A deaf Ear?

I was contacted by Sheila Toomey of the Alaska Ear of the Anchorage Daily News on August 17th with the brief message: “Who are you?” in the message line and nothing else other than her email signature/contact information in the body. I thought that was kind of strange considering the source so I replied back with just my email signature and contact information. The reply was was “Thanks. But who’s paying for your services re Palin?”. I answered that no one paid me, it was my own site. I sent that message at 10:17am of the 17th but on the 19th Sheila published this on adn.com:

“PALINTOLOGY … That’s the name of a Web site devoted to Sarah-love. Or, as the site defines the word: “the science dealing with Alaska’s first female governor.” It’s a repository for those ain’t-she-the-gorgeous-Republican hope stories making the media rounds lately.

It’s produced by Alaska Multimedia Productions, an Anchorage-based Web production company. Wonder who’s paying them to do it.

This is in addition to the site mentioned a couple weeks ago that’s pushing Sarah for vice president. Vice president? Not hardly.

But Ear is prepared to predict the spin works well enough that she gets tapped to make a speech at the 2008 national convention. Then we’ll see if she has legs.

OK, that didn’t come out right. You know what Ear means.

See www.palintology.com.”

 

 

“Who’s paying them to do it?” Come on, Sheila. You knew the answer to that question.

And my response to the “Why?” I got from her this morning (obviously after her write-up was published):

“Short answer: She’s my hero and a role model for women everywhere.

Long answer:

I met Sarah a few years back when she was mayor of Wasilla and I was interning for a morning radio show. She was a frequent guest and as I got to know her, I really grew to admire her as a person and a public servant. I told her then I knew she would go far and would love to campaign for her in any of her future endeavors. I was invited to her announcement-to-run party and managed her website for a bit and came up with the palintology.com idea as a way of following her career. I told her of the idea and asked for her ‘blessing’ and she approved. I haven’t spoken with her since the election and have no idea if she’s seen the site or what she thinks of it but I consider her a mentor and an exceptional role model and I really think she and her accomplishments should be more widely known.”

I had no idea of the write up until I stumbled across it during a search on ADN this afternoon. My inquiry to Ms. Toomey sent this morning about why she was asking has gone unanswered. Maybe she was just filling a word quota for the day.