When the state released Gov. Sarah Palin's email archive, she must have been pleased with the "lamestream" media's early stories. The Associated Press version, for example, was headlined "Palin emails show engaged leader who sought VP nod."
That spin was in part the work of her SarahPAC. Many stories quoted treasurer Tim Crawford saying the emails "show a very engaged Governor Sarah Palin being the CEO of her state. The emails detail a Governor hard at work" -- even though he obviously hadn't had a chance to read any of them yet.
Unlike Mr. Crawford, I watched while at the Daily News. I have gone through thousands of pages of the newly released emails. What I see is a governor deeply engaged in sending a near- constant stream of emails -- not one deeply engaged in the details of governing Alaska.
Palin's Blackberry addiction was well known to journalists who followed her. She was famous for always having two of them at hand. Her revenue commissioner, Pat Galvin, told me she would kick off a cabinet meeting with a brief introduction, then turn the discussion over to others while she settled on her Blackberries.
Key oil and gas aide Marty Rutherford told me she was surprised at how well Palin could multitask. But there were times when her team had to tell Palin to put down the Blackberry and focus on the complex issues at hand.
As I learned in researching my forthcoming book about her, Sarah Palin is not a detail person. As Larry Persily, a former journalist who worked on federal issues for Palin, put it, "She does not stay up late at night reading briefing books."
She skims the surface of issues but leaves the detail work to others. An excellent staff on oil and gas issues helped her win big victories on oil tax increases and a system of competitive bidding for state incentives to build a natural gas pipeline.
But "people couldn't get her attention on things beyond oil and gas," Persily told me. Those other issues "required more knowledge and more depth than she was willing to put into it. ... She just wanted things simplified so much."
The emails do show a governor busily engaged in networking with national Republicans who might advance her political career and in responding to her Alaska critics.
She closely followed critical comments posted to items on the Daily News politics blog. She often wrote about unfavorable treatment by radio host Dan Fagan, an archcritic. She exhorted staffers to respond to online media polls and drive up favorable responses.
At the same time, some emails testify to the bipartisan reformer Alaskans knew before she ran for vice president, including efforts to court Democratic support for her oil-tax increase.
I also found signs of trouble to come. She quibbles about whether her staff's well- documented inquiries about why her ex-brother-in-law was still a trooper really amounted to "pressure" on the public safety commissioner she fired, Walt Monegan.
You can see her frustration as she juggles the job and her family life. She complains about having too much time away from her children. She tried to find ways to bring her children along on trips at state expense. She was appalled at the gossip about Trig's birth and her children's loss of privacy.
Palin had amazing early success. She succeeded Frank Murkowski, arguably then the nation's most unpopular governor, just when a corruption scandal broke the power of the oil industry.
She had great timing and took advantage of it, but her success did not last.
The emails don't cover the period after she threw away her identity as a bipartisan reformer to become John McCain's partisan pit bull. The emails don't show how, upon her return, she became the victim of her own scattershot management, superficial engagement, petty personal battles, and ethics controversies. But they do give us early clues why she quit the hard work of governing for the fame and riches of the entertainment world.
Matt Zencey is a former editorial page editor of the Daily News and is working on a book about Palin's time as governor, to be published later this year by Potomac Books.
By MATT ZENCEY