Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (35 page)

Throughout the excited announcements and frenzied planning, Sarah purposely left Mike Tibbles out of the loop. When he wandered into the hallway from his Juneau office while we were discussing how to coordinate the public announcement, he shrugged at us.

“What's going on?” he asked, his eyes darting between the small group that included me, Sarah, Sharon, and Janice Mason, her long-suffering and ever-present Juneau scheduler. The nervous grin Tibbles normally flashed beneath that mop of white hair was gone, replaced by a bewildered expression. “Is this something I should know about?”

Until that moment, he had not known that Sarah was pregnant. She was willing to make an announcement to the world before informing her chief of staff. I shuffled my feet and looked to Sarah. She gave me the “Oh brother, what a pain” look and left it to Janice to quickly explain the governor was pregnant. Tibbles didn't attempt to say the right things: There was no “Congratulations, this is wonderful, Sarah!” or “When's the baby due?” Mike, intensely political and the author of endless schemes, understood that his not having been invited into this intimate conversation meant he was no longer part of the inner circle. This trend of leaving him in the dark when discussing important announcements had begun weeks ago, but for a chief of staff, nothing topped the
ouch!
scale than not knowing your boss was seven months pregnant. Watching Tibbles's eyebrows nearly slide off his face convinced me he understood then and there that, politically speaking, he was a dead man walking. Sure enough, by the end of
April, he was gone. His sin? Besides his distaste for me, I believe it had much to do with not being reactionary enough or blindly jumping to Sarah and Todd's whims.

Ignoring Tibbles's mental arrhythmia, Sarah moved quickly to summon her favorite reporters from the
Anchorage Daily News
, Associated Press, and KTUU News. “So,” she said coyly, “you know how I always said I'm going to deliver for Alaska? Well, I'm going to deliver for Alaska.” Once the initially confused journalists figured out what she meant, the media madness began. Sarah handed off her BlackBerry to me as I deflected the barrage of incoming messages, numbering into the hundreds. This was an uncharacteristically pleasant news cycle devoid of Trooper Wooten, Lyda Green, Dan Fagan, Andrew Halcro, and anyone else who lurked in our collective consciousness. Sheer chaotic euphoria best describes that brief window of “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Of course, placid waters did not last long. Two issues immediately became irksome. Because she did not look pregnant, speculation arose that Sarah was not actually carrying a child at all. More annoying was the allegation that she was hiding daughter Bristol's pregnancy. Those of us who saw Sarah daily and were there after the birth of Trig know this to be an idiotic story. We also saw Bristol regularly in jeans tight enough to convince anyone with eyes that she was not with child. At first Sarah made light of the story:

The next day, Sarah alerted us that Bristol had already heard the story from classmates who heard that Sarah was not really pregnant,
but would be raising Bristol's baby. Sarah described Bristol's reaction:

When discussing the possibility of feeding information to Sheila Toomey, who wrote the
Daily News
's political gossip column The Ear, Sarah suggested that Sharon Leighow
“feel out Shelia on it discreetly, play it by ear and clear it up if she's suspecting anything.”
Then, for the second time, Sarah suggested,
“Heck—offer to let her see my new stretch marks to prove which Palin is truly pregnant!”

While the serendipitous suggestion of viewing stretch marks was clearly not a serious proposal, it was nonetheless strange for both the imagery and a deflection from a more simple solution.

As with any attack, Sarah decided on a culprit. The most recent number one foe, Lyda Green, became our villain. Ivy got the ball rolling:
“I was just on the phone w [a friend] and he got a call . . . Reports from Juneau that lyda's office is perpetuating the Bristol being pregnant rumor. No doubt [one of her assistants]. I'm callin them on the flippin carpet!”

In typical fashion, none of us needed proof positive. When Lyda Green first learned that Sarah was pregnant, she told the
Anchorage Daily News
, “It's wonderful. She's very well disguised. When I was five months pregnant, there was absolutely no question that I was with child.” Armed with sarcasm like that, secondhand reports from Juneau and guessing at which Green aides were
no doubt
responsible were as good as having the murder weapon, a photo of the crime being committed, and a stadium full of eyewitnesses. Sarah wrote,
“Flippin unbelievable. Wouldn't you think they'd be afraid of being proved wrong when they rumor around the building like that?

Don't-mess-with-me Ivy shot back,
“We'll get it taken care of, don't
worry. . . . When confronted lyda won't be able to do anything but apologize for her staff. How unbecoming and embarrassing for her office esp when press start inquiring.”

A few days later, Sarah had additional input in an email to spokesperson Leighow:

Without any additional intelligence, we accepted that Lyda was out to destroy Sarah Palin and did not care if an innocent teenager got hurt in the process.

We continued to fret about and fritter away time on chasing down critics, especially Green, while awaiting Trig Palin's Friday, April 18, 2008, birth, approximately one month premature.

When the Bristol rumors did not die, only four days after Trig's birth, Sarah once again complained:

Like an untreated infection, Sarah's preoccupation with the story became greater. Sharon Leighhow was given a second heads-up and plea for help.

Fortunately, the Bristol pregnancy story remained an Alaska-only witch hunt—at least until Sarah was pegged as McCain's running mate.

The morning of the birth, when escorted behind the hospital double doors, I caught a glimpse of Sarah and hours-old Trig. Dazed, I later joyously snapped a photo of Todd cradling Trig, his sparkling eyes fixed on the infant's face. Todd, for all his faults, unquestionably loves his children deeply.

With a good-wishes carousel spinning around the governor and newborn, I left moments later. Passing through the waiting room, I saw Bristol lying on the couch. Because of all the rumors that still exist, let me say for the record (and I do not intend to dignify the absurdity further) she had
not
just given birth.

In sharp contrast to her fragile emotional psyche, Sarah exhibited remarkable physical willpower as she went back to work only two days later. This display of fortitude reinforced that pioneering spirit she nurtured back in her Wasilla mayoral days. The thought in all our minds was,
Amazing, what a gal
.

With Trig's arrival, my brief vacation from Trooper Wooten was about to end. Todd, nearly as resilient as Sarah, was back on that project immediately. However, I found his fortitude far less inspiring.

Moving as if skating across ice, Todd Palin wasted no time whisking from the birth of his fifth child back to his obsession. During April 2008, a new allegation was born. Todd delivered fresh details about a second incident of Trooper Wooten driving his kids to school in the patrol car. Naturally, he suggested that I make another call to DPS's John Glass detailing these newest revelations (“bombshells,” according to Todd). The deputy commissioner listened and reminded me once again that this was not a firable offense, even if it happened as reported. Like a tape-recorded message, I suggested, “The department has done nothing on Wooten; it's all a whitewash. Why is he being protected?”

“Frank, the unions are strong,” Glass explained. “There are procedures that need to be strictly followed.”

“He has a history. Doesn't anyone know how to do an employee investigation?”

To his credit, Glass politely said he'd look into the incident. He did as promised and later phoned to say that although the allegations were correct, Wooten had obtained permission. “The department was shorthanded, so his supervisor told him to use the patrol car when he dropped them off so that he'd be on call at all times.”

I said defensively, “I can't believe they're letting him do that.”

When I recited the conversation back to Todd, we both concluded this was likely an after-the-fact rationalization meant to explain misconduct—or, in Todd's words, “another cover-up.”

If all this hysterical activity sounds ridiculous and wasteful, that's because it was. And the volume only increased through the next weeks. By early May, Todd was calling or emailing multiple times a week; if he happened to uncover something new, I'd hear from him several times a day. The mounting agitation was also physically evident. His face reddened, drew tight, and his eyes narrowed so often that crow's-feet radiated full-time across his temples.