Know Your Government

Knock Me Over With A Feather!

Measuring height of grain on government farm, Fairbanks, Alaska. c.1916 (Library of Congress)

Sarah Palin announced today that she is resigning as governor of Alaska effective “in a couple of weeks.”

(MSNBC) “We know we can affect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference,” she said, adding that politics had become a “superficial, wasteful bloodsport.”

According to the official statement (Alaska Governor’s Office website), she’s quitting because she doesn’t see any point hanging around as a lame duck. As far as she is concerned, she has completed her term as governor despite the fact she has only actually served for two and a half years of a four-year term.

And let the party begin …

Over at Michelle Malkin’s den of iniquity, commenters are making lists of people Palin should have in her future presidential administration:

My perfect ticket:

President Mitt Romney
(we need economic help)

Vice-President Sarah Palin
(she can run for President after two terms of Mitt)

Secretary of State Newt Gingrich

Secretary of Defense Ret. Gen. Norman (stormin’ Norman) Swarzkopf

Attorney General Ann Coulter

(Imaging the sleepless nights the Liberals will have [Because that, of course, is the most important consideration for any Republican presidential administration!].)

What a great idea! Do we have more suggestions? Why, yes, we do!

A possibility I hadn’t thought of, Tim. And I absolutely love it! Would give the ‘Cuda time to expand her foreign bonafides while Mitt puts the nation back on the right track.

Add Michele Bachmann somewhere and Jeri Thompson as press secretary. Now that’s a patriotic partial staff appropriate for this Independence Day weekend.

How excited are the Malkinites? How much confidence do they have in their Sarah?

I was watching her statement on Fox, and it did not seem she had to use a tele for what she was saying. Gosh, I hope she is running. Just keep the faith Sarah.

Potomac Electric Power Co. Automatic toaster Theodor Horydczak Collection (Library of Congress)

In response to the suggestion that Palin running for president in 2012 would guarantee President Obama winning a second term, in keeping with their unabashed respect for the office of the President and the sanctity and preciousness of human life, one commenter suggests: “You presuppose he will fill his first term…”

What’s that smell?

I think it’s toast!

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The Mudflats is experiencing enormous traffic as a result of this surprise announcement and has been knocked offline.  You can, however, access The Mudflats through this link until the regular site comes back up if the regular site goes down again.

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Whoo! Video!  Listen to Palin explain how she is resigning so that Alaskans will not waste their money having her finish her first term!

Stinque has the full video.

Ongoing Supplements:

Andrew Halcro has a post detailing a multitude of significant problems Palin was facing.

Further explication of Palin’s looming problems.

For more on Sarah’s Great Adventure, visit Progressive Alaska.

Buckeye State has a link to a Christian Science Monitor article dated July 2, 2009 detailing some of Palin’s in-state woes. It turns out that quite a few people, both in Alaska and outside, are not at all surprised that she resigned. Modernsquire points out the irony that “Palin actually boasted about getting rid of junkets as Governor, and then resigned because she can’t travel as much as she wants if she stayed Governor. ” (See, Travelgate)

Here’s video of the entire unexpurgated press conference. It is must-watch TV. [Although this is the whole press conference, I think it has been condensed, Go here to watch what I now understand to be truly the entirety of it.]

After watching the trainwreck press conference, I have to say I think she inflicted more damage on herself with that press conference than the resignation itself.

Be careful and remove all liquids from the vicinity of your electronic equipment and refrain from eating or drinking while watching to prevent possible choking accidents. Sarah Palin has some serious mental health issues. My condolences to her family.

Her friends are delusional as well:

(CSM) John Schwochert, a Palin family friend, acknowledges that the governor’s in-state popularity has diminished, but that is probably because she has settled into her job. “Everybody here’s pretty satisfied with what she’s done for the state,” he says.

If Palin doesn’t run for the US Senate next year, she is a “shoo-in” for reelection and will rise from there, Mr. Schwochert predicts. “I’m really quite sure she’s being groomed for a higher office.” [ed: ba-doom!]

Max Blumethal over at The Daily Beast reports on “Housegate” as the possible reason for Palin’s sudden resignation:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

My prediction is that should the Palins be indicted on federal corruption charges, Todd will plead out in exchange for Sarah walking away. The question then will be whether she’s smart enough finally to do that or whether she then subjects the world to her continued martyrdom.

(Cross-posted at From Laurel Street)