“Take the words of General MacArthur. He said, ‘We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.’” ~ Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), concluding her resignation speech on July 3, 2009
There’s only one real reason a press conference at any kind starts at 3:00 pm Eastern time on a Friday afternoon. It’s to make as small a dent in the press cycle as politically possible. Most weekend editions are already well in the works and people just don’t watch a whole lot of cable news on the weekends.
That’s exactly why at 3:00pm EDT on Friday, July 3, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared before the press to announce her resignation, effective later this month. She leaves the Governor’s office with just under a year and a half to go in her first and only term.
What. The. F***?
Typically, when there’s a surprise announcement like this, there’s another shoe that drops. We’re nearly a week past her announcement and, guess what? There’s no shoe.
No scandal.
No investigation.
No other job has been lined up by the Governor.
She apparently doesn’t want a Senate seat, either.
People seem to think she’s gearing up to run for the Presidency in 2012, but according to a new Rasmussen poll, the numbers don’t show any kind of overwhelming support among primary-voting Republicans:
In fact, in that same poll, Sarah Palin isn’t even a lock for the nomination within her own party:
That’s not the kind of polling data that causes a sitting Governor to leave office 17 months before the end of her only term when it’s not even close to Presidential Primary season.
“Advancing in a different direction?” Backwards is still backwards, and were she to decide to run for President, the question that would be asked by Iowans and New Hampshirites would be, “Why did you ‘cut and run’ on Alaskan voters and how do we know you won’t do the same thing as President?” They’ll be calling her “Bailin’ Palin” on the Primary circuit and it’ll stick–and that’s just within the GOP.
So, where does that leave us? With Sarah Palin’s own statement–that her resignation comes at this time for the benefit of Alaska and her family. The political cynic in me says that can’t be the case–but what if it really is?
Did Sarah Palin just fall on her sword simply because it was the right thing to do? I’m certainly not in the tank for Sarah Palin by any means, but is it entirely possible that we’ve witnessed one of the few literal “public servants” in politics step out of the arena because of the turmoil it was causing in her state and in her life?
My instincts and everything I know about politics tell me “no.” The Post-Watergate world has conditioned almost every American to believe that there’s always a hidden agenda behind everything a politician says or does…and it’s hard to look beyond that bias at times.
The available evidence, however, says otherwise.
Is the system so cynical…so tainted…so perverse that there just isn’t any place for Americans with actual ideals anymore?
Whether you like Sarah Palin or not, don’t we want and need people with real principles in politics on both sides of the aisle…and aren’t we all the poorer for it when they decide that public service just isn’t worth it?
I think we all know the answer to that which leaves me with only one possible reply:
“What the f***?!?!“
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