Month: July 2009

The Palin Cure

Frum thinks she may have put party second:

Palin’s self-immolation today may yet do the Republican party more harm than good. Had Palin sought and won the Republican nomination in 2012, she would almost certainly have proceeded to a Goldwater-style debacle – and dragged Republican senators, governors and representatives down with her. That would have been a miserable result. And yet it also would have been a clarifying one. Republicans would have got Palin and Palinism out of their systems in a sharp and painful lesson that would have opened the way to the kind of reconstruction that has occurred in, say, the United Kingdom.

She is a poison pill – always has been. But I suspect that David is right – the current GOP will not recover until it absorbs the full scale of this insane pick for veep, and the subsequent refusal to take responsibility for it – and even celebrate it.

Oh Joy

Palin's latest tweet:

"Critics are spinning, so hang in there as they feed false info on the right decision made as I enter last yr in office to not run again."

But she did not make an announcement that she will not run again. She announced that she's resigning very soon, without completing one term in office. That's a whole different thing. And it's why the decision is so bizarre. Everyone would have understood if she'd announced she would not be running for re-election. That happens in politics – if not for most partisan superstars. But this rushed sudden resignation must mean something else. Either she's totally unstable and did this on a whim, or we do not yet know the real reason.

The Dan White Option

A reader writes:

I'm calling it now–she is not actually going to step down on July 25. Her speech was produced in a fit of pique and now, given the reaction, she's going to stay on. That's my theory. One of my disappointments in Palin is that she reinforces negative stereotypes of women in management positions–she doesn't play well with others, she doesn't think strategically, everyone is always against her, she's emotional, she holds a grudge and won't walk away from a fruitless argument. Why shouldn't she add "a woman's right to change her mind" to the list?

I say that as a woman in business, whose colleagues would never forget if I did any of the above.

The Blogger Fights Back

The woman targeted by Sarah Palin is undeterred:

The governor’s massive overreaction -on the Fourth of July no less- should make any reasonable person wonder what’s wrong with her.  The Lady protests way too much.  Eventually we’ll all find out why she really walked off the job. Sarah Palin is a coward and a bully.  What kind of politician attacks an ordinary American on the Fourth of July for speaking her mind?  What’s wrong with her?  The First Amendment was designed to protect people like me from the likes of people like her.  Our American Revolution got rid of kings.  And queens, too.  Am I jacked-up? You betcha.

Sarah Palin, if you have a problem with me, then sue me.  Shannyn Moore will not be muzzled!

"Eventually we'll all find out why she really walked off the job."