Citing personal reasons, Sarah Palin is resigning as Governor of Alaska. Ordinarily I would link you all to a story that elaborated the details, but I’m not going to do that this time because I can’t find one that isn’t just as sneeringly condescending as everything else the mainstream media has written about her.
The attack on Sarah Palin was unprecedented. The only thing that's come close in terms of baseless sentiment disguised as unbiased journalism is it's polar opposite in the form of the pause-less adulation they've heaped on Barak Obama. The way the media treated her was worse than Bush, worse than Reagan. And now it looks like she’s decided that it’s no longer worth it. It’s not worth all the late night comedians joking about the rape of her 14 year old girl. It’s not worth the personal expense of defending herself from yet another utterly baseless ethics charge every couple of weeks. And it's not worth seeing the effect of all that hostility on her children and husband. The liberals in the press and in government have made it too poisonous for her.
Personally, I think I get it. I get how you can have one idea about how to help right the good ship America one day, and be ready to give up and move your business out of the country the next. I haven't been through the kind of slanderous attacks she has, and I'm ready to jump ship myself. These days it looks to me like the whole country, led by the Democrat party, has regressed to the nastiness of adolescence. And if Sarah has decided that it’s not worth putting up with that anymore, then I perfectly understand. I’m still a Sarah Palin fan. And I wish her nothing but the best.
%%%%%%UPDATE%%%%%%
There is some speculation that this may be a tactic in a broader quest for national political office. The sneering it's invited has been pretty universal, but some still think it may be more calculated. I think those people are forgetting that some times 'real' people do things for reasons that don't involve manipulating the unwashed into thinking them a messiah. Mark Steyn seems to agree (more or less) with me:
"Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.
Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss."
Read the whole thing. As usual he says it far better than I ever could.
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