Obviously God has it in for us, taking down our website (explanation here) on the same day that Sarah Palin decided to resign as governor of Alaska. Twitter just isn’t the same.
True story: I was eating a bowl of popcorn when CNN cut to Palin’s speech. Very appropriate. So have you watched it yet? If you haven’t, do it now. Seriously. It was an instant classic, right up there with Nixon in ’62 as a resentment-fueled blast of grievance and self-pity mongering—though this was sort of the breathless junior high school version. Here’s the gist:
William Seward….endured such ridicule and mocking for his vision for Alaska….I wish you’d hear more from the media of your state’s progress….I have taken the slings and arrows….You don’t hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?
….Political operatives descended on Alaska last August, digging for dirt….Life is too short to compromise time and resources….I will not seek re-election as Governor….I know when it’s time to pass the ball—for victory.
….This decision comes after much consideration….The “hell yeah” sealed it—and someday I’ll talk about the details of that… I think much of it had to do with the kids seeing their baby brother Trig mocked by some pretty mean-spirited adults recently.
….Worthy causes….not this local / superficial wasteful political bloodsport….My parents’ refrigerator that says “Don’t explain: your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”….”We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
But that’s not all. You really have to watch the whole thing from beginning to end. There’s the dead fish. There’s the bit about staying in office being the quitter’s way out. There’s the basketball riff. There’s the part about resigning being the only way she can stop herself from going overseas on lavish taxpayer financed junkets. I guess we all have our favorite parts, but my sister’s reaction pretty much summed it up: WTF? What’s more, even the endlessly chattering talking heads on the cable nets couldn’t say much more. They sent up little more than a collective WTF too. When was the last time those guys were left speechless?
So what’s really going on? If I had to take a guess, I’d say we take her at her word: She just got tired of all the crap. Via email, reader JS puts it like this:
The reason is scattered all througout the speech—she’s not having any fun anymore. She’s fed up, pissed off. When she was the golden girl and everybody in Alaska adored her and she was able to push through pretty much everything she wanted to do, that was exhilarating. Now her popularity has plummeted, she’s fighting with almost everybody in the state, and the MSM, the blogs, the late-night comedians and the McCain operatives are all trashing her and her family daily. That’s not what she thinks she signed up for.
She’s only thick-skinned when she’s getting her way and the people who are fighting her are on the losing end. I think she simply doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of long-running battling.
Reihan Salam has a similar take:
Sarah Palin’s [announcement] makes perfect sense to me. Though I wouldn’t exactly be surprised if she turned blue, sprouted several additional arms, and decided to become America’s chief advocate of a forceful Hindutva politics, I tend to think she really wants to leave politics behind and perhaps become the evangelical Oprah.
Still, who knows? Maybe there really is some other shoe about to drop, like the long-rumored house/hockey rink scandal. You’d have to be a fool to try to say anything conclusive. But if Palin really is leaving big-time elective politics for good, it’s only fitting that she goes out the same way she came in: in a flurry of incoherence so freakish that we’re all left in jaw dropping astonishment.
Oh, and I’ll ask again: Has anyone ever resigned a governorship before without actually saying why? Or is this a first?
And now: catblogging!
