Posted on 07/03/2009 6:38:02 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Sarah Palin's holiday-eve decision to resign as governor blindsided TV commentators and bloggers who scrambled to come up with an explanation. The Daily Beast's presents a roundup of insta-reactions.
THEORY 1: VANITY FAIR HURT HER FEELINGS
Palin locks horns with the media on a regular basis, and the most recent addition to America’s Palin-bashing oeuvre—Todd Purdum’s 10,000-word Vanity Fair profile—was a doozy. Palin’s closest colleagues ridiculed her with nicknames like “Little Shop of Horrors,” accusations of incompetence and a personality disorder, and leaked personal emails. Alluding to Palin’s notoriously thin skin when it comes to media criticism (last week, an amateur blogger named “Celtic Diva” prompted Palin to ask for the president to intervene), Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall characterized Palin’s resignation speech as “a colossal sulk… an effort on her part to ingeniously combine anti-liberal media-bias agitation with Christianist politics by portraying herself as having been crucified by the liberal media.”
And really, what better way to screw the media than making such a huge announcement on a holiday weekend? Gripes Politico’s Ben Smith: “So much for today being a slow news day.”
THEORY 2: SHE’S RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT
When Palin first announced she would not seek re-election, the conventional wisdom was that she would be running for president in 2012. As recently as last week, the governor was fundraising aggressively for her political action committee, SarahPAC. At least some members of the Palin 2012 crowd are still pounding their drums. And hey, Barack Obama never finished his first term as senator—maybe it’s a new trend?
THEORY 3: SHE’S NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell floated the notion that Palin isn’t aiming for the White House or any other office. She genuinely hates politics, Mitchell argued on television moments after Palin’s speech:
She has told some of her biggest backers that she is free to choose other candidates for 2012... She told some of her top backers that she'd had it and was out of politics. She does not want to seek elected office... Sarah Palin will remain unpredictable but... as far as we know she will not be running for president.
THEORY 4: SHE'S PREGNANT AGAIN
Shortly after Palin's speech, a flummoxed Rich Sanchez started throwing out possibilities, to correspondent Candy Crowley's chagrin:
Sanchez: There have been a couple of other, ah, situations that might cause someone to feel a lot of stress... and the one thing that's still left out there is, Hey! Could she be pregnant again? Crowley: Well, I certainly don't know the answer to that last thought.
THEORY 5: SHE’S SICK OF ALASKA
CNN’s John King reported that a source close to Palin’s political team said the resignation was a “calculation” related to her “book deal and other issues” that were “causing a lot of friction up” in Alaska. In her resignation speech, Palin said she can do as much good for Alaskans outside of office as she can in it—but is it actually the lower 48 she’s after? CNN reports:
Another source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that Palin "thinks she has accomplished goals she has set forward. … She sees what a positive influence she has had on people's lives from traveling the country in the last year.
THEORY 6: IT WAS A WHIM
Talking Points Memo notes that in the moments before her resignation speech, Palin’s Twitter may have suggested that she hadn’t decided yet on resignation. Palin’s blithe Tweet referred to her decision not to seek reelection, but nothing else:
We’ll soon attach info on decision to not seek reelection… this is in Alaska’s best interest, my family’s happy… it is good, stay tuned.
Politico’s Glenn Thrush notes that Palin met with colleagues all week and “gave no indication” that she was quitting.
THEORY 7: THE ETHICS POLICE WERE ABOUT TO NAB HER
In her resignation speech, Palin said she refused to stand by while Alaska wasted taxpayer money investigating her, presumably referring to the state’s ethical inquiries into Palin’s behavior in the so-called Troopergate scandal. Earlier this week, the Anchorage Daily News reported that the bill for the Troopergate inquiry had neared $300,000; on the same day as Palin’s resignation, the ADN reported that Alaska’s Department of Health and Human Services Chairwoman, Beverly Wooley, says Palin unfairly forced her out of office because “Palin felt she wasn’t in step on social issues.” Meanwhile, The Daily Beast's Max Blumenthal reports that Todd Palin's snowmobile sponsor, Spenard Building Supplies, may have been mixed up in questionable political and Palin family business.
THEORY 8: SHE’S UNSTABLE
Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse issued a statement characterizing Palin’s resignation as “bizarre behavior”:
Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her longshot national political ambitions or she simply can't handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way, her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today.
THEORY 9: HER HANDLERS ARE INCOMPETENT
Could Palin’s resignation shocker simply be the product of poor handling? Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ed Rollins said Palin looks “terribly inept”:
You don't just quit with a year and a half to go. You certainly don't do this as a stepping stone to run for president. You finish the job that you're in, and obviously she's not doing that…. You don't quit on the Friday of a three-day holiday. If you are going to do this, you think it through, you give a good speech
THEORY 10: SHE’S ANGLING FOR A TV SHOW
Longtime Palin detractor Andrew Sullivan burst into a series of “stunned… yet not surprised at all” posts on his blog at The Atlantic, and notes that she could always pull a Huckabee and parlay her political cred into a career on the small screen:
Once the klieglights hit, it was only a matter of time before she imploded or exploded or some gruesome combination of the two. The librul media will be blamed for everything on her inexorable path to becoming a Fox News celebrity. Maybe a reality show? Someone hire her for The View!
THEORY 11: SHE HAS A GOD COMPLEX
In his controversial Vanity Fair profile, Purdum noted that multiple Alaskans who worked closely with Palin accused her of having narcissistic personality disorder. While some argued that Palin’s attention-seeking qualities were de rigueur for politics, the governor’s resignation speech suggested a desire to avoid a drop in relevance during her lame-duck session:
Once I decided not to run for reelection, 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.
Sarah giveth and she taketh away.
12. She’s given up on the RINO infested GOP and will start a new party.
The Daily Beast site needs to be swarmed and crashed by Sarah fans.
13. She’s an idiot...and never should have been moved to the national stage.
No....thats Our Dear Leader's gig.....
I don’t give a royal Obama what 11 pundits think.
Freedom to do what she want and not be sued by every group.
How long you been a dick...?
I think something along the lines of #7 may ultimately turn out to be what’s going on. Not that she’s guilty, but that something was going to come out to make her look bad.
. (you)
I now wish she had listened to her fellow Americans when we told her not to trust McCain and his ObamaCom, little Stevie Schmidt.
13. She knows it will take a billion dollars or more in fundraising to defeat Obama, and she’s getting an early start.
This is going to be a real bloodbath as the character assassins make sure she's 100%, completely dead.
Maybe this decision wasn't actually thought out very well, or maybe the other shoe hasn't dropped.
IMHO, Sarah is calling this JUST AT THE RIGHT TIME !!!!!
July 26th is right on the button. She would have probably lost her job anyway since that will be right after the Putin leg of the Obamassiah's continuing worldwide "Apology Tour" as I expect him to apologize for the 1867 USA Seward's Folly "cheap" purchase of Alaska, and immediately return it to Putin.
....from a kneeling position, begging forgiveness of course..
I'm not sure what her legal defense fund entails or how large it is, or if one is even allowed in the state of Alaska. Plus, if she is financially strapped, it would make sense for her to get out now and makes some cash for her family, while she's still the hottest commodity around.
What, what, what could possibly top that?
This woman has some very real enemies who are very evil and dangerous. They'll keep going after long after she's out of politics ~ they hate her, they hate her kids, they hate her baby, they hate her snow machines, they hate, hate, .....
Don't count on them even knowing the difference between right and wrong. It's highly unlikely they have anything on anyone.
She shouldn’t have quit the job...she should have fulfilled her commitment to the people of Alaska. She shouldn’t have ran if she didn’t intend to fulfill her term, but maybe there’s something negative that hasn’t come out yet about her or something she’s done. Just my opinion, but this seems really abrupt and a bad decision...so one has to wonder.
You missed a theory.
I think she resigned because she was so sick of seeing Michael Jackson on the news. She wanted to get a fresh story going.
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