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Title: Wally Hickel and Sarah Palin's Betrayal
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URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoff ... kel-and-sarah-pa_b_569419.html
Published: May 9, 2010
Author: Geoffrey Dunn
Post Date: 2010-05-09 21:17:28 by Skip Intro
Keywords: None
Views: 44017
Comments: 124
Wally Hickel and Sarah Palin's Betrayal
The death of Walter J. "Wally" Hickel (1919-2010) in Anchorage this past Friday marks the end of a remarkable era, not only in Alaska, but throughout the entire United States.
The two-time Governor of the Last Frontier (elected once as a Republican in the 1960s, the second time as an Independent in 1990) and former U.S. Secretary of the Interior under Richard Nixon was a larger than life figure, a legend in his own time, whose driving ambitions and relentless personal energy helped to both shape and define Alaska's 50 years of statehood. He had arrived in Anchorage in 1940 with 37 cents in his pocket, and it proved to be all the stake he would ever need. His robust spirit and seemingly boundless energy assured his success, not only in Alaska's bare-knuckle politics, but in the arenas of business and public policy as well.
Born in Kansas in 1919, Hickel was raised in an era when a handshake secured a deal and a commitment still meant something. He was a casual friend of my great uncle, an Italian fish vendor from California of the same generation, and they lived their lives under a code of conduct defined by integrity and an unyielding loyalty to friends and allies. Hickel was forced out of the Nixon White House after criticizing Nixon's handling of student protests during the Vietnam War. "Regardless of how I, or any American, might feel individually, we have an obligation as leaders to communicate with our youth and listen to their ideas and problems," he wrote. He refused to compromise his personal ethics.
I spent a fascinating morning with Hickel this past summer, in the office of his downtown Anchorage landmark, the Captain Cook Hotel, and he was every bit as dignified and gracious as he was when I first encountered him 35 years earlier in Anchorage, then a raw and wild oil town.
As he approached his 90th birthday, his grip was still strong and his "boomer" vision of Alaska remained his passion. A former boxer, he looked like he could still go a few rounds and I wouldn't want to cross him. He may have lost some of his intellectual edge after nine decades, but his spirit remained undaunted, his eyes bright, particularly when his bride of 67 years, Ermalee, later joined us in the conversation.
Hickel was still pushing his vision of an "owner state"--articulated in his book Crisis in the Commons: The Alaska Solution--and he remained upbeat about the possibilities facing Alaska. He was convinced that the "Age of the Artic" was still ahead and he still believed in "big ideas."
But when I asked Hickel about then governor Sarah Palin, his disposition turned hard. Hickel had played a major role in her victory as governor in the 2006 election--his stamp of approval went a long way toward getting her elected--and he expected a place at the table with the young governor as she was set to guide Alaska into the New Millenium.
In the immediate aftermath of Palin's election, however, Palin cast Hickel aside. As anyone who has ever worked with or for Sarah Palin knows full well, her capacity for deceit and betrayal knows no bounds. She stabbed Hickel in the back.
As a result, Hickel viewed Palin with personal disdain, describing her "political opportunism" in the most condemnatory terms possible. He had lost all respect for her. She "used" him like she would use many other patrons as she scratched and lied her way to a strange form of national political celebrity, and Hickel was not afraid to call it like he saw it. He was not bitter--he was a much bigger man than that--but at the same time, he was not afraid to show his disgust. "I don't give a damn about her," he told me.
I found his candor refreshing. Not only did he view Palin as a political parvenu, he viewed her as a puppet. "She's not her own woman," he said to me several times. He was strongly opposed to her plans for a TransCanada pipeline--he did not believe it would ever be built--and he championed instead an All Alaska gas-line project from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. In a stinging opinion piece he wrote a year ago this week, he declared, "If I were governor, we would start building the All-Alaska gas line tomorrow. All it takes is some guts and a decision."
It didn't take much to read between those lines.
When I asked him for a formal, on-the-record response to Palin's stunted career as governor, he took a deep pause. "She fell in love with the national spotlight and lost her ethical compass," he said thoughtfully. "That was a sad day for Alaska and America."
In the aftermath of Palin's resignation, Hickel wrote a prescient opinion piece for the Anchorage Daily News (where he was a regular contributor until just last month), in which he expressed his criticism of Palin for being a polarizing figure along both class and racial lines during the national campaign. He urged her "to rise above the worn-out, negative tactics of presidential politics and assume the role of stateswoman."
While acknowledging his initial support for Palin's nomination, he expressed his horror at the divisive nature of her political rhetoric:
Palin became the spokesperson for the divisive voices in American politics. She dismissed the greatness of our immigrant heritage, indeed of today's Alaska, where in Anchorage alone nearly 100 languages are spoken in the homes of the children in our public schools.
Not surprisingly, Palin did not dignify Hickel's passing with a formal acknowledgment on her Facebook page, but instead issued a shameful and shallow "reflection" on Twitter in her distinctive Palinese:
Upon his passing,we honor Gov Walter Hickel's life,he made real difference in the world.Unsurpassed impacts on Alaska,the Arctic&her people[sic]
That was it. Palin was well aware of Hickel's disdain, and she could not rise above her pettiness to issue the formal acknowledgment that his life and career warranted.
Indeed, these two figures represent the anithesis of Arctic politics. Whereas Hickel was a man whose destiny was always greater that his own, Palin's has always been wrapped up in her own self-interest. Whereas Palin is all about style, Hickel was a man of substance. In the end, the shadow of his political legacy in the Last Frontier will forever loom long beyond that of Sarah Palin's. His was real and transcendent--while hers is small and remains nothing but a fantasy.
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Comments (1-24) not displayed.
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Puts my banning @ 4um in perspective.
Yeah, I just put two and two together as I was banned at the same time.
#26. To: Fred Mertz (#17)
Okay, I found the thread:
That Flintlock sure sounds like 22rifle, the eternal Bushbot sidekick.
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#27. To: Fred Mertz (#24)
Hey Fredo, you quit after people got tired of BS's leftist posting and he got the boot. Now get you head out of your horses ass and try to cobble together a rational thought.
#28. To: mininggold, war (#26)
Did you see where Tull gave him an hour and a half to remove his libertysflame tag line? And then Tull removed it himself within 45 minutes and banned him in less than an hour.
The power really went to his head. And then he says Stoner can return if he grovels back to that shitty treatment. christine wouldn't normally do anything like that for a little heated exchange...oh well, her problem.
#29. To: Fred Mertz (#28)
Sounds like a cunt to me.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#30. To: Tull (#27)
Hey Fredo, you quit after people got tired of BS's leftist posting and he got the boot.
I challenged Brian S's banning when I learned of it. I got banned. I didn't quit.
I'd do the same for any reasonable poster I'd seen for over many years online, including Badeye...even if I disagree with him most the time.
#31. To: Fred Mertz (#28)
Here u go Fredo.......
#32. To: Fred Mertz (#30)
I'd do the same for any reasonable poster
BS isn't a "reasonable poster" he's a leftist d'bag. And that's what makes you Fredo, Fredo.
#33. To: Tull (#32)
That makes you a closed minded twit.
#34. To: Fred Mertz (#33)
You and Brian S got banned from freedumb4em? Knew about the anti groupie, but you two?
I can see NOVEMBER from my House....
#35. To: Fred Mertz, Tull, war, mininggold, skippy, BrianS, (#33)
That makes you a closed minded twit.
You're all a bunch of whining PUSSIES!
Sneakypete, have you ever been married? Said things you later regretted?
#36. To: Fred Mertz (#33)
That makes you a closed minded twit.
bahaaa....
What a lame reply :P
Did you rip that one off from the latest Oprah show??
Fredo, you are fast climbing the Internet's Ladder of Idiots.
Keep it up, boy.
#37. To: Fred Mertz (#30) (Edited)
I challenged Brian S's banning when I learned of it. I got banned. I didn't quit.I'd do the same for any reasonable poster I'd seen for over many years online, including Badeye...even if I disagree with him most the time.
Leave it to a troll to spin the reason for a posters' banning when it's there for all to see.
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#38. To: Badeye (#34)
At least I was able to register there. You couldn't get in the door.
In retrospect, you probably made out better on that one.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#39. To: war (#23)
Puts my banning @ 4um in perspective.
You got banned?
#40. To: Badeye (#34)
You and Brian S got banned from freedumb4em? Knew about the anti groupie, but you two?
Trull was objecting to some of Brian's articles, as not goose stepping high enough.
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#41. To: mininggold (#37)
Oh you're just mad at me because you live (with your Mommy) in a state that is an open boil on the ass of America.
#42. To: lucysmom (#39) (Edited)
Yea...can you believe it? I'm smart, witty, good looking and make a mean Marguerita. Why ban me?
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#43. To: mininggold (#40)
Trull was objecting to some of Brian's articles, as not goose stepping high enough.
commissar n. An official of the Communist Party in charge of political indoctrination and the enforcement of party loyalty.
#44. To: lucysmom (#43)
Nope. Think due west of there.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#45. To: mininggold (#37)
Leave it to a troll to spin the reason for a posters' banning when it's there for all to see.
Delirium tremens, I suspect, cause you to see and hear lots of unusual things.
#46. To: war (#44)
What's the "western" version of commissar?
#47. To: lucysmom (#46) (Edited)
Fuhrer.
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#48. To: war (#42)
Yea...can you believe it? I'm smart, witty, good looking and make a mean Marguerita.
What's positive to some is a threat to others.
#49. To: war (#47)
Sounds grandiose.
#50. To: lucysmom (#49)
Indubitably...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#51. To: Tull (#45)
What's up with banning posters on one site and then going to another site to engage the posters you've banned? Doesn't make sense to me.
#52. To: mininggold (#40)
Hmmm. The anti groupie always ends up being banned, but I have to admit I'm surprised by Brian S and Freddie.
I can see NOVEMBER from my House....
#53. To: Badeye (#52) (Edited)
The anti groupie always ends up being banned
You should be proud...having something in common with me...
#67. To: war (#48) Keep hiding behind the bozo, bozo. (laughing) You've always been a world class pussy. Badeye posted on 2010-01-14 16:12:48 ET Reply Trace
#54. To: lucysmom (#51) (Edited)
What's up with banning posters on one site and then going to another site to engage the posters you've banned? Doesn't make sense to me.
Stone invited me.
#55. To: lucysmom (#51) (Edited)
What's up with banning posters on one site and then going to another site to engage the posters you've banned? Doesn't make sense to me.
He's wearing his Tea Party allegiance on his sleeve. And he knows he's safe 'cause none can follow him over there and find what skirt he's hiding behind. LOLOL
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#56. To: Tull (#54)
Stone invited me.
That's the answer to "Who invited you?", not "Why did you show up".
#57. To: Tull (#54)
Get the fuck out of here. You're not welcome here.
#58. To: Fred Mertz (#57)
My, my Fredo. Is this a new, scary you? It's not working if it is.
#59. To: Fred Mertz (#57)
Get the fuck out of here. You're not welcome here.
As it hasn't got an original idea in it's pointy little bureaucrat head just Bozo it.
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#60. To: Badeye (#52)
After 10 years of posting I was banned from one site - FR circa 2004, no regrets.
I got banned from 4um a few months ago. The jack boot apparently did it. Again, no regrets.
#61. To: lucysmom (#56)
"Why did you show up".
Again, because I was invited.
#62. To: mininggold (#59)
Probably I should. christine has lost her grip on that web site.
#63. To: Fred Mertz (#62) (Edited)
Yes do that because I'm here to stay and make mince meat out of the left wing cell that you hold near and dear. So off you ya' goofball. Anyone who takes Pitt football seriously is a tad on the 'tard side.
#64. To: Fred Mertz (#62)
Probably I should. christine has lost her grip on that web site.
4um is the only site I have ever been banned from. lol
I was subtly warned by two posters there that the two sacred cows are Tull and Cynicon.
Making the world safe for United Fruit.
#65. To: mininggold (#64)
That site is a joke. I visit it for the headlines. I like a good number of people over there, but jackboot laid down the law.
LOLOL
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