Sarah Palin leaving governor's post amid confusion, criticism

[babylonsister]

Sarah Palin leaving governor's post amid confusion, criticism

Supporters struggle to explain her departure, and some Alaska lawmakers say she has shown little interest in state business since returning from her failed vice presidential bid.

By Kim Murphy
July 26, 2009


Reporting from Anchorage -- Up here in Alaska, wildlife metaphors tend to be as abundant as their flesh-and-blood counterparts, and Gov. Sarah Palin has helped herself to them generously in explaining why she's stepping down Sunday, barely halfway through her term.

She didn't want the state to be stuck with a "lame duck" chief executive, she said. She could hang around the statehouse and go with the flow, she allowed, but "only dead fish go with the flow."

Palin's departure -- she'll officially hand over power to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell at a community picnic in Fairbanks -- has left many Alaskans largely confused. And state legislators are scrambling to convene a special session to recover $28.6 million in federal energy funds that Palin rejected as one of her parting salutes to independence from Washington.

Only a year ago she was Alaska's youngest-ever governor, riding a nearly unprecedented wave of popularity. But Palin has weathered stinging criticism across the state since her July 3 resignation announcement.

"In a democracy, politicians ask for the voters' trust. To violate that trust by quitting in midstream suggests that for Palin, the voters -- and more broadly, the citizens of Alaska -- simply don't count," University of Alaska history professor Steve Haycox wrote Friday in the Anchorage Daily News.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-palin26-2009jul26,0,608357.story

[spanone]

1. this will be interesting to watch.

[derby378]

2. Less than 24 hours to go

Bye-bye, Slappy the Dodo Bird...

[Flying Dream Blues]

8. LOL! nt

[WCGreen]

3. If every lame duck politician felt like her....

Half of them would retire. Many lame ducks feel inspired to do stuff they felt politically restrained from doing when they were tied to interest and voters.

Of course many do stay just for the paycheck.

It really does take a person of low character to keep quiting.

But more important, what does it say about our society that by quiting, she seems to have elevated her political standing.

Quit your way to the top, Sarah, quit your way to the top.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

6. Consider the constitutency

among whom her status has elevated.

That's your answer.....................

[Marr]

4. I sure would like to know why she resigned.

There have been a few possibilities raised, mostly involving ethics charges, but I haven't heard one yet that sounded convincing. The GOP establishment doesn't seem to like her much, though. I wonder if they gave her a choice between resigning and seeing some politically ruinous act of hers made public.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

5. She's just stupid -

yeah, she can talk, but she makes no sense.

She lacks any intellectual capacity, and if she thinks she can "bone up" on history, sort of like a survey course from freshman year - "History of Modern Civilization" - and then, miraculously, became a viable candidate for anything is just laughable.

Kato Kaelin, you've got competition...............

[livetohike]

7. The Kaelin/Palin show

I can see it now. "Who wants to be an airhead?"