I was about to pull apart Palin’s ‘goodbye’ speech yesterday for a coupla’ reasons:
1.) Sarah said it and probably wrote it which means it’s a nonsensical train wreck just like everything else she produces or attempts.
2.) It’s sure to have some hilarious rationalizations that champion stupid or rotten stuff, which then Republicans will immediately ‘Huzzah!’ which is always kewl.

And for other reasons as well, but it’s the right’s sympathetic rescue interventions and self-conscious back-patting that’s entertaining at the present, so let’s say we toy with those for a while.

First, what did Palin just do? Something stupid and selfish, as usual:

Quitters Never Win
In Sarah Palin’s GOP, the leaders keep quitting and the troubles don’t.
By Bruce Reed

“It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down [and] plod along,” Sarah Palin said Friday, in an attempt to suggest that serving her full term as governor would add to the nation’s apathy. “That’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out.” Sarah Palin is no quitter. That’s why she’s quitting.

…Palin closed her statement with words she attributed to Gen. Douglas MacArthur: “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.” Right war, wrong general: The man who said those words was Oliver Smith, who helped his men escape annihilation at the Battle of the “Frozen Chosin” Reservoir in Korea. She should be so lucky. For Sarah Palin, avoiding disaster continues to be a losing battle.

There you go, Bruce Reed has it covered pretty quickly there.

She lobbied desperately for the job, told Alaskans how important it and the future of Alaska were, then quit a little more than halfway through her tenure. Bravo.

So, are Republicans jamming the internets with angry screeds brimming with golden conservative tear-extractors like ‘responsibility’ and ‘trust’ and ‘faith’ and ‘public service’, and ‘sacrifice’ and ‘duty’? Or truncheons like ‘selfishness’ and ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘broken promises’ and ‘back-stabbing’?

Not exactly:

Atlas Shrugs: My take? If Palin is anything like I think she is (know she is), Obama’s treasonous presidency is responsible for this. She, like all patriotic Americans, is shocked by what is happening. Obama is destroying this country. She knows it. We all know it. We need a leader. She is answering our call.

She did not quit. She is going to get into the fight to save America. Watch what happens.

Yes, you need a leader, so she’s abandoning her leadership position. Who really wants to hang around through those brutal 3rd and 4th years anyways? Everyone knows that ‘governorship‘ is just ‘death march‘ by another name. Goody!–now she can run at the 2012 opening for the most difficult leadership position on Earth. That hotly criticized 4-year position is very well-suited to quitters and dilettantes.

Incidentally, Atlas–what exactly was your ‘call’ to her?

“…SARAH……BUILD…US……A..TIME..MACHINE……”

Nice going.

Bill Kristol, the Weekly Standard: If Palin wants to run in 2012, why not do exactly what she announced today?

Hmm, because it’s rash, careerist, stupid, selfish, it shows a lack of fortitude and regard for the people she said she would serve, sets a bad precedent and example for her future service, gives her enemies ample ammo to assassinate her with…? Go crazy, stop me when I land on the particular one you were thinking of, Bill.

It’s an enormous gamble – but it could be a shrewd one.

Unless it’s just stupid and ruins her career, then it would be a ‘not shrewd’ one. Bill Kristol is so funny.

After all, she’s freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues – and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska.

Yes, by forcing everyone to rip her for abandoning her duties today, Palin removes the possibility of people being shocked by the allegations tomorrow. She’s the genius who finally figured out an answer to the muckraker’s question: ‘When did you stop beating your dog?’ Answer: ‘Yesterday–didn’t you see the big press conference?’ Bill is at least as smart as Palin.

Red State: Sarah Palin resigned, I think, to spare her family from more attacks. I don’t think it is a coincidence that Sarah Palin is doing this just days after a very nasty Vanity Fair article where folks like Nicolle Wallace and, according to Bill Kristol, McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt, savaged her.

That’s right. She’s sensitive about how her family is perceived, she’s practically psychotic about sparing them the spotlight. Well, maybe the dead-center of the spotlight. Well, maybe the absolutely-just-to-the-right-of-that-one-photon-but-a-smidge-to-the-left-of-that-other-photon exact-space-and-time-continuum center of all the electromagnetic radiation that makes for spotlights. That’s for her. All that other sort of attention is too much, it’s unbearable. Just imagine if Palin had to run for, say, Vice President. She’d never last the entire campaign and then quit her boring job to launch a nationwide career as a celebrity politician.

Unfortunately, by resigning, I think the left and national media will be emboldened to ritualistically engage in the metaphorical gang raping of conservative politicians, particularly those who are female and have children. They’ll decide savaging Palin’s family drove her from office, so the sky’s the limit on the next conservative with kids.

Barbara Bush! Where the hell are ya, gal? Can I be a one-man gang? ‘Cuz I got a one-man thang, that’s just how I roll!! *cough* Talk to the hand!!

I’ve had this running thought all day, perhaps because I was watching it on TV in HD for the first time, that this is kind of like Ben Kenobi letting Darth Vader strike him down. Palin is not going to run in 2012, but by doing this she can now become Barack Obama’s worst nightmare, an




























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