Crazy to the end

It would be fun to speculate why Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor of Alaska today. I refrain not out of compassion, but because if I've learned anything, it's to not try to get inside that woman's head. I might never escape. And anyway, this isn't the place to go for substantive discussion of politics. This is the place where we pick apart her words and mock them.

Even that could take all day, so I'll let alone the Alaska history lesson and the complexities behind her preposterous treatment of the ethics charges and say:

Over the past nine months I've been accused of all sorts of frivolous ethics violations - such as holding a fish in a photograph, wearing a jacket with a logo on it, and answering reporters' questions.

What? She's been accused of answering reporters' questions? Bizarro says "Me very confused."

... 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.

Unlike, you know, quitting.

And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn't run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks ... travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe) ...

What, like to Indiana for pro-life rallies? Or to Washington, D.C., for pro-life events? Or to New York for ...

Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me - sports ... basketball. I use it because you're naïve if you don't see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket ... and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I'm doing that - keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities - smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it's time to pass the ball - for victory.

Yes; victory. I think that's what we all associate Sarah Palin with. Especially after her quitting. And, you know, dragging the Republican ticket down even farther last fall.

It hurts to make this choice but I am doing what's best for Alaska.

Pretty sure that's the first true thing she's said since she came to the public's attention.

Now, despite this, I don't want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL "climate change" that began in August ...

I actually know what this means; she's-- nah, I got nothing.

In the words of General MacArthur said, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."

For our part, we promise not to follow.

Can I do her epitaph? I mean, she's dead, right? There's no way even she could think she can run for anything after not finishing out her first term as governor. OK, good. Sarah Palin epitomized what went wrong with the Republican party in so many ways. She was the end-product; even if you lacked the patience or knowledge to say where it went wrong, you could point at her and say "Well, I can't put my finger on it, but certainly we can agree that this isn't what we were aiming for." And she stayed true to that to the end. Her resignation speech was a textbook example of how the GOP has reduced itself to talking points. The talking points don't have to be true; they merely have to be words that supporters can repeat to soothe themselves. I mean, they're not convincing, but they're not for us, whether 'we' are liberals or moderates or even non-partisan. (That 'even' was for you, Sarah!) No, the talking points are purely for the talkers. They can repeat the points to the rest of us and go home convinced we were merely not open-minded enough to hear them.

It seems obvious to me, but enough minds I respect (like Andrew Sullivan's) continue to ask, almost daily, what these Republicans and right-wing media freaks can be thinking when they say the description-defying things they say. They seek an explanation but they premise the whole thing on honest discourse. Which confuses me.

So no, no compassion here, even if any of the Trig accusations were real. Both while and after losing the election, Sarah Palin tried to make it as difficult as possible for the opposition to govern the country. She actually made honest discourse more scarce than Bush did. She might be as hard for the Republican party to recover from as he was.