Sunday, September 07, 2008

The Wasilla Gold Rush: Reporters are looking for pay "dirt"

From a Canadian's perspective : http://ottsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2008/09/08/6695421-sun.html


With hockey moms never getting recognition they deserve, and Sarah Palin now the world's most famous hockey mom -- signs everywhere she goes saying Hockey Moms For Palin and Hockey Moms United For Sarah -- I decide, for the nourishment it will give our national psyche, to find out more about the hockey momming of Sarah Palin.

I thought it'd be rather easy. Wrong.

"You'll have a hard time now finding someone to talk to you about her," says the wife of Steve Elwell, president of the Mat-Su Amateur Hockey Association in Wasilla. Her husband is not home. Mrs. Elwell, herself, is a hockey mom.

"People are protecting her. I'm not saying you're one who's out to hurt her, but everybody around here is getting millions of phone calls from reporters. There are reporters everywhere. They're trying to dig up dirt on her. I'm sorry I can't help."

BRICK WALLS

After a few more brick walls from current and former Wasilla hockey moms, and dads, who know Sarah Palin the hockey mom, I find a retired hockey mom who was a hockey mom at the Brett Memorial Ice Arena when Sarah Palin was a hockey mom there.

She half-heartedly agrees to talk. "I don't want my name used. A friend gave an interview about Sarah to the BBC that appeared on the Internet, and her phone hasn't stopped ringing since from reporters. She screens all her calls now. I don't want it to happen to me."

The Republican vice-presidential candidate for the United States of America, she says, was a typical hockey mom. "I'm sure it's the same where you live.

She'd be at the arena at 6 or 7 in the morning in her parka and sweatpants for Track's practices. Hot chocolate in a thermos. She'd be at every game she could make. Even as mayor. Like any hockey mom, she'd get exasperated if Track forgot a piece of his equipment at home.

"Sarah would be in the seats whooping and hollering. Jumping up. Yelling encouragement. She loves hockey. She's enthusiastic about everything she does. In tournaments -- and some were against teams from Canada -- she'd be in the box keeping score and the penalties. She helped out everybody. She'd be at the desk taking donations or at the souvenir table, selling things."

How would Vice-President Sarah Palin cope without hockey Alaskan style? "The Washington Capitals will have no bigger fan."



The movie Mystery Alaska comes to mind but with a different results. Take note of the T.V. host circuit. http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=105f3894-639b-44b6-b647-dcb2676b1862


Just days after Arizona Senator John McCain tapped her as his running mate, the
comedians were poking fun at her complicated family life. Here's a sample:

"Gov. Palin announced over the weekend that her 17-year-old unmarried daughter is five months' pregnant. And you thought John Edwards was in trouble before! Now he has really done it."

Jay Leno, The Tonight Show "The theme for tonight's

Republican Convention is, 'Who is John McCain? 'Tomorrow night's theme is, 'Who forgot to check if the vice-president's daughter is pregnant?'"

-- Conan O'Brien on NBC Late Night.

"She's got a four-month-old of her own, she's about to become a grandmother, and she's partnered with John McCain. How many diapers can one woman possibly change?"

-- Jimmy Kimmel Jimmy Kimmel Live!

"The Palin family crisis has been solved now, and today the baby is being adopted by
Angelina Jolie."

-- CBS Late Show host David Letterman


By the way, the last vice-presidential pick to be so heartily lampooned?

Dan Quayle. With George Bush Sr., he went on to win the election.


When you start hearing boos in the audience, which will come, you know Sarah has won. And all the reporters looking for pay dirt on Palin, will finally go home broke.

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