Month: July 2009

July 3, 2009

"Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: "Sit down and shut up", but that's the worthless, easy path; that's a quitter's way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and "go with the flow."

The Miniseries Ends

I guessed right, which I suppose reflects just how much time I've spent trying to figure what goes on in her head. I think the simple truth is that, as even Alaskan Republicans told us last September, she was far from able to be governor of Alaska, let alone vice-president of the United States. 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!

In the end, I think, the one thing to say is that the Republican party is in such a total state of collapse and incoherence that it actually believed she could be a future president; and that John McCain was so reckless, so cynical and so cavalier that he was prepared to rest the national security of this country on her shoulders if he, in his seventies, were to become unable to fulfill his duties or die. In some ways, this is a moment to reflect on McCain, and his irresponsibility, not Palin and her drama.

I'm too stunned to say anything else, to tell you the truth. And yet not surprised at all.

More Palin Reax

Here's her statement. Joe My God:

Just watched Palin's press conference. Bizarre. No real reasons given, just a reference to attacks on her son, Trig, plus a rambling history of the acquisition of Alaska. Palin didn't appear to be reading from any notes and the Lt. Governor seems rather stunned. The Freepers are very unhappy. Some say that she's taking the high road and leaving politics entirely to care for her family, some suspect a coming scandal – and many are calling her political career over.

Allahpundit agrees her career is over:

Placing your ambition over your commitment to the state looks shady, especially for someone who won’t have a single full term as governor under her belt for the primaries.

Josh Marshall:

Okay, we're getting our first indication of what happened. It seems like a colossal sulk on Palin's part, or perhaps better to say 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.

Jed Lewison:

Unless she's a total moron, there's no way she's running for president. Then again, maybe she is a total moron.

Dan Riehl:

My take – she's not done and will look to go national in some way setting up for a possible 2012 run.

Toast

Jim Geraghty is shocked by Pailn's resignation:

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."

Ace of Spades has the same thought:

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.

Steve Benen:

Palin is making a terrible mistake. The lure of the national spotlight is strong, and the day-to-day challenges associated with running the executive branch of a state are no doubt difficult. There are probably plenty of far-right activists and donors whispering in Palin's ear, telling her to ignore the naysayers and realize she's ready to lead the nation, but she's listening to the wrong people. Walking away from the governor's office after one term is incredibly foolish — but walking away from the governor's office after two and a half years in office is stupefying.

K-Lo:

One reservation I've always had about Sarah Palin has to do with her family. If she is stepping down because of what politics has done to her family, because of something in her family life she doesn't want to see as David Letterman fodder, because it's impossible to be governor, a star, and a mom to an infant … this is good. It demonstrates good judgment and priorities.

Mudflats celebrates.

Palin Resigns!

KTUU reports:

Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor's Picnic at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks on Saturday, July 25, Palin said. There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

Yeah – but she could still finish her term. I have no idea what this could mean, if it's true. But my bet is that she will blame it on the Eastern elite media. She may figure withdrawing as a victim from the arena is the only way back to the center of the arena. But, as Bubble once said, "Who Can Saay?" All we know is she's back in the news again folks. Strange as ever.

Getting At The Truth About Palin, Ctd.

Andrew Sprung responds to Frum:

If Palin is as ineffectual a campaigner as Frum…implies, there's nothing to worry about – except perhaps, from Frum's point of view, that she'd capture the lunatic rump of the Republican Party and then go down to crushing defeat in the general election. Some political partisans rub their hands with glee at the thought of the opposition nominating an extremist. But that's a chance I'd never be willing to take. As a Democrat, I want a competent Republican nominee (and haven't seen one since Dole). In times of severe stress, dangerous clowns have been democratically elected in more than one country.

Electing Palin would be a sure sign of rapid national decline, and judging from the '08 election it seems unlikely: Palin plainly dragged the McCain ticket down; a huge majority of Americans judged her unfit for office. But again, under pressure of disaster (say, renewed and accelerated financial meltdown) a kind of psychosis can overtake electorates. That's why Palin bears watching, and outing, and hopefully definitive discrediting. Though if her dozens of documented lies and idiocies and governing malpractices haven't done it yet, it's hard to fathom exactly what would knock her out.

Palin As Figurehead

A reader writes:

I disagree with one of your readers who asserted that the ability to lie was fundamental to the fundamentalist’s mind. Her appeal has less to do with her personally than with those who follow her. She is simply an attractive empty vessel into which her followers pile grievances. Her followers feel aggrieved, by the government, by the media, by Pelosi and Reid, by the gays, by the greens, and by the ever lurking extreme liberal left. Real or imagined, Palin’s followers view her as a symbol of their world that these lefties have unfairly attacked.

This is why when presented with evidence of her lies, her supporters deflect by citing liberal media bias. They never address the facts because the facts are largely incidental. They immediately point to one of these nefarious forces.

A fairly persuasive theory of leadership called the ‘Social Contagion’ theory, postulates that leadership functions not through the leader but through the followers. Ideas spread like the flu (a contagion) that the followers catch. In order for a movement to break through to a larger audience, the followers require a figurehead. Palin is that figurehead for the aggrieved fundamentalist right.

If it wasn’t her, they’d find someone else. But her carefully constructed physical appearance, which includes her family, makes her figurehead status all the more appealing. She represents the ultimate looking glass self for the fundamentalist right at least in the sense that she looks the part. They ascribe everything else to her whether it fits her or not. That’s why she can say or do anything that she wants because in the end it does not matter to her base.