Crowdsourcing Analysis of the Palin Email Trove

itwbennett writes "Surely you've got better things to do this weekend than read 24,000 pages of Sarah Palin's email. But just in case you don't, the NY Times is looking for volunteers to help 'identify interesting and newsworthy e-mails, people and events that we may want to highlight.' And, for your easy reference, MSNBC has posted the complete collection online."

Re:Press needs to examine its life

[Anonymous Coward]

We know what Obama's fucking grades were. Dude graduated summa cum laude. THAT MEANS HE DID REALLY FUCKING WELL.

Probably too late; but what the hell...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While I find the farce surrouding the opposing forces of Palin's cult of personality and those who simply cannot stomach her and will dig through anything to justify that to be tedious and misguided, we should not let that distract us from the potential real issues at play here.

Alaska is, perhaps uniquely among American states in the present day(with the possible exception of the poorer; but much more overtly corrupt Appalacian coal belt), a state with an immensely lucrative extraction-economy, and not too much else going on. This means that there is considerable money to be made in controlling pipeline contracts and routes, security assorted extraction licenses, controlling obscure planning offices, and other tedious activity in sparsely settled areas. Although much more scenic than most, and often less violent, this does leave it open to many of the same dysfunctional political dynamics enjoyed by the poor nations who have large mineral reserves and weak governance.

We shouldn't forget that. It doesn't matter what the contents of Palin's Office Yahoo Account tell us about who popped out out a baby when. Sordid trailer-park drama? probably, but who cares? However, it is generally the case that, behind every folksy politician who is bored by the details, lurks a small army of value-rational and detail-oriented hatchetmen quietly cleaning up the spoils. Sometimes, if the local cult of personality is strong enough, they are in thrall of that politician. In other cases, the politician is their frontman. In either case, though, their activities are the stuff that desperately needs as much sunlight(and cell space) as the public can devote to it. Don't let the personality drama get in the way.

Re:So we have an illegal war in Libya

[CrimsonAvenger]

And people care about some moron congressman tweeting his penis

Actually, Wiener's wiener just amused me.

On the other hand, the lying and false accusations that he made the first week bothered me more than a little.

Re:They will never focus on Obama

[Microlith]

I understand that you hate Obama (and probably all Democrats,) but your point seems to be mostly irrational.

She isn't even declared as a candidate for the next election yet it seems as if the line to be part of the character assassination just continues to grow.

Maybe it's because there's a large, idiotic segment of the population that does want her as president. And people want to see exactly how (un)ethical of a person she is before they try to put her manipulative ass in the White House. That they've taken great pains to ensure that these e-mails are difficult to get and stripped of useful information, I suspect they've worked very hard to hide things.

If they even tried this with Obama there would be lines of people screaming racism.

Why? Official e-mails are part of the public record. The reason people are all over this is because of the deliberate actions taken to make these records hard to get.

I have no sympathy for Palin. She's manipulative, power hungry, and has show no evidence that she would be remotely capable of handling the role of the Presidency. She killed McCain's run, simply due to the fear that if anything happened to him, she'd end up in the hot seat.