Some Thoughts on Palin...
The biggest news of this past week has been the resignation of Sarah Palin. There has been an awful lot of entrail-reading, and I won't attempt to do very much of my own, but there have been a variety of ulterior motives attributed to this event(other than she's sick to death of having her children attacked and ridiculed by a vicious media) that others have divined.

James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal gives Sarah the benefit of the doubt and takes her at her word; she needs to see to her children and family. Plausible enough. The New York Times (that's right; the New York Freakin' Times actually printed an opinion on Palin that wasn't a smear job, unlike this one. Maureen Dowd needs to get laid.) says she's a victim of a political elite who are obsessed with race, class, gender and educational pedigree. I happen to agree with that. I am absolutely stunned that something that makes sense actually was printed in the NYT. This theory is further reinforced here, at NewGeography.com with a very insightful piece...by a dem, no less.

I'm not convinced of the "Sarah: 2012" gambit as I was three days ago. I don't think she would have given up her post as Governor of Alaska had that been the case. Better to launch yourself with a little altitude under you.

I am totally convinced that Sarah Palin might, that's might, return to politics relatively soon, but at the head of a either a new movement in Republican politics, or at the head of an entirely new political party, more genuinely conservative where it counts (spending, smaller government, strong economic policies and national defense), and less obsessed with other people's sexual organs and the Rapture.

Time will tell. But, I wouldn't count her out. For all those democrats (small 'd' intentional) who have been drooling this past week, believing that they have destroyed a budding counter-force to their mindless stupidity, you're in for a rude shock. This woman is your worst nightmare. Like Jason or Freddy Kruger in a skirt, she'll keep coming back to terrorize you. Be afraid, democrats, be very afraid.

Update: I do not ascribe to the theory that Palin is hated in Republican circles, and therefore will not run for higher office in future, a canard which has been often-attributed to former McCain campaign staffers (who always seem to remain anonymous -- they're either cowards, or they don't exist.). If there are such weasels about, have them try to explain why their man was losing...until Sarah showed up. If you buy the "Palin-sunk-us" routine you have to ignore some very inconvenient truths (the only time that phrase might actually be useful!):

* McCain was hated by the Uber-right even more than Satan is. One only needs to hang around FreeRepublic to see this, where John McCain is considered the Ur-RINO. Many of this sort of Repub would have voted for Hillary before they pulled the lever for McCain.

*McCain shot himself in the foot with his 'suspending his campaign' stunt. He went back to Washington to stop that ridiculous, dangerous, disastrous, deadly TARP monster....and then voted for it anyway (after Harry Reid made an asshole out of him on national TV). Barack Obama, in a foretaste of things to come in his August reign, simply voted 'Present' and stayed out of the fray (i.e. avoided making a decision). McCain made himself look foolish.

*McCain was just a rotten candidate, through and through. The telling moment for me, in retrospect, was that meeting in Wisconsin (I think it was) where folks were yelling at McCain about how pissed off they were about things, and Johnny hemmed and hawed and ummm'ed his way through it, applying Senatorial Crapspeak where he thought appropriate. Palin took the microphone from him ...and got that room all jazzed up, ready to vote republican and perhaps eat vulcanized rubber. McCain was making them angrier and would not say what they wanted to hear (that things could be different and that Washington was a place where the mediocre and untalented went to get rich).

I hear one more person say 'even the Republicans/McCain people don't like her', I will batter them bloody with a blunt instrument.