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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It certainly was a bombshell, so the reactions are coming fast and furious. And many righties do not like what Sarah Palin did. They immediately thought that, by giving up on the Governorship so quickly, long before the first term was up, she had abandoned Alaska for personal reasons, and it understandably would not sit well with Alaskans or Americans. And lord knows Conservatives are long on loyalty, so if they’re throwing her overboard only hours later, it can’t be good.

Quin Hillyer, Senior Editor of The American Spectator: ‘Knowing that many, many conservatives will absolutely dump on me for saying this, I can’t help myself: Sarah Palin’s resignation is an appalling dereliction of duty and a highly cynical move to set herself up for a presidental run for which she is manifestly unqualified.

I have written the same thing about other politicians who resigned their offices mid-term without any scandal or family crisis necessitating it: It is an absolute dereliction of duty to quit mid-term. When you run for office, you are making a promise to your constituents to serve out your term (unless you get elected to higher office or have one of the aforementioned compelling reasons not to do so). To do otherwise is, in effect, to break your word. It is a sign of a lack of integrity.’

Jim Geraghty of the National Review: ‘David Schuster is offering a typical sneering tone, but it doesn’t make it any less accurate: “If it’s true that she’s leaving the governorship before her first term is complete, her national political career is done.”‘

‘A broken clock can be right twice a day, and Schuster is right here. If Sarah Palin wishes to someday be President of the United States, then she had to serve at least one full term in statewide office. (Yes, Obama had been in the Senate for about two years before running for president, but he had a lot of stars align for him at the right moment. Beyond that, at some point, “but Obama did it that way” isn’t a persuasive argument.)

Departing with little or no warning, after about 30 months in office, is beyond surprising. I’m sure the Lieutenant Governor will do fine, but there’s definately a sense of leaving with work unfinished and as her career was just beginning to take off.’

Talk show host and blogger Ed Morrissey of Hot Air: ‘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.

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.’

Blogger Ace of Ace of Spades: ‘[DrewM]…She’s resigning at the end of the month. Wow.

It’s over. You can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office. Barring some strong reason, like needing treatment for cancer.’
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Blogger Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House: PALIN RETREATS. Hard to see this as anything else. Yeah, she may still run for president in 2012 but, if anything, this makes her an even longer shot. I hate to say this — and I know it will rile some — but I see this as a retreat. She is, to be blunt about it, running away from the savaging she is receiving in the press and from liberals. It’s not exactly cowardice because the press targeted her kids and husband too – something new and despicably low in American politics. But it suggests an inconstancy that presidential candidates shouldn’t have.

She may be doing it for her family now. But if she then shows up in Iowa and New Hampshire asking people for their vote, what are people to think?

Rich Lowry, Editor of the National Review, isn’t all down on her: I think I have pretty well-established credentials when it comes to being charmed by Sarah Palin, but that statement, as a statement, was simply terrible. Rambling and not at all persuasive as an argument for her decision. More Gibson/Couric than GOP convention speech. She shouldn’t have said a thing without getting Matt Scully—or some similarly talented speechwriter—on the case first. As to how this decision plays out ultimately, we’ll see. There’s plenty of time if (as I assume) she wants to run in 2012, and she obviously has plenty of capital with Republicans. But not an auspicious start.

Who knows, maybe she’ll make a comeback. Politics is strange business.

UPDATE: It’s not all frustration and disappointment: the loons over at Atlas Shrugs are rejoicing.

4:30 pm: 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.

Will do.