Mudflats reports:
[T]hose who have been following the Alaska blogosphere closely are aware of the rumors bubbling up that there’s something big…something really big that’s headed her way; the iceberg that’s headed for the S.S. Palin. We’ll see.
I think that there's something we don't know about: either a serious health problem or a serious scandal. In either case, it would, I think, have to be a really big deal to make her react in this way. She has shown herself to be more than capable of brushing off smaller scandals, national embarrassment, and a whole host of other things. She did not step down from the governorship when she gave birth to a child with special needs, or when she was asked to be McCain's running-mate. She did not decline McCain's offer because of the potential embarrassment, either to her or her family, of her daughter being unmarried and pregnant. She is no shrinking violet.
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.
Kristol, disingenuous as ever:
It's an enormous gamble - but it could be a shrewd one.
Kristol occupies a central space in the network of right wing media/think tank types. Vast swaths of the Republican intelligentsia are deeply invested in his success, and he invested himself in the success of Sarah Palin. The Palin stocks have now crashed, and that may turn the investment in Kristol toxic. Kristol and his backers will, for a time anyway, deal with the problem by simply refusing to acknowledge that anything has gone wrong. When Jonah Goldberg is jumping ship, though, things aren't looking good.
Ezra Klein:
The main thing I'd point out about Sarah Palin's dazzlingly incoherent farewell is that it's pretty clear she wrote it herself. The proof is in the punctuation. The transcript was posted to her official Web site earlier today. The style is closer to a high schooler's angry diary entry than to an official speech. I've read a lot of speech transcripts. They tend to have fewer words in all capital letters. And fewer things in quotation marks that aren't actually, you know, quotes.
Chris Dierkes:
This is a major gamble on her part, but if she gets spots to campaign for others she could build a network on the national level that could in theory catapult her to the Republican Nomination. If she doesn’t get the return calls from local GOPers running for House, State Senate seats, PACs and the like, then she’s toast.
Steve Coll:
There is another possibility, conceivablythat she is so isolated that she has talked herself into the belief that whatever feels right to her must be the pathway to the White House; that to make her case as a presidential candidate it is plausible to resign from the only marginally qualifying job in government that she has ever held, before she could complete even the first leg of her responsibilities; that disapproval of her decision in mainstream media and political circles will only confirm the narrative of media-led conspiracies against her that will eventually fuel her populist triumph. Stranger things have happened, in Chad and in America. But I’d bet on the dead fish.
Publius:
Today only makes sense if she either (1) is done with politics entirely, or (2) is a looney toon.
Ambinder:
Assuming there is no scandal shoe about to drop, to understand what Gov. Sarah Palin is doing, we ought to begin by taking her at her word...She can't fight back -- she can't protect her family, her values, her worldview -- while she's governor. At the same time, her desire, perhaps conscious, perhaps not, to get into the mix -- to be invited to the fancy Washington dinners, to be courted by these very forces -- is irresistably pulling her towards the very fight she seeks.
Allahpundit:
[S]he’s in Nixon position here. She’s finished in the near term, i.e. 2012, but the public’s memory is short. If she hits the trail for some GOP movers and shakers and reemerges in three years or so with an ability to talk shop on domestic and foreign policy, Republicans won’t care that she flaked out on the governorship.
[M]any commentators have taken little more than an hour to proceed from slack-jawed bewilderment to belief that Sarah Palin's unexplained resignation may be a political masterstroke...Either Palin is resigning ahead of some titanic scandal (which should emerge in short order if it exists) or her resignation was triggered by an even more extreme mental instability than we'd previously suspected.
Laura Chase, who managed Palin's first campaign for mayor in 1996, doesn't think Palin is giving up:
She’s like a bloodhound. Once she gets the scent, she's never going to let it go. She gets what she wants or dies trying. She wants to be president now that she has a following.
That was rambling and disjointed even by Palin’s low standards. When I was watching it, it reminded me of a COPS episode, when they are are talking to a guy accused of stealing aerosol paint from a hardware store, and the guy swears he didn’t steal any paint, and yes it is all just a big coincidence that he has a circle of silver paint around his mouth and nose, and yes, it is an even bigger coincidence that there is a paper bag with silver paint in it and no he has no idea why there are empty silver cans of paint in the bag seat of his car and oh, hey, by the way, do you have a light, buddy, and better yet do you gotta smoke?
In her short, lurid national career Palin has not hesitated to expose her children to the potential humilations of the public stage; if we’re now looking at a post-Palin political futureand let’s hope we arethe nation owes those young Palins a debt of thanks for casting their votes in favor of surrendering the statehouse.
I have no comment. Except everything I have posted in the last ten months. We'll find out soon enough. But this could turn out to be as big a media scandal as a Palin one.
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