Sarah Palin, Anne Kilkenny and the Authority to Ban Books

At one time, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. While she was mayor of that small town, Mayor Palin found herself at odds with people over various aspects of her job, which is the normal run of events with regard to politics. It happens. Not everybody will always be in agreement on a given topic. That is individualism and that is as it should be.

But Sarah Palin has a problem with wielding authority it would seem. The first red flag that went up when Senator John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate was that she was under investigation by her own state legislature for an alleged abuse of power. Dubbed "Troopergate," this state-turned-national issue brought to light an alleged abuse of authority by the governor's office in the dismissal of the state Safety Commissioner because he had refused to fire Palin's sister's ex-husband, who was a state trooper at the time.

And then there was the citizen's letter from Wasilla resident Anne Kilkenny that has been circulating on the internet. Time magazine and the New York Times have gone on record that the allegations in the letter have been corroborated.

Anne Kilkenny grew up with Sarah Palin. She knows the family. She also has a problem with Sarah Palin's new mythologized status as the potential vice president of the United States. The letter is an attempt to rectify that.

The many odious items concerning Sarah Palin as a politician enumerated by Anne Kilkenny this writer will let pass for the time being in order to address the one issue most important to a writer and to a free society: the freedom of expression, the First Amendment. In her letter, Kilkenny states:

"While Sarah was Mayor of Wasilla she tried to fire our highly respected City Librarian because the Librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the City Librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter."