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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

About That Kilkenny E-Mail


So far, we’ve received roughly 43,937,809 (note: number is exaggerated for effect) e-mails asking us whether the chain e-mail from Wasilla’s most famous non-Palin, Anne Kilkenny, is accurate. As we wrote earlier this week, yes, Kilkenny is a real person and she did in fact write the e-mail. We looked at her claims about the fired librarian in our Sliming Palin article, where we concluded that the evidence that Palin fired Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books is, well, not conclusive.

We are still looking into some of Kilkenny’s other claims. But in the meantime, we’ll refer you to our colleagues at PolitiFact.com, who have taken on a few of Kilkenny’s statements. PolitiFact found Kilkenny’s claim that Palin left Wasilla in debt to be Mostly True. Ditto for Kilkenny’s claim that Palin fired Wasilla’s police chief “because he intimidated her,” though PolitiFact points out that loyalty also played a pretty important role.

You should read the whole thing. And, if you don’t do it already, be sure to add PolitiFact.com to your regular reading list. Because you can never have too many facts.