Frank Bailey's Betrayal of Sarah Palin

The story of the leaked manuscript of former Palin aide Frank Bailey is getting a lot of traction as the mainstream media finds ways to maximize and defend the indefensible. Andy Barr and Ben Smith from Politico have taken it upon themselves (obviously without legal council) to run a story repeating distorted claims by a troubled ex-employee, with the goal of smearing Governor Palin in mind. Barr and Smith ponder why it is that no publisher has signed on to print Bailey’s manuscript, which he has been trying to sell for almost 18 months. On top of the legal ramifications, there are many reasons.

They do note that Bailey chose an anti-Palin writer and a “critic” of Governor Palin to help pen the text. What they didn’t state is that “critic,” a man by the name of Ken Morris, is a known leftist who has a history of pulling obsessive stunts directed towards Governor Palin, and that the other writer, Jeanne Devon, is a legend in the Alaskan left-wing blogoshpere for her unhinged, freakish behavior aimed at hurting the governor. These aren’t just people who disagree with her politics. These are people who have spent a lot of time, money, and integrity trying to damage Governor Palin.

Now, just who is Frank Bailey? Other than what’s on the surface – that being his connection as a former employee of the former Governor of Alaska. What was his role in her administration and why did he chose to publicly stab his former employer in the back? The Politico article notes:

A Palin ally, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Bailey and Palin corresponded and that the former aide had access to Palin’s passwords and her email account. But the Palin ally said that the content should be viewed through the lens of Bailey being “the quintessential disgruntled employee” who had been denied senior jobs he sought, cut out of Palin’s vice presidential campaign, and been caught up in the “Troopergate” scandal.

This man felt as though he had been denied a senior post in the administration. I have read his manuscript by the way, and can tell you that this guy thought he was doing a bang-up job for the governor. However, the evidence doesn’t support his assertion. After all, Bailey was the only member of Governor Palin’s administration who had ever been recommended to receive ethics training by a state investigator. I am not going to release any detailed information that isn’t public already, but there are some pretty pointed lies within this manuscript that only take a few minutes on Google to figure out.

While working for Governor Palin, part of Bailey’s job was to set up and maintain her email accounts. He had direct access, by way of knowing her password codes, to all of her messages. What he did with that access was highly unethical, a serious breach of trust, if not the law. If indeed all the emails are actually hers in the first place.

Throughout the manuscript, Bailey voices frustration about feeling shut out. That indicates that the governor’s staff knew Frank’s limits and understood his character. So, here we have a “quintessential disgruntled employee” teaming up with far-left activists for profit. After a public spat between the writers and the leaker of the manuscript, the media is seeking to pick up the pieces, for their own profit essentially. And nothing would give the press more power to do so than to lend credibility to Bailey’s manuscript. The first line that stood out for me in the Politico piece was when they wrote:

But in Bailey’s manuscript it’s her own apparent words that do the greatest damage.

Having read the manuscript as I mentioned above, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the majority of the emails contradict the claims made by Bailey, via Devon and Morris. The filler in-between the emails is full of innuendo and colorful words designed to make it seem as though Governor Palin possesses any number of negative character traits. What I found in reading her actual messages was a normal person, with normal emotion, usually with a great sense of humor. It was quite a stretch for these writers to insinuate the things that they did.

Next up, the guys from Politico write

Much of the proposed book’s text focuses on the topic that, he writes, ultimately consumed her governorship: The maintenance of her public image, an obsession with rumors about her family, and her frustration with her portrayal in the media.

Governor Palin is a politician. Public image is sort of a vital aspect of consideration in that field. That’s just a reality. But to say that it “ultimately consumed her governorship” is defamatory and wrong. Sure, you can release a very small percentage of my own emails, toss in some adjectives, and lead readers to come to the conclusion that all I care about is the status of the restroom renovations at my office. Yes, it’s true. I have dedicated many emails to various individuals about water pressure, light fixtures, and automatic hand dryers. It’s amazing that I still know how to do artwork at all.

Then Barr and Smith make this assertion:

In the months before she resigned the governorship, when her poll numbers began to slip, Palin’s advisers sought to bolster her spirits by making the unsubstantiated case that she was being targeted by the Obama White House and Democratic National Committee.

Just watch the 11 minute clip I linked under the word “behavior” (in the Jeanne Devon paragraph) and see if Governor Palin was wrong to assume that Democrats were coordinating attacks against her. It wasn’t to “bolster her spirits” but rather to try and put their finger on just why Democrat operatives kept filing charges against her, then (in violation) leaking their charges to the press.

Barr & Smith then go on to repeat claims (and post stolen emails) asserting that Governor Palin doesn’t like the media very much…. What a revelation! Must I repeat why? At this point, I don’t think any honest person could blame her for distrusting the press.s

After reading this manuscript, my only conclusion is that Frank Bailey is a horrible person. A good person, as Frank likes to sell himself as, doesn’t have the capacity to do what he did. Even if Governor Palin was twice the monster he and his leftist allies made her out to be, he still had no right to attempt to have this pile of garbage published. She provided him with a job, which allowed him to provide for his family. At any time, he could have walked away if he felt he worked for someone he could not morally support. Anyone who cannot see this man for what he is, is being willfully ignorant. They are turning a blind-eye to the obvious motives that drove him to betray his former boss.

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UPDATE: Now Sushannah Walshe at the Daily Beast has weighed in on the manuscript, and repeated an absurd accusation by Bailey that “Palin Broke Election Law.” Walshe writes:

Bailey accuses Palin of blatant illegal activity. During her 2006 campaign for governor, Bailey alleges that Palin broke election law by working with the Republican Governors Association to shoot a campaign commercial. State candidates are not legally allowed to work with groups like the RGA, which ran ads at the time on her behalf, though supposedly “independent” of the Palin gubernatorial campaign.

The suggestion that Governor Palin broke any election laws is simply not true. Ian Lazaran (who has also read the manuscript) wrote about this the other day:

Even assuming the e-mails are authentic for the sake of argument, the bigger problem for Bailey is that he fails to produce even one e-mail from the Governor to support his argument that she coordinated with the RGA in the production of the ad. He even fails to quote anything that the Governor allegedly said that would support his argument that she coordinated with the RGA to produce the ad at issue. What Bailey essentially does is accuse the Governor of breaking a campaing law without citing to an e-mail that she allegedly wrote or to anything that she allegedly said that would support his claim.

The Knowles campaign complained about the RGA ad and the Alaska Democrat Party filed a complaint against Palin alleging illegal coordination with the RGA in the production of the ad. The complaint was subsequently dismissed. The funny thing is that the e-mails that Bailey claims to have come from Governor Palin after the ad ran are clearly exculpatory. The two e-mails that allegedly come from Governor Palin show someone who doesn’t have the foggiest idea about why the Tony Knowles’ campaign and the Alaska Democrat Party would be making such an allegation.

Now why would Governor Palin write what she did in these e-mails if she really did coordinate with the RGA to produce an illegal ad? If she was guilty, wouldn’t she be sending her closest confidantes e-mails about how to cover up the misdeed?

Bailey’s explanation for these Palin e-mails is that the Governor was purposefully playing dumb and trying to cover up her tracks. Why would she play coy when communicating with people she absolutely trusted? In order to believe Bailey’s theory, one would also need to believe that the Governor envisioned a day when one of her confidantes would turn on her and that she prepared for such a scenario by making sure the e-mails she sent to the confidantes she expected to turn on her were purposefully dishonest.

In this video, her campaign spokesman Curtis Smith says he wrote in his diary about the degree of animosity that he held towards the RGA for producing the ad at issue (at around the 10:30 mark):

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Once again, we have a member of the media, who is willing to repeat the claims of this horrible character, that were written into an unpublished manuscript, by known leftists. This is not a “tell-all” book as they keep saying, but rather a ‘tell whatever we like’ piece of fiction.