On July 28, 2009, Lisa Demer of the Anchorage Daily News reported online that "two of former Gov. Sarah Palin's most trusted aides are resigning and won't be part of the new Parnell administration... One is the controversial Frank Bailey, Palin's director of boards and commissions and a central player in the Troopergate case." The other was Kris Perry. According to Demer, Bailey's departure date was set for August 15. Bailey says nothing about this in Blind Allegiance. Nada.
Once again, the word on the street in Anchorage that summer was that Sean Parnell refused to take on Bailey in his new administration. Bailey was tainted goods. Nor was Bailey offered a position at SarahPAC, Palin's then-recently formed political action committee, for which Stapleton had been hired as a spokesperson. Bailey's rendition of formally breaking his bond with Palin World is either contemptibly disingenuous or tragically pathetic. Palin had tossed Bailey under the bus long before he had his leaving- Palin-World epiphany on August 27, 2009, to which he devotes an entire chapter. By then, Palin had already thrown Bailey away like yesterday's trash.
More significantly, Bailey's continued demonization in Blind Allegiance of the likes of Mike Wooten, John Bitney and, most significantly, Andree McLeod - all of whom were victimized by the Palin machine and by Bailey himself, and all of whom have had the courage to stand up to Palin in meaningful ways, without benefit of a payday - indicates that Bailey still doesn't fully grasp the political dynamics of what Palin and her administration did to their victims and to the democratic process in Alaska.
Bailey has the audacity to opine about Wooten that "he is not a sympathetic person, and, arguably, has no place in law enforcement." This, he writes about a guy he has never met, about whom he admits that many of the charges levied against him by the Palins were grossly exaggerated, and against whom he conducted a shameful two-year campaign to have fired. Who is Bailey kidding with such assessments? Let's not forget that Wooten served 10 years in the U.S. Air Force, participated in a trio of U.S. military operations in the Persian Gulf War - Desert Storm, Desert Shield and Restore Hope - served another three years in the Air National Guards Reserves, and - with the exception of his problems with the Palins, her family, her friends and Bailey - served without incident as a State Trooper for roughly a decade. When I interviewed other Troopers about Wooten, all of them said they'd want him at their side in the trenches. Like a lot of other "Fox News conservatives" - Todd and Sarah Palin being at the top of the list - Bailey rendered no such service. Talk about gall.
Bailey's self-admonitions in Blind Allegiance amount to little more than flagellatory wrist-slaps. Near the end he concedes, "We hadn't been good Christians. Far from it. We were dishonest and behaved in a vindictive and hateful manner." Yuh think?
In respect to Wooten he writes:
"And what, I wish to heaven I'd asked myself, was the importance to our job of governing Alaska in destroying Mike Wooten, and how was that remotely worth the hundreds and hundreds of man-hours spent trying to do so? How, for the love of God, would destroying him personally and professionally make the first family safer, as Sarah and Todd swore over and over was their main concern?
This tale, unfortunately, includes the worst of Sarah's dysfunctional psyche and administration, including the compulsion to attack enemies, deny truth, play victim, and employ outright deception."
It also reveals the level of Bailey's sycophancy. He was riding shotgun with the Palins the entire sordid journey. On a personal level, Bailey, it would seem to me, still has some deeper penance to serve, some deeper encounter with his Christian values to explore. But that's between Bailey and his god.
Politically, it's time for the former "Hatchet Man" to do the right thing. He knows that the Petumenos investigation was a sham - marred by misinformation, the withholding of critical documents, missing emails and testimony that doesn't fully jibe with the historical record. Never once during the course of his tenure with Palin - not a single time - did he ever register a meaningful protest against any of her actions. Not once. That's the real tragedy of Blind Allegiance. That for all his professed Christian faith and Christian values, Frank Bailey had no spine, no moral center. He was no different than the Palins.
As many of you are aware, I am friends with both Geoffrey Dunn and Joe McGinniss.
During the unfortunate incident which proceeded the publication of Blind Allegiance, Geoffrey and I e-mailed each other back and forth several times, trying to make sense of what had just happened and why.
During those e-mails, and phone calls, Geoffrey (Who had also read the manuscript), clued me in that there were some serious omissions in the manuscript and even blatant attempts by Bailey to polish up his image, and avoid potential legal trouble. He made it clear then that he was not going to let Bailey's version of events go unchallenged.
This article in the Anchorage Press which Geoffrey has written should bring you up to speed as to what he was alluding to back then. I urge you to read all of it (Believe me there's a lot more), even though it may force you to reexamine what you think you know about Frank Bailey's character, his religious conviction, and his honesty.
As many of us have long suspected, Bailey may very well have purposefully left many damaging things about the Palins out of his book. Perhaps he did so to provide some continued protection for Todd and Sarah (As it seems clear he is not completely deprogrammed yet), but also to resurrect his damaged reputation, and to save himself from possible criminal proceedings.
