Palin to resign as Alaska governor

[shagdrum]

Here is an interesting take on this...

Sarah Palin -- All In
By Jay Valentine

There is a point in tournament poker where one player doesn't have the chips to play out the next raise, but they have great cards, so they call "all in." At that point, nobody can raise them and the hand gets played out -- either to a game changing win or a total loss for the person who made the call.

It appears Sarah Palin decided she and her family could no longer deal with the thousand cuts, so she is "all in."

Palin may well decide to stay home and make macaroni and cheese for the kids, but history may not let her. She has already established herself as a major player -- candidate or not. More importantly, the wildly critical left has put her in a financial position where she has no choice but to speak out, perhaps do a book, and make the money she needs to pay legal bills for 15 unwarranted "ethics" investigations, all of which she handily won. The legal bills remain.

One doubts that when she speaks out, it will be about how to field dress a moose. Rather, she will take positions in speaking and writing about her core beliefs. That is a problem for the radical left of their own creation.

Palin enters the arena where the fight is not between liberal and conservative; nor is it between Republican and Democrat. The fight is between elite and the common person who works every day and continually asks how Washington D.C., under both parties, is so out of control.

Elitism has never been popular in America. Major American critics from H.L Menken to Rush Limbaugh made careers poking fun at elites.

Elitism is on display today as never before. Senate and Congressional seats are passed down in the family. Just look at the family members lining up for Ted Kennedy's seat or Caroline's assumption that she deserved the New York Senate seat. Vice President Biden's Senate seat is being kept warm for his son, now serving in the Middle East. Lots of talk that Michelle Obama may be the next Illinois senator.

Hereditary government on display. How much more elitist can a nation become?

The fight is between an out of control government led by media and government elites and common sense Americans, of both parties, who have had enough. Sarah Palin is in the enviable, although personally painful position, of being the "anti elite" voice of common sense and shared American values.

The vicious left put her there and now they may live to regret it.

When informed of the invention of "poison gas" by Admiral Cochrane, the Duke of Wellington cautioned that "that is a game two can play." He wisely chose not to go there because it would certainly be used by both sides.

The parallel exists with Saul Alinsky, the progenitor of much radical leftist smear techniques. His key dictum was that ridicule had no antidote. Sarah Palin was wildly successful heaping ridicule on Obama during the campaign, when he was at his best.

Nothing is more easily and cogently ridiculed than elitism.

Obama even appointed an elite college professor who posits that animals should have legal rights to sue their owners. Can one imagine Sarah Palin foisting this foolish, elitist intellectual on the question: "well, then professor, shouldn't a 6 month, developed fetus have the same legal rights as a chicken?" Make Obama defend that position.

Now Obama is finding the treading a bit harder. Rasmussen polls show a weakening of his approval numbers and all polls agree that most Americans do not support cap and tax, do not want illegals to get health care funded by taxpayers and now are becoming pro life. Wide swaths of informed citizens are coming to understand man made global warming is a hoax used to heap new energy taxes on them. Only elites, from both parties, can propose such nonsense.

Even Colin Powell, the truest weathervane of elitist thinking, is openly questioning Obama's spending. Certainly he did not get these doubts from listening to Rush Limbaugh. Perhaps, Colin Powell senses where this is going, and it is not going his way.

Sara Palin takes on the "fancy people" from a position, eagerly given to her by her enemies, of being a "common" person who went to an ordinary college, has typical family problems, is married to a guy who works in an oil field, buys her kid's diapers at WalMart. If the fight is with the elites, what better background could one have?

Ayn Rand said that there is right and there is wrong, and everything in the middle is evil. Sarah Palin is not a person from the middle. She has her beliefs and lives them in her daily life. Her children are her life's work, they are not accessories.

Nobody is better positioned, as a candidate or commentator, to take on the elites and the nonsense they put forward.

What an irony if the only American President who can make a 3 point shot were taken out by a point guard who came up to his shoulder. And if the guard was a chick -- who went to a no name school?​

 

[fossten]

Good article. Supports my theory that she will become a sniper.

 

[foxpaws]

Everyone seems to be thinking she will be running against Obama - she won't - she will be running against Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Jindal, Pawlenty and who ever else might be in the wings for the Republicans... She won't make it out of the pack after this move, stepping down, and not finishing her first term. They all have more experience, and won't be afraid to eviscerate her.

She could have finished her term and still had 18 months to run - heck, she could have been running from the office.

A more 'flaky' move would be hard to imagine. Would she quit 2 years into the presidency - because she wouldn't want to be a lame duck (weirdest excuse I have ever heard, mostly because she isn't a lame duck - she could have run for governor in 2010, and I believe in 2014 because I think there is a 3 term limit in Alaska) - or because she couldn't handle the media pressure? Will American forget that she is a 'quitter'?

From Hot Air...

If it’s her duty to always “protect” Alaska, then that strongly implies not walking away from the responsibility of governing it — a responsibility she sought, and with which her constituents trusted her to execute. No one leads by quitting. No one leads by quitting. Palin’s abandoning her post, and at least from her own description, doing it because she doesn’t want to deal with the issues of being a “lame duck,” a status all politicians have to handle at some point.

I’ve seen a myriad of excuses on Twitter and e-mail for this bizarre resignation: her legal bills are too high, she’s putting her family first, she doesn’t want to distract Alaskans because of cheap-shot ethics complaints that are distracting everyone. None of those make any sense. If the spotlight was too much, then she shouldn’t have run for office in the first place. If she’s quitting because people are taking potshots at her, then she’s not the kind of political fighter we thought she was. The legal bills might be a rational reason, but thoroughly insufficient for betraying the people who put her in charge of Alaska — and her memoirs would have paid for her legal bills many times over, had she completed her term.

There’s really no excuse, and what Rich Lowry also calls her “terrible,” “rambling,” and “not at all persuasive” statement showed that. Unless there was a serious illness or a serious scandal, the resignation on the grounds Palin gave is simply incomprehensible. She has destroyed her own credibiity in a single day.​

 

[TheDude]

^
I don't think man-made or man-helped Global Warming is a myth, there is data to support that massive pollution isn't good for the environment and climate change is an effect. Just because politicians took it and raped it for their own ends, doesn't mean it's false, which is the true shame in that.

 

[TheDude]

Good article. Supports my theory that she will become a sniper.

Under the guise of selling books and herself on stage. And no, there's nothing wrong with that, she's free to make a living.

 

[Calabrio]

^
I don't think man-made or man-helped Global Warming is a myth, there is data to support that massive pollution isn't good for the environment and climate change is an effect. Just because politicians took it and raped it for their own ends, doesn't mean it's false, which is the true shame in that.

Debating the politically motivated junk science associated with Global Warming, previously global cooling, and now "global climate change" would probably be futile.

We can usually all agree that it's better to be clean. But the ability to be "green" is contingent upon the affluence of a society. Poor societies are the worst polluters in the world. Enviro-consciousness is a luxury of the wealthy. Destroying an economy to protect the environment is completely counter productive.

I can assure you, if I'm cold and broke, I'll be building a tire fire to stay warm if that's all I have available.

 

[fossten]

Everyone seems to be thinking she will be running against Obama - she won't - she will be running against Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Jindal, Pawlenty and who ever else might be in the wings for the Republicans... She won't make it out of the pack after this move, stepping down, and not finishing her first term. They all have more experience, and won't be afraid to eviscerate her.

She could have finished her term and still had 18 months to run - heck, she could have been running from the office.

A more 'flaky' move would be hard to imagine. Would she quit 2 years into the presidency - because she wouldn't want to be a lame duck (weirdest excuse I have ever heard, mostly because she isn't a lame duck - she could have run for governor in 2010, and I believe in 2014 because I think there is a 3 term limit in Alaska) - or because she couldn't handle the media pressure? Will American forget that she is a 'quitter'?

From Hot Air...

If it’s her duty to always “protect” Alaska, then that strongly implies not walking away from the responsibility of governing it — a responsibility she sought, and with which her constituents trusted her to execute. No one leads by quitting. No one leads by quitting. Palin’s abandoning her post, and at least from her own description, doing it because she doesn’t want to deal with the issues of being a “lame duck,” a status all politicians have to handle at some point.
​

It's not like she got sexual favors from an intern and then committed perjury. She's still qualified to run.​

 

[Calabrio]

If her political opponents were honest they'd just say "we don't like her. we feel threatened by the fact that she may well appeal to voters that we have longer considered "safe." They'd also acknowledge that their efforts to destroy her have been effective in the sense that they've profoundly hurt her financially and her ability to govern effectively in Alaska.

They attack her, then when she responds, they attack her for responding.
They undermine her ability to govern, then they attack her for her difficulty governing.
And they assault her with frivolous legal challenges that devastates her financial position, and then they attack her for having to raise money to defend herself.

It's disgusting and profoundly unethical- but in the progressive world where everything is political, decency and honesty has no place in the discussion.

I can give the list of applicable Alinsky rules here, but there's little point. It's pretty obvious what's going on here if you view things objectively.

 

[foxpaws]

If her political opponents were honest they'd just say "we don't like her. we feel threatened by the fact that she may well appeal to voters that we have longer considered "safe." They'd also acknowledge that their efforts to destroy her have been effective in the sense that they've profoundly hurt her financially and her ability to govern effectively in Alaska.

So, Cal, you don't think this is a political move on Palin's part? That she will be stepping away from politics - and not consider running in 2012?

 

[Calabrio]

So, Cal, you don't think this is a political move on Palin's part? That she will be stepping away from politics - and not consider running in 2012?

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Are you arguing that attacking her, her family, her husband, and launching countless frivolous "investigations" aren't political moves designed to kill her before she grows?

I discussed the political calculation associated with the decision earlier in this thread.

 

[foxpaws]

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Are you arguing that attacking her, her family, her husband, and launching countless frivolous "investigations" aren't political moves designed to kill her before she grows?

I discussed the political calculation associated with the decision earlier in this thread.

Politicians get attacked - heck, you should read what they called Andrew Jackson's wife - a whore and worse...

Palin was able to mount a vice presidential campaign from Alaska - she shouldn't have had any problems mounting an 18 month presidential campaign after her term was over - and she certainly has had a high profile up to this point - she was staying on the speaking/fund raising circuit without any problems. Plus if she would have completed her term she would have had a better 'resume' than being a governor that quit, basically half way through her term.

If she is going to run for the top job, she better toughen up, because the Republicans that are in line to run will tear her apart, and that is long before the Dems get her again.

So, you do think that she will run in 2012 Cal?

 

[Joeychgo]

Maybe she's knocked up again?

 

[shagdrum]

Politicians get attacked - heck, you should read what they called Andrew Jackson's wife - a whore and worse...

Yeah, they said that about Palin's DAUGHTERS when she WASN'T RUNNING FOR OFFICE!!!!!

In addition they; made jokes about her husband cheating on her with her daughters, started 15 FRIVOLOUS ETHICS INVESTIGATIONS, mischaracterized and out and out lied about her past, her beliefs and her record, Obama called her a pig, the MSM conducted (and is still engaged in) an outright smear campaign against her, they accused her of lying about her pregnancy to cover for her daughter's, they said Trig was the result of an incestuous relationship between Bristol and her father, they accused Track (the son in Iraq) of having to go to Iraq because he was a drug addict, accused Palin of having an affair with her husband's business partner...

I could go on. That is simply what I can recall off the top of my head. I didn't even go into the massive number of misrepresentations and lies about her record, her beliefs and her past.

There has never been any political figure subject to this level of blatant, despicable and contemptible politically motivated smear campaign. Jackson doesn't even come close.

It is disingenuous to try and downplay it as you are doing.

BTW, you are dodging Cal's question.

Are you arguing that attacking her, her family, her husband, and launching countless frivolous "investigations" aren't political moves designed to kill her before she grows?

 

[ford nut]

Got to love it.
I hope she just goes away.

YouTube - Sarah Palin -- "Every Breath You Take" -- Edited version of her resignation press conference

 

[fossten]

Nobody has ever had to go through the level of savaging by the media and political lynch mob like Palin has.

She's been mocked for her looks, her style, her accent, her pedigree, her state, her family values, and her family.

She handles attacks on her with class while Obama whines about his ears.

Her children have been brutalized by everyone from bloggers to Letterman. Contrast that with Al Gore's son, who is a thief and a druggie - you never heard word one in the media about it.

Fifteen bogus ethics investigations have built up $500,000 in legal fees. Palin is still the biggest draw of any Republican out there. She isn't wealthy, and needs to raise money to pay her bills, and she doesn't have Johnny Chung to pay them for her like the Clintons do. Any Republican running for office in 2010 will eagerly make the first call to Sarah to speak at his/her fundraiser.

She was backstabbed by her own election staff, and the GOP en masse refused to stand up for her. I'm ashamed of them.

Palin's team lost the election. She should have been able to go back to Alaska and finish her job, but she still has to deal with jackals in the media and the Dem party trying to dig up dirt on her. She can't even fade into obscurity without some mean old guy on a late night talk show taking cheap, ugly shots at her fourteen year old daughter.

I challenge anybody here to find any other politician who has been treated half as brutally as Palin and her family have.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I challenge anybody here to find any other politician who has been treated half as brutally as Palin and her family have.

I think you are too young to have been around during the time that Ted Kennedy was driving the car in Chapaquidick when that young girl died. on the cape.
Ted as well as the rest of the kennedy's were put through the ringer by the press and the public.
I lived there at the time, and I remember all the bad press he got.
Bob.

 

[foxpaws]

I challenge anybody here to find any other politician who has been treated half as brutally as Palin and her family have.

And maybe you don't remember these little tidbits laid at McCain's door...

That he had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, and that he was a "Manchurian Candidate" traitor or mentally unstable from his North Vietnam POW days...

Pretty damning... and since we don't have arbitration - I would say darn close to Palin's... fathering black children (he and Cindy adopted a black child from Africa), homosexual, traitor, wife that is a drug addict.. pretty terrible stuff.

 

[fossten]

And maybe you don't remember these little tidbits laid at McCain's door...

That he had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, and that he was a "Manchurian Candidate" traitor or mentally unstable from his North Vietnam POW days...

Pretty damning... and since we don't have arbitration - I would say darn close to Palin's... fathering black children (he and Cindy adopted a black child from Africa), homosexual, traitor, wife that is a drug addict.. pretty terrible stuff.

McCain? That's your best shot, really? Doesn't even come close. His small children weren't attacked by YOUR SIDE the way Palin's were. Nor did he have to deal with phony trumped up investigation after investigation.

Nevertheless, you will note that this is another REPUBLICAN being savaged by the media and the hateful left.

Obama and Biden, despite being bumbling fools and morons, were massaged by the media.

Ted Kennedy - oh please. The man is a murderer. If anyone deserved to be savaged by the media it was him, and yet he has had seven terms in the Senate, gets his ass kissed by the media regularly, and is protected more vehemently by his party than the bald eagle.

The point is that there has been a concerted effort to destroy Palin and her family, and she is justified in pulling back in an attempt to protect it.

I rest my case.

 

[foxpaws]

McCain? That's your best shot, really? Doesn't even come close. His small children weren't attacked by YOUR SIDE the way Palin's were. Nor did he have to deal with phony trumped up investigation after investigation.

Well, the right has been pretty vocal attacking Meghan... Calling her fat and insinuating that she is a lesbian.

Nevertheless, you will note that this is another REPUBLICAN being savaged by the media and the hateful left.

Actually, Foss, those were things that the Bush campaign threw at McCain during the 2000 primaries... So quick we are to blame the left...

The point is that there has been a concerted effort to destroy Palin and her family, and she is justified in pulling back in an attempt to protect it.

And Bush's concerted effort to destroy McCain and his family - stooping to calling him a homosexual and traitor - destroyed McCain in the 2000 primaries...

For a man to have given so much during the Vietnam war, and then be labeled 'traitor'. For a family to adopt a black child and then to have that thrown in their faces with the accusation that he fathered the child with a mistress... Those are hateful, terrible things, and perpetrated by the right Foss, not the left.

But, he remained a senator, continued to serve the country, and didn't 'quit'.

I rest my case that you wear blinders Foss when it comes to this issue.

 

[fossten]

Well, the right has been pretty vocal attacking Meghan... Calling her fat and insinuating that she is a lesbian.



Actually, Foss, those were things that the Bush campaign threw at McCain during the 2000 primaries... So quick we are to blame the left...

And Bush's concerted effort to destroy McCain and his family - stooping to calling him a homosexual and traitor - destroyed McCain in the 2000 primaries...

For a man to have given so much during the Vietnam war, and then be labeled 'traitor'. For a family to adopt a black child and then to have that thrown in their faces with the accusation that he fathered the child with a mistress... Those are hateful, terrible things, and perpetrated by the right Foss, not the left.

But, he remained a senator, continued to serve the country, and didn't 'quit'.

I rest my case that you wear blinders Foss when it comes to this issue.

Link or slink.

Meghan is an adult and a blogger. She has put herself in the limelight deliberately, trying to make a name for herself. She has also been one of the ones openly criticizing Palin, who by the way has not returned tit for tat. You do that, you open yourself up. Care to explain to me how either of Palin's daughters are in the same category? No, you're quibbling, and you FAIL.

It was YOUR SIDE that made fun of McCain's lack of computer skills because of his crippling injuries. It was YOUR SIDE that made fun of McCain's age. Repeatedly. It was YOUR SIDE that mocked McCain by posting nasty, disgusting pics of him being defecated on by a monkey.

You still prove my point. You are trying to measure the level of attacks rather than examine the context around Palin's decision.

By the way, can you find the announcement by the media and the punditry concerning the end of the career of John Edwards (D)? How about Ralph Nader?

Blinders, indeed.

 

[shagdrum]

And maybe you don't remember these little tidbits laid at McCain's door...

That he had fathered a black child out of wedlock, that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, and that he was a "Manchurian Candidate" traitor or mentally unstable from his North Vietnam POW days...

Pretty damning... and since we don't have arbitration - I would say darn close to Palin's... fathering black children (he and Cindy adopted a black child from Africa), homosexual, traitor, wife that is a drug addict.. pretty terrible stuff.

None of that was anywhere close to what has been done to Palin and you know it. It wasn't echoed in the media like those smears about Palin were.

That fact alone proves that all your comparisons here are apples to oranges. You had members of the media looking to do everything they could to smear Palin. Some even won awards for it.

And don't give us some fake indignation about Bush's supposed smears of McCain in 2000. No one here thinks for a minute that it is in any way sincere. It is simply more disingenuous opportunism.

To compare the smearing of Palin to what happened to Ted Kennedy in the case of Chappaquiddick is also a false comparison. Kennedy got what he got for actual actions he took (or, in that case, didn't take); there were CRIMINAL charges involved. He went to trial and basically got off because he was a Kennedy. The claims against Palin are mostly made up and the rest tend to be exaggerations and/or distortions of the truth. There were NO criminal charges involved.

 

[foxpaws]

Link or slink.

Link

However, the strategy pursued by the Bush campaign, though its members deny knowledge of executing it, produced one of the ugliest episodes in American politics. Senator McCain’s campaign chief described the underhanded tactics faced in the South Carolina primary, “Anonymous opponents used ‘push polling’ to suggest that McCain’s Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child.” The same inaccurate claim was distributed on fliers, surreptitiously handed out by teenagers who were anonymously paid to do so.

Similar materials were distributed claiming that the Senator’s wife was a drug addict, that the decorated Vietnam veteran was a traitor, that McCain was a homosexual, or that he was mentally unstable. Bush staffers had established plausible deniability for the spurious materials; and, when the McCain camp attempted to fight back with television spots comparing Bush to Bill Clinton, the effort backfired. Frustrated, McCain pulled the commercials and prohibited his staff from further use of negative tactics, but it was too late. Bush won the February 19, 2000, contest by 11 points.​

You may slink...

McCain had to bear terrible accusations, regarding his sexuality, his patriotism, he had his wife and his children attacked, and yet, he continued on with public service. And he had to bear those labels by his 'own' side. He didn't quit partially through a term because the water got too hot.

 

[foxpaws]

None of that was anywhere close to what has been done to Palin and you know it. It wasn't echoed in the media like those smears about Palin were.

Ah, yes it was Shag - I guess you weren't politically aware 8 years ago... It wasn't as prevalent because it wasn't as far along in the election - but it was well documented in the press at the time

And don't you think that a man who spent years in a prisoner of war camp - in conditions we can't imagine, wasn't very deeply wounded when his patriotism was questioned, when he was labeled a 'traitor'. That his entire family wasn't hurt - that his father, the admiral, and mother weren't appalled by the Bush campaign's strategies?

And don't give us some fake indignation about Bush's supposed smears of McCain in 2000. No one here thinks for a minute that it is in any way sincere. It is simply more disingenuous opportunism.

It is sincere - you have no idea how sincere. I think McCain was/is an amazing patriot - anyone that has given that much for his country deserves to be called a hero, not a traitor... you have no idea shag of where I come from on this issue -

To compare the smearing of Palin to what happened to Ted Kennedy in the case of Chappaquiddick is also a false comparison. Kennedy got what he got for actual actions he took (or, in that case, didn't take); there were CRIMINAL charges involved. He went to trial and basically got off because he was a Kennedy. The claims against Palin are mostly made up and the rest tend to be exaggerations and/or distortions of the truth. There were NO criminal charges involved.

Not my battle to defend this one - it is 'undefendable'...

 

[shagdrum]

McCain had to bear terrible accusations, regarding his sexuality, his patriotism, he had his wife and his children attacked, and yet, he continued on with public service. And he had to bear those labels by his 'own' side. He didn't quit partially through a term because the water got too hot.

Now his CHILDREN were attacked? That is nowhere in that link. And it was clearly very isolated instances. Given ACORN's tactics, it would not be surprising if this was actually ACORN spreading this info in an attempt to smear Bush in a roundabout fashion.

 

[shagdrum]

Ah, yes it was Shag -

No it wasn't. The media wasn't an active and eager participant in any of that like they were in the case of Palin.

And, as you said, it wasn't as prevalent. The coverage never amounted to anything like the coverage of Palin. The news was not echoed for months on end and didn't continue even after the election.

In addition to that, the shoddy reporting involved in the Palin coverage and the blatant hostility of the media involved in the Palin coverage was no where in what you are talking about.

Again, you are dishonestly comparing apples to oranges.

I guess you weren't politically aware 8 years ago...

Another disingenuous attempt to create a false stereotype. You know better because of info I have given you on multiple occasions in PM's. That is not the first time this has happened, BTW.

It is no wonder you are trying to downplay these dishonest, unethical and contemptible distortions and smears of Palin. You habitually employ those same techniques on this forum; as this example demonstrates.

It is sincere - you have no idea how sincere. I think McCain was/is an amazing patriot - anyone that has given that much for his country deserves to be called a hero, not a traitor... you have no idea shag of where I come from on this issue -

You will forgive me of I have a problem taking you at your word.

You still haven't answered Cal's question.