'First Dude' Todd Palin heavily involved in governing Alaska
(Read article summary)More than an 'unpaid advisor' to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, 'First Dude' Todd Palin seemed to have his hands on the machinery of government and politics. Then there was the tanning bed.
“First Dude” Todd Palin – husband of Alaska’s ex-governor and tea party favorite Sarah Palin – apparently did more than race snowmobiles, work on the Alaska pipeline, and be a commercial fisherman while his wife was busy running state government.
According to some 1,200 emails uncovered this week by MSNBC.com, “the governor's husband got involved in a judicial appointment, monitored contract negotiations with public employee unions, received background checks on a corporate CEO, added his approval or disapproval to state board appointments and passed financial information marked ‘confidential’ from his oil company employer to a state attorney.”
And then there was the tanning bed, without which no home in Alaska is complete during those loooong gray winter months. MSNBC.com investigative reporter Bill Dedman reports that “the governor coached her staff on how to disguise the amount of electrical work needed at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.”
By the way, if you have nothing better to do while waiting for the Super Bowl festivities to begin, you can rummage through the emails yourself.
