Posted on 07/03/2009 5:24:46 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The news of Sarah Palin’s resignation as governor came during my show this afternoon, where we spent most of an hour discussing it with the chatizens and my co-host Duane Patterson. I’ve had a chance to watch the video of her announcement and read through dozens of Twitter messages back and forth attempting to rationalize this, and still, it simply can’t be rationalized on the basis of what Palin said today. It’s easily the most bizarre resignation I’ve seen, and just about senseless.
The lame-duck explanation was the most incoherent part of the entire statement:
“Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional ‘Lame Duck’ status in this particular climate would just be another dose of ‘politics as usual,’ something I campaigned against and will always oppose. It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success.”
Bear in mind that the election isn’t next month but about 16 months from now, in November 2010. Using this logic, Palin should never have run for the first term unless she was willing to run for the second, and not run for either if she wasn’t willing (or legally able) to run for a third. Politicians don’t enter lame-duck status until their successor has already been elected and they’re running out the rest of the term. And all politicians become lame ducks at some point — and none of them quit just to avoid it.
Also, how can Palin quit because she didn’t want to deal with being a lame duck and claim in the same breath that her administration would “continue without interruption”? She just interrupted it! If she thinks that being a “lame duck” would hamper her ability to push her agenda in the state’s capital, how does she think that an unelected Sean Parnell is going to get it done?
If it’s her duty to always “protect” Alaska, then that strongly implies not walking away from the responsibility of governing it — a responsibility she sought, and with which her constituents trusted her to execute. No one leads by quitting. No one leads by quitting. Palin’s abandoning her post, and at least from her own description, doing it because she doesn’t want to deal with the issues of being a “lame duck,” a status all politicians have to handle at some point.
I’ve seen a myriad of excuses on Twitter and e-mail for this bizarre resignation: her legal bills are too high, she’s putting her family first, she doesn’t want to distract Alaskans because of cheap-shot ethics complaints that are distracting everyone. None of those make any sense. If the spotlight was too much, then she shouldn’t have run for office in the first place. If she’s quitting because people are taking potshots at her, then she’s not the kind of political fighter we thought she was. The legal bills might be a rational reason, but thoroughly insufficient for betraying the people who put her in charge of Alaska — and her memoirs would have paid for her legal bills many times over, had she completed her term.
There’s really no excuse, and what Rich Lowry also calls her “terrible,” “rambling,” and “not at all persuasive” statement showed that. Unless there was a serious illness or a serious scandal, the resignation on the grounds Palin gave is simply incomprehensible. She has destroyed her own credibiity in a single day.
I liked Sarah Palin and supported her inclusion on the GOP ticket last fall. I thought she had more toughness than this. It’s a big disappointment, and it’s the end of any hope of Palin getting taken seriously as a politician on the national level in the future.
Update (AP): I was going to tuck this into one of my own posts but it fits better here. Quin Hillyer, senior editor at the Spectator, calls the resignation an “appalling dereliction of duty.”
What Sarah Palin did today was get out before the real challenges of the job (whatever challenges there are for such an easy job) really rear their heads. The going got tough in terms of spurious ethics charges against her, and she took off. That’s cowardly. That’s not sign of staying power. It’s a sign of wanting to get out while the getting is good, in order to become a full-time candidate for a presidential race that won’t culminate for 3 1/2 more years. It’s a little too calculating, by half — or more.
I just listened to her speech announcing her decision, and found it singularly unimpressive. “This was a rambling, bombastic, self-centered, ‘poor me’ kind of speech.” That’s how Mike Carey of the Anchorage Daily News just described her speech on Fox News. I agree. He then said it was, darn, I already can’t remember if he said it was “pitiful” or “pathetic,” but it was some word like that. Again, I agree. It was a speech in which she clearly made a bit for a national audience — not a very effective bid, but a transparent one — but didn’t adequately explain to the people of Alaska why she was relinquishing her duty…
Statesmen hang tough. Sarah Palin is cutting and running. ‘Nuff said.
And you are a spiritual person to, I wonder why you didn't understand her statement?
This piece of rot is not an analyses but a moaning babble-wish from a media degenerate.....
The sad thing is that, now, Obama owns all the big money in this country. I’m pretty sure he is on track to be our “first, historical”, permanent el presidente.
Thinking she is done, and hoping she is done, are two different things. The more she was attacked, the more people wanted her to succeed, to fight back.
We went through 8 years of Bush, sometimes fighting back, but mostly giving in, not answering critics, letting the attacks piled up, but at least never quitting.
Ed Morrisey has certainly been wrong, but he’s not an idiot, and he’s right a lot more often than he’s wrong.
Pitchforks and torches won’t work on everybody who has a contrary opinion.
Thanks, Gov. Palin, you flushed ‘em out for us. :)
BINGO! Liberals all.
I've heard from at least two people today on hearing the news and her speech in particular exclaim they'll be working directly for her campaign, if it's simply knocking on doors.
We don’t do well as a party when we start with the “enemies list”.
I agree. Palin and politics on the national stage is over. I just hope it isn't a scandal, but I fear that might also be an issue.
Enforce the rules against personal attacks against me then a nd we have a deal.
The inside-the-beltway lounge lizards of all stripes have been blindsided by Sarah’s speech today.
I’ve listened to it four times. She’s not going anywhere but on a vibrant campaign to set things right with this country.
The fact that each of us, and undoubtedly others, have come to a similar conclusion would logically lead one to wonder WTH our country has come to.
But then, some of us know the answer to such a question.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/1st-amendment-petition.html
Sure you are, but your posts belie you tagline.
She wants out.
But, no one can blame her.
To see whether this was really a savvy political move, just take the names of every freeper who is saying it was, and look at all their posts over the last 6 months.
If you find a SINGLE FREEPER who supporter Sarah who ever said the smart thing for her to do was resign, post it. I haven’t found one person yet who said Sarah should resign to help her political career.
On the contrary, there has been LOTS of posts about how she wasn’t a quitter, and how great it was that she wouldn’t back down while being attacked. About how much better she’d be in 2012 having served an entire term as Governor, and how she’d show how to get a state through the Obama depression.
Now of course, many Freepers are blindly screaming that this was a great idea, and that anybody who thinks otherwise is a RINO traitor.
But none of them called for her to resign on Thursday.
If we didn’t know she had already resigned, and someone posted a thread saying “If Sarah is serious, she would Resign”, I’m sure these same people would be out in force trying to get the freeper banned for his absurd suggestion.
Yay for Sarah.
Who the hell is Ed Morrissey?
Hopefully, if she gets to be President, and the left attacks her mercilessly, she won’t take a poll of her family to decide whether to finish out her term.
But the drowning will grasp at anything.
But it is so easy now. Any opponent will just put out a bumper sticker: “Quitting is not a traditional American value”.
Well, you are showing your true colors on this thread.
Now we know.
Enlighten me as to my political idiocy. Governor Mark Sanford was not in a position to be blackmailed by the government of Argentina (and several other foreign interests)? Look, I would love for the GOP to deliver a winning platform and candidate. They have not delivered on either count. Ergot, I am a troll, DU'er, and all around cad. This does not engender kind reciprocity on my behalf. It actually pisses me off and leads me to call thread harpies "whore".
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