Just when Republicans thought it
was safe and that no more Governors would be imploding for a while, Sarah Palin
literally brought the house down on the 233rd anniversary of the
Declaration of Independence. If
you still haven’t gotten your arms around her Resignation Speech, you can read
it in the quiet of your own home by clicking here.
If you can figure out what Palin said
and, more importantly, why she actually resigned, based on the words that she
used in her speech, you are far better at the interpretation of seemingly
absurd thoughts vocalized all at once than I.
Is there another shoe to fall in
Palin’s world? Does she know
something that the rest of us don’t?
Is there an indictment, scandal, something else imminently horrible,
waiting in the wings to surprise us all and justify her abdication? I sincerely doubt it.
Once upon a time, elected officials
first served out their terms and waited patiently for the chance to cash in after they completed the work that the
public elected them to do. In the
increasingly harder-to-understand world of Sarah Palin, this is not so. The Ka-Ching sound of cash registers
opening and closing was, in my humble opinion, simply too much temptation for
the Queen of the Kodiak to come out of the deep freeze, throw aside her
gubernatorial burdens, and announce her liberation from elected office while
the rest of us were innocently celebrating our nation’s declaration of the
basic rights and freedoms we cherish so.
Palin’s speech is extraordinary in
too many ways to list here in the space allotted. First, somebody needs to break it to her that there is
no "Law Department" at the White House, or anywhere else in our federal
government for that matter.
Second, selecting the General Douglas McArthur quote on retreating
armies: "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction," is
irrelevant when there are other, far more splendid and relevant things that
Gen. McArthur did say which are so much more appropriate for an impromptu
termination speech, like: "Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul." But, that would then contradict Palin’s
other statement:
"[I]t 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."
Anybody who can read Palin’s speech
and not conclude that she was "quitting,"
may actually be able to make sense out of her other statements there, like the
dreaded basketball analogy from her ‘Sarah Barracuda,’ high school basketball
glory days:
"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."
Huh?
If Palin’s speech accomplished some
kind of laudatory ‘passing of the ball – for victory,’ then we do indeed live
in a Thru the Looking Glass world in our 21st Century era of 24/7
wall to wall Media? I heard the
woman quit her job as Governor with much of her first term remaining and
without a single good reason to do so – that’s all.
We know she has the multi-million
dollar book deal and one does not have to be a gifted media analyst to expect
that Palin will now surface with either a lucrative contract to be an on-air
commentator, perhaps on Fox TV, or with a daytime TV talk show, like Oprah’s –
why not simply be honest (?), instead of just saying she was being honest: "I
have given my reasons candidly and truthfully . . . ." What exactly were Palin’s reasons?
That she could not stand the heat, so she got out of the kitchen? That she could ‘dish it out,’ but then
she could not ‘take it?’ That
David Letterman and others were somehow mean to point out the hypocrisy
involved in having a daughter who is a teenaged, unwed mother and then trotting
her out on the lecture circuit as a spokesperson for the failure of Teenaged
Abstinence?
Palin will continue her appeal to
the Anti-Intellectual Wing of the Republican Party now, unhampered by the
rigors of her job as Governor of the most taxpayer-subsidized state in the
Union, by far. Those who rankle at
all the highly educated people in Washington and, indeed, at the very idea of
education, or reading, or thinking, will continue to support Palin as she
travels the highways and byways of the Lower 48 and hopefully wears out her
welcome very soon and spares us from more speeches of blithering idiocy to
parse out at our leisure. But, at
a time when the GOP desperately needs to return to credible Conservative values
and core philosophy and, most importantly, to find new leadership, is Palin
really helping anybody – other than
herself, of course?