The Anchorage Daily News hits the A.P. hit piece:
Misfire at Palin
Associated Press story offers skewed picture of gas line work
(11/01/08 00:21:14)
“AP INVESTIGATION:
PALIN PIPELINE TERMS CURBED BIDS.”
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment — a contract to build (sic) a 1,715 mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 — emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration.”
This report from The Associated Press is a remarkably skewed account with little new information to support the charge it implies. Presumably, readers are supposed to conclude that Palin tilted the gas line bidding toward a favored company, one that had previously employed one of her key staffers.
Here’s the truth: The pipeline terms were not “Palin’s.” They were the terms requested by the sovereign state of Alaska, as provided in the Alaska Constitution.
While Palin did indeed start by proposing very similar bid terms, all of Alaska’s key decisions about those terms and the contract award itself were made through an unusually open public process that culminated in formal and enthusiastic approval from the Alaska Legislature.
The rest here.