I’d be willing to bet that something very like this was said to Ms. Palin: “Boy, I’m glad that you been elected. You can clean up the library. You wouldn’t believe some of the filthy language in those books, especially the ones they call ‘Young Adult’ books. I certainly wouldn’t want my junior high school student reading them.” Actually, I suspect that there would be more to the conversation than that…books that were about inappropriate sexual/social practices and not respectful of the role of the church, but that’s speculation that goes beyond Ms. Palin’s actions.
The question that I suspect was asked of the librarian probably went something like this: “I’ve had complaints from some of my constituents about the language and attitudes of some of the books in the library. I’m sure that I can count on you to fix the situation.” As others have said, for a librarian that’s the equivalent of "I have a box full of kittens that I’d like you to convert into tasty hors d’oeurves. I’m sure I can count on your support.’
The good news is that the library and the librarian had built support in the town to stand up to the pressure. Without that support, there would have been a blank check for political interference with the library.
I suppose, in the strictest sense, it is entirely possible that the two events were entirely unrelated, though it does strain my imagination to concoct such a scenario, given what is known about the human animal. (Actually I have to shamefully admit that I cannot imagine such a scenario. But the universe has never seemed particularly compelled to abide by the powers of my imagination.) If they were unrelated, the question is really worth asking: why did she ask at all?
Do you, Malthus, suppose that this question could have no bearing on the question of whether or not the librarian was a supporter? As this is just a thought experiment, please feel free to make up any kind of scenario you choose that you feel might reflect possible circumstances. Facts to account for: 1) the hypothetical book-banning question; 2) Palin’s admission of ferretting out supporters through some sixth sense; 3) that the librarian was dismissed; and 4) that the librarian would refuse to ban books, given Palin’s question.
So, seems others from the town are making the same claim. What other lack of “full support” would she expect from a librarian sufficient to fire her?
I think we are forgetting this is a freaking librarian! Not a political enemy. They tend books. I can kind of see her targeting police chiefs and such as a political matter but librarians? Didn’t someone suggest the librarian there had the job for 20 years or something? (I could be misremembering that) Hardly seems a worthy target for a politician, particularly in such a small town.
A person in a position of political authority inquiring how to go about censoring books in a public library has bugger-all to do with excercising freedom of speech. It’s the first step in infringing freedom of speech.
The Supreme Court has wrestled with the definition of pornography many times. Sometimes settling for ,I know it when I see it. But this small town dictator will decide for her citizens what is proper to read. We can dance around if you chose, but she will ban on her religious convictions and see things through a distorted religious lens. I see no way that she can and should have anything to do with library books. She oversteps her bounds. She is a problem. I do not want Palin deciding what is proper for her citizens to read. She is a member of big brother.
There may not be such a law in NY- it may be a more of an organizational matter. Sometimes, government agencies are not directly under the control of the executive- for example, until fairly recently the NYC mayor did not run the NYC public schools. They were run by a completely independent board.