Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin (40 page)

When I went home later that night, I couldn't begin to explain this mess to my wife. Sleep? The nightmares were disturbing. I wondered if I'd ever experience a pleasant dream the rest of my life.

I decided to resign, believing this was the bullet I'd eventually eat. No way out. Sarah needed me to somehow save her from further damage. But even in this desire to end my political life, I'd fail. With John McCain on the horizon, other less public solutions were required.

Wednesday, August 13, the day after Nizich played the incriminating tape and scolded me, the governor's office was fully staffed with the brain trust—who, in this particularly matter, had no interest in my two cents' worth. For hours they debated how to navigate the public handling of the Bailey-Dial recording.

I was certain of two things that morning: (1) this was the worst day of my life, and (2) at some point I'd throw up. I was to soon become the publicly humiliated wounded mule headed for the glue factory. My job had always been to make Sarah shine, but somehow my actions had mired her in what she referred to as the “biggest crap cluster” of her political life.

Through the windows, high above downtown Anchorage, I could see boaters at the mouth of Ship Creek. I envied their lives of hard outdoor work in the most gorgeous waters on the planet. They enjoyed honest chatter about where to secure the day's catch instead of schemes to limit damage and, barring that, redirect attack. How did such a simple guy like me end up in the lion's den? Loyalty? Stupidity? Or both?

Just past noon, spokesperson Sharon Leighow came to my office. “The governor is ready to see you,” she said.

Dragging my feet, I followed. Once inside the governor's office, I looked around the room at the dreary faces of Attorney General Colberg, Acting Chief of Staff Nizich, Assistant Attorney General Barn-hill, and recently hired Communications Director Bill McAllister, and Sharon. I felt like a mouse in a room full of cats. At the center of it all was the governor. Sarah's white leather outfit was likely meant to
convey purity to those outside this room. For me, however, it merely highlighted a fire-engine red face. She was furious. Yesterday's supportive demeanor—when I patiently answered all her questions about Todd, Dial, and my screw-up—had vanished. Now I'd discover how she really felt.

“So,” she began, as if lecturing one of her brood, “you know we're going to have to do this right. Those in the legislature, like Hollis French”—she spit out his name, clearly disgusted that this man would be at the forefront of calling for an investigation—“will come out with this information if we don't.” The plan was to volunteer the facts, explain, and place the blame right smack dab on me.

I nodded as a lump of saliva wedged against my Adam's apple. “When?” I asked.

Sarah indicated it would begin shortly after the lunch hour.

“Governor?” I asked. “About what we discussed last night? How do I answer the media without getting into where I got the info?” With blindly loyal eyes I was still trying to figure out a way to protect Todd Palin.

Just then, Barnhill jumped up and scurried around the table and whispered in Colberg's ear. The attorney general cleared his throat and said, “Um, we can't be giving you any advice here.”

Everybody nodded agreement; no advice for Frank Bailey.
Great
. As there was no chance of swimming, they were saying I was on my own to sink once the cement dried around my feet.

Sarah made it clear that she did not want me at her press conference, so I wilted away to wait for my turn, afterward, to face the cameras. “I'll make myself available at four o'clock for interviews,” I told her.

“Yes, fine,” she said. “That's best.”

As Sharon and I stumbled back to my office, she patted my hunched shoulders and told me to hang in there. It was a small gesture, but it meant something. Nobody else seemed concerned that I was in way over my head.

While Sarah approached the podium to deliver her statement, I sat at my desk, phoned the call-in line that would relay the press conference, and listened. Understanding that there was only one noble thing
left to do, I crafted a resignation letter. “It is apparent that in light of candid comments I made regarding my impressions of Trooper Wooten, I improperly and incorrectly characterized some involvement by the governor in my request for DPS to follow up on some issues. This is 100% incorrect.” I went on to exonerate both the governor and Todd as best I could.

As I put the finishing touches on the six short paragraphs, Sarah's press conference began. With every word, my personal dismay grew. The governor was masterful, delivering words like “totally wrong,” “shocked,” “totally unaware,” and “appearance of pressure” with the edge of a razor, slicing away my skin along with the truth, allowing my insides to bleed. Sadly I nodded in agreement: I deserved her blame.

Toward the end of the question-and-answer session, a reporter asked, “So, can we ask questions of Frank Bailey? Is he available?”

Watching the replay later, I witnessed the governor's head swivel around. She asked, “Where is Frank?” She looked right and left, playing for the camera. “I don't know where he is.” She made it seem as if I were hiding, when she was the one who told me
not
to be on camera with her. “Does anyone know where he is?” Her entire act made me out to be a guilty coward, slinking away to hide under a rock.

Sharon Leighow came to my rescue when she piped up, “Frank will be available for media at four o'clock.”

“Oh,” was all Sarah said, as if this were the first she'd heard of it. As I watched my governor's painful theatrics, I literally spoke to the wall, “What? Where am I? Hey, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how in the hell I'm going to protect your husband, that's where I am!” The bus was rolling forward again, running over that last square inch of me it hadn't already squished.

Despite growing feelings of betrayal, I made the decision to own up and take blame. While waiting for my public beheading, I sent Sarah my resignation letter. Not long after, Nizich, almost excited—maybe because Sarah had done such a great job and the storm now centered on me—entered my office. “That letter you sent the governor?” he said. “She doesn't want it. She told me to tell you, she doesn't want it.”

What?
In my mind, I was a former employee. A skeptic might suggest
that Sarah figured it was better to have a still-loyal minion rather than a formerly loyal minion speaking to the press. When I finally did face the media, I played the part of rogue overzealous state official, inappropriately acting on my own without any outside prompting. When asked how I knew about Wooten's employment records, I said, “I'd rather not say.”

While this made me appear guilty of improperly accessing confidential records, I remained committed to not implicating Todd Palin or, potentially worse, Sarah. At the time, I questioned how much she actually knew. After many months, I became convinced that she knew much more than she let on. Did Todd go for long drives or stow away in the garage to spend all those hours on the phone with me, retelling the chronicles of Wooten? He had even used the phone in the governor's office for many of these conversations. Was he left alone all those times, with open access to state resources and classified information?

After my media debacle, Todd phoned—not to say he was going to take some of the heat and admit his role—but to buck me up
and
remind me of an important talking point.

“Holy jeez, Frank. Holy jeez.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Tough one today.”

“We love you, Frank. We love you, man. You gotta know that Sarah didn't know
anything
, though.”

I mumbled something that was meant to signify I understood without admitting I didn't believe a word of that last sentence. Todd finished as he began, “We love you. Holy jeez, Frank.”

We hung up, and all I could think was,
Sarah didn't know?

Amazingly, my phone rang off the hook, and my BlackBerry filled with more messages than I could possibly return in a month. I found the support I was receiving to be stunning. Sure, most messages came from acquaintances, but these people had also been passionate supporters of Sarah Palin. Those who knew little more than what they'd heard and seen in the media, believed her representations at the press conference to be self-servingly shallow. “She threw you under the bus” and “It's not right that she and Todd don't take any responsibility” were said or texted numerous times. I took great pains not to agree with anyone's analysis publicly, but I felt a tiny bit of relief that
some people saw the reality despite Sarah and Todd's public song and dance.

The owner of internet publication
AlaskaReport
, Dennis Zaki, phoned and said, “It's shit what Palin did to you! You can't tell me she did not know.”

“If she did, Dennis, I have no firsthand knowledge.”

“I've always liked Palin, but this was bad, Frank. Your face is everywhere. KTUU has a poll out, asking viewers if you should be fired.”

When he said “Your face is everywhere,” that mirrored a recurring nightmare of mine, not unlike the dream where someone leaves his house without any clothes. For me, I preferred the possibility of being naked in public so long as I was anonymous.

Dennis then said, “Have you ever thought of running for office? Hey, you've sure got the name recognition now. Nobody in the state doesn't know Frank Bailey. Do it, run for governor!”

For the one laugh I'd had in days, I remain grateful to Dennis Zaki.

I fled to my brother's house in Chugiak later that night. My cell rang incessantly, but I didn't answer until I noticed an important number. Sarah was calling. Stevie recalls more of what was said than I do:

Actually, I do recall saying in an angry voice, “You'll be fine, but I'm trashed. There's a poll on the web asking if I should be fired, Sarah!” I felt like a spinning plate, one that Sarah had to keep in orbit and keep close and within her control. If I did quit, she'd lose me, and
I knew many more damaging things than did “disloyal” Walt Monegan. At that moment, I was determined to leave the rat race called government and start from the ground up, rebuilding my life like I'd done as a poor kid in Kodiak, when our family had nothing, not even enough food or heat some days.

I think Sarah was more than shocked by my reaction. When I told her I intended to leave, she became worried. The next morning, Thursday, she phoned again. We spoke for about forty minutes. “Frank,” she said, “former governor Jay Hammond once told me he sought out people who were reluctant to serve. He didn't go for the bigwig types. He looked for the good salt of the earth people. That's you, Frank. There are only a few of us left. You, me, Todd, Kris. The state needs you, and Alaska needs me. I refuse to accept your resignation, Frank. In fact, I told Todd I wouldn't even open your letter or read the email you sent.”

“But even if I wanted to stay, all it would do is make your agenda more difficult to carry out.” I was pleading with her to not make this difficult. In my mind, I already had both feet out the door.

“If you go, Frank, then I go.” She repeated that statement three times. “Take the rest of the week off to think.”

As I'd witnessed many times before, Sarah could put the genie back in the bottle like no one else. No matter the nature of the breakup, if she wanted, she'd calm matters and suck a person back into the fold. As always in these situations, she sounded genuine, and I believed her. We would weather this storm together.

By Friday, Sarah did what Sarah often does: she flip-flopped and was again furious with me; there was no longer any “together” in any of this. When we spoke, she sounded harsh and stiff, with an accusatory tone. She said the Alaska Department of Law wanted to know what I'd done with regard to Wooten and Monegan. I explained that I'd been interviewed by Assistant Attorney General Barnhill and told him everything I remembered about my contacts with DPS. After this testy conversation with Sarah, I renewed my pledge to resign. I again emailed my resignation letter and asked my wonderful Juneau administrative assistant, Selina Kokotivich, to pack up my desk and send the contents to my house, including the private investigator's file Todd
had handed me weeks ago in case someone went through my belongings.