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Dan Fagan, the large-scale Anchorage media figure who questioned Levi Johnston’s apprenticeship qualifications this weekend, has somehow become a left blogosphere icon today. Guess what – he’s a homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, Exxon-loving WATB, who just happens to also dislike Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Buzzflash is linking to Fagan’s article. DailyKos has had two diaries on his article up so far. Firedoglake’s La Figa has an entry on this article. And I haven’t even begun to look. I’m not going to waste my time. Instead, I’m going to spend that time putting Fagan’s article and Fagan into a bit more context, since there’s a fundamental misunderstanding afoot as to who he is and why he seems to be after the Palins.
First a little background on this issue, which surfaced at the Anchorage Daily News in early October, in a letter to the editor:
Who got Levi Johnston his job at the slope?
Posted by riverlee
Posted: October 13, 2008 – 6:10 pm
I didn’t pay attention to it or write about it then. I was very busy, helping reporters from around the world get information on Sarah Palin. Nor, it appears, did any of the rest of us. So, I’ve got to give Fagan, and his colleague at the new Alaska Standard, Rebeca Logan, due credit for what may end up a true breaking story.
As Fagan, with Logan’s help, laid it out Friday in the original article posted in the non-print, electronic Standard, Johnston appears to be totally unqualified to participate in the apprenticeship program he’s enrolled in, through Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, a wealthy "regional "Native Corporation, set up under the 1974 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
The program Johnston is enrolled in has specific requirements for participation. As Gryphen showed today, at the Immoral Minority, here’s how Johnston shakes out:
Which brings me to the thing that keeps bothering me. You see we know that Johnston HAS the connections because his future mother in law is the freaking Governor! But according to Sarah Palin herself, he DOES NOT have the basic qualifications.
You see Levi Johnston did not yet finish high school. And according to the minimum job requirements listed by the IBEW you must meet the following criteria:
1. Must be at least eighteen years of age (Yep!)
2. Must be a high school graduate or have a GED (Nope!)
3. Must provide an official, sealed copy of high school transcripts. (Nope!)
4. Must have successfully completed two semesters of high school level algebra or one college level algebra course (I seriously doubt it!)
The Anchorage Daily News version about this, now (Saturday evening) has over 850 comments to Fagan’s op-ed. The Mudflats, Alaska’s highest comment traffic progressive blog, has almost 100.
I wrote a brief piece about this Saturday morning at my place. I’ll be watching to see how it shakes out. I’m so used to members of the Alaska "nomenklatura" getting stuff like what Levi got, that’s part of the reason it didn’t register as a bigger blip on my radar back in October.
Now, for Dan Fagan.
In Anchorage, he started out as a television reporter. He left TV for an afternoon AM-Radio early drive time call-in show a few years ago. It is the top-rated local show of that type in the market. Over the years, when I’ve caught him lying about an important issue, I’ve called in. Generally he ends up hanging up on me. Two days before the November election, Dan called me a "despicable traitor" for defending Obama’s relationship to William Ayers. After he hung up.
He typically blames Bill Clinton for 9-11, and is already calling our current economic climate "The Obama Recession," or the "Obama Depression." If you’re liberal when you call in, if he’s in a good mood, you’re a "socialist," a bad mood – "communist."
I’ve written several posts about Fagan at Progressive Alaska, on his weird journalistic style, on his personal cowardice, on his Islamophobia, and on his lack of professionalism (that’s his crotch in the pic).
Other Alaska bloggers have added to the criticism. Celtic Diva has been very critical of Dan, on his sexism and racism, for instance. Alaska’s most prestigious progressive blogger, Dr. Steve Aufrecht, has been highly critical of Fagan, a number of times.
It is interesting that Fagan’s article, posted on his new blog on Friday, picked up by the ADN on Saturday morning, and by several national blogs during the day, has been taken as if it were a journalistic effort by a member of the ADN press corps. Fagan has a weekly Sunday morning niche at the ADN, where he will probably be tomorrow.
Fagan is one of the ADN’s biggest critics from the right. I’m probably the Anchorage daily’s biggest longtime critic from the left. McClatchy, the ADN owner, is in a tailspin. Nine months ago, you could buy a share of its stock for the price of a six-pack of craft brew beer. Two months ago, a share got down to the price of a Heineken. This week, it is going for lower than the price of a half-can of Old Milwaukee.
The ADN political blog hasn’t had a post in 2009 (as of Saturday evening). Their so-called "Daily Newsreader" hasn’t had a post since the second day of winter. During that time, the Alaska Report, Fagan’s Alaska Standard, and the other new on-line-only media outlet, the Alaska Dispatch, have posted scores of new items, cross-linking to thousands of articles on Alaska, throughout the web. The Daily News is very sparing in providing HTML links to content from outside of McClatchey.
The ADN, has been reduced, at the beginning of the first weekend of 2009, to accepting content from one of their biggest right-wing critics, on a story they could have easily broken three months ago.
Our Alaska progressive blogs will become more vital to getting the truth out about GOP corruption in Alaska this year. Don’t expect Fagan to be an ally on anything but attacking Governor Sarah Palin.
13 Comments
You’da man, ET. Rec’d.
Thank you for this informative post, ET.
Breaking through the logjam of the stunningly superficial. Electric moment, indeed.
Kudos for all the work you do.
I agree, interesting info.
Who the f*** ever added La Figa to the dashboard @ FDL?
The dashboard is WAY too crowded. FDL should get rid of La Figa and the Laura Flanders links.
As some may have already learned, the Sunday edition (January 4th) of the Anchorage Daily News is running a long investigative piece by regular reporter Sean Cockerham on the oxycontin bust in December of Levi Johnston’s mother, Sherry Johnston.
Cockerham’s article contains allegations by John Cyr, head of the Alaska Public Safety Employees Association, and by members of the multi-police force unit that busted Ms. Johnston, that the case was manipulated from outside the investigators’ sphere. Alaska State Trooper investigator Kyle Young wrote last week:
“It was not allowed to progress in a normal fashion, the search warrant service WAS delayed because of the pending election and the Mat Su Drug Unit and the case officer were not the ones calling the shots.”
Gov. Palin’s newest (read most totally, blindly loyal, if not most competent) head of the Department of Public Safety – the third since midsummer – claims the investigators are mischaracterizing the case’s history and handling.
I doubt the three changes as head of the Dept. of Public Safety have any direct relationship to any ongoing investigation of Ms. Johnston, or of any of the Palins themselves, but it may finally be time for the Palins to come clean on how long they’ve had to deal with discussing the drug oxycontin with various law enforcement officials in the Mat-Su Valley, and in the areas where their son Track resided in the two years prior to Track’s military enlistment.
note: On December 15th, I had a discussion with investigative officer Donna Anthony’s regular boss, the Palmer chief of police, about his view on whether methamphetamine use and manufacture locally is still the biggest drug enforcement problem in the local area. At the time, he stated that oxycontin use had supplanted meth in their concerns.
bravo ET! recommended.
and Dugg. Digg it, Pups!
Thanks, friends. I’ll be here until 2:00 p.m. Pacific to answer any questions on this from the comments.
Thanks ET.
ET – I read all the comments on Mudflats last night on this topic and there seems to be an awful lot of confusion as to just what program exactly that Levi is enrolled in – and whether the rules are just guidelines about the highschool diploma, etc. A couple of other north slope workers were discussing all the cronyism and nepotism that is usually how most people get jobs up there. Some mention was made that he apparently ‘jumped over’ a lot of better qualified people on a waiting list – but of course, in order for something to happen one of those individuals would have to sue the program/company involved and that takes money they probably don’t have.
By the end of the thread – there was a ton of more information but it had raised far more questions than it answered. The end result was that though Dan Fagan raised the issue, very late, he really had not done his homework either (duh!)
Any thoughts on this?
There’s not much we can get beyond what confusing stuff you’re citing from the mudflats article, until people show up for work monday morning.
This has been out there since the ADN letter to the editor and resulting comments in early October, so there may have already been a bunch of CYA document vettings already. As to changing documents, to hide the governor’s family’s tracks (I’m thinkng Todd, who would be aware of the existence of this program for years) it all depends upon whether or not Federal money is involved in helping subsidize the apprenticeship program.
A little more background on Fagan’s opposition to Palin, which he has voiced from the beginning. He was chummy with Republican politicians closely aligned with the oil companies – now convicted and in prison former State Rep. Vic Kohring was frequently on his show. (ET, was Kott one of his buddies too?) Quite a few of his Sunday columns have been scathing attacks on Palin’s AGIA – the gas pipeline plan that the big oil companies did not submit proposals for. They thought there would be no proposals to the state’s RFP and then the state would have to bow to their conditions.
Palin’s position on this – refusing to roll over to the big oil companies – was one of the things that caused progressive Alaskans to feel good about Palin before last summer. In part I think this came about because she had great staff. Seven staff of the Dept. of Natural Resources, including the Murkowski appointed commissioner, had resigned together in protest because they felt former Gov. Murkowski was giving away the state in his private negotiations with the oil companies. When Palin defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary and then went on to win the election, she reappointed this competent and public service oriented team. They put the package together. I attended the public meetings they had on AGIA last May and posted on the issues as I saw them.
Things aren’t looking good for AGIA now, basically because BP and Exxon who have control over the gas through their leases want it to fail so they can take over and do it their way. They even have their own gas pipeline project that has full page progress ads regularly in the Anchorage Daily News. The crash of the credit market is also playing a big role. In any case, Fagan has been anti-AGIA and pro-big oil companies from the beginning.
And, of course, the old guard Alaskan Republicans (mostly lubricated by big oil) have never liked Palin. She came to prominence attacking the chair of the Republican party over conflicts of interest, and, as mentioned above, beat the sitting Republican governor in the Republican primary.
If you mean Fagan, rather than Kohring, he didn’t appear on Fagan’s program nearly as often as did Kohring, IIRC. As I remember it, until Vic ran afoul, Dan was his BFF. Dan and Sarah still use the terms “socialist” and “communist” almost exactly the way Vic taught them to use them – with almost total inaccuracy.
Good to see you in on this!