I don't know: I think most of us have done things that were embarrassing, even if they weren't scandalous. And I don't really expect him to limit himself to what is actually truthful. Since she's a public figure, isn't there a pretty high bar for what's actually actionable? It's got to be known to be false and clearly defamatory?

yuck, this isn't the TMI thread. :p

I've heard something about a seven-figure book advance? With their owning the house outright (Snowmobile Dude built it), and their kids not of the college attending ilk, they should be doing pretty well regardless of what she decides to do.

You're absolutely right. There are people all over the country who will follow her wherever she goes. Maybe that will die down after a few years, but if conservatives are re-energized during the midterm elections, her popularity could increase.

LOL

but 4 times?? HAHAH

The most credible explanations I've heard so far seem to center around Palin realizing she'll never be President, and going right for "social conservative media mogul" status opposite the rest of the radio/tv cabal.

Actually, a Palin TV show would probably be a best-case scenario for everybody on both sides of the aisle.

Wasn't it the Baby Daddy's mother who was under investigation?

Whatever. Stranger things have happened in politics, and will happen in the future. If Tina Fey hadn't looked so much like her that people misquoted Sarah by using Tina's words, the whole tone would have been much different.

And there are already people who were interviewed for the Vanity Fair article who say they were misquoted or disregarded for not saying the PC thing. I would so love to see an agenda-free publication, if such a thing exists.

PS: If she did resign due to her kids, more power to her. Growing up in a political family is like playing hopscotch through a mine field.

LOL...I wasn't thinking quite along those lines, but the idea of a scandal did cross my mind.

Well yeah that too...but that wasn't until late last year and the least of Palin's problems.

As someone said, Palin in the media does seem to be a bit...interesting?

As far as her resigning due to her kids,(if this is a reason) I seem to recall asking that question last year when we first found out about her.

Exactly how does she plan on being a government official and be a mother and grandmother at the same time especially to a special needs child?

Who was going to parent all of the kids while she was running office?

Not to say that it couldn't be done,(these questions and doubts came up during the election of course) but her quitting now if it's for this cause seems to say that she wanted her family first and all else second and may prove some of her critics right that she was indeed not ready to run for office.

IF indeed this is a reason for her resignation then it's a backtrack when she believed that she could handle even being VEEP and a parent.

Suppose she was VP now and decided to resign? How would this look?

According to the NYTimes, Sean Parnell is saying that Ms. Palin's resignation was related to the $500,000 in legal fees they're facing in regards to the alleged ethics violations:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/us...q=palin&st=cse

I still say, "stay tuned!"

??? Still doesn't make any sense.

Nothing these people say ever makes any sense!

Like I said, "stay tuned." I'm sure this isn't the last we hear from these people.

Even though not much came of the ethics investigation and there don't seem to be anymore pending, she does have the bills, but that doesn't really explain the resignation to me because with a book deal or whatever, I think she could take care of that pretty quickly.

I think that it was a mistake for her to resign if she intends to stay in politics as an elected official; it made me a whole lot less likely to vote for her. But I don't think that it means she would have resigned had she and McCain been successful. Some of the enduring negative press wouldn't be out there had they won since it's coming from McCain campaign staffers who wouldn't have as much interest in finding fault with her had they won.

I haven't worked up to reading the Vanity Fair piece yet, but it's interesting the snippets that you see in the press generally, and how much they just take the staffers' word, like the Todd Palin Alaska Party email. It's probably debatable whether the whole reason for the party's existence when T. Palin was a member was succession, but the staffer is assumed by the press at large apparently to be 100% correct in his response to her. His broader point may have been correct that it just would add fuel to the press's interest in the issue, but his rebuttal about the party itself is taken for granted as true. And I kind of wondered where he got off basically calling her a liar. How would he know why Todd cancelled his membership?

The dynamics are intended to make her look crazy, dishonest, and meddlesome, but I'm not sure that's the whole story.

Anyway, I'd actually kind of disappointed with her decision to resign in a way that surprises me, in terms of personally being kind of bummed out. I was always pretty pleased by what I knew about how she actually governed, and this decision kind of strips away why I actually found her deserving of support.

So now, unless she really does go away, we're left with the just the circus.

she almost had the American people on a string with her run with McCain,and had a chance with john for the presidentcy. they lost, she is still taking heat from the daughter baby thing and some other problems. did she do anything wrong? we do not know as nothing has been proven. but in resigning, I think she cut all ties to the future of running again. sorry Palin, do not even try.

Something you and I can both agree on.

Like Munchkin and KSigRC said, I don't see her going back into politics. Leaving her term early would be difficult to explain away during a campaign for Congress or the Presidency, and it doesn't seem like she seems entirely comfortable with everything that comes with being a candidate. I think she likes just being a voice without having to worry about the other aspects of campaigning.

I have to say I'd be pretty happy if she decided not to run. I've never been a fan, and I think the party would be better off turning its attention to candidates other than Palin.

I wholeheartedly agree with you now. Before, I thought she had actually been an effective executive branch leader before she got the big McCain spotlight shined on her. That's pretty clearly fallen apart now. I think it was recoverable had she buckled down and stayed in office, but resigning? Nope.

And I'm not that interested in the other stuff she brings if she can't or won't actually demonstrate her competence in office, and I don't think I'm alone in the base she fired up for McCain in thinking so. Charisma without real leadership isn't worth much to me.

ETA: How is it that anyone could think that what the GOP needs are more unofficial spokes-people who alienate the center and push people left? It's one thing if you're an actual office holder who votes according to principle, but just a media figure?

So, does she rearlly bringing to the table in the future?

Huh?

QFP, Tom.

.

Tom, put down TEH MOONSHINE...

I'm trying out a new signature.

LMAO!

An angle discussed today is that she's stepping down now to get her crap together for any future elections. A portion of that would be no family surprises in regards to teenage pregnancy, or being accused of bad parenting or neglecting her newest child who has Down's syndrome. That was an area where people made comments when she was running for VP, particularly about her family, so it is a plausible theory.

Alaska may be Republican overall, but there is a strong lean to Libertarianism. If there's a viable Libertarian or Democrat candidate, it wouldn't surprise me in the next election if the governor wasn't a Republican. The attitude is somewhat "do what you want, but don't screw up or embarrass us"

Yeah, and that's why I got so frustrated with people who wanted to paint Palin as a theocrat. I don't think a conservative coming out of Alaska is going to think that everything that's a swell idea personally is something the government ought to do.

My opinion is that she was one of the least Libertarian leaning in recent years. If she was representatively Libertarian the GOP wouldn't have been interested in her. Decisions she's made and other policies have religious leanings more than the general Alaskan population. A lot of people are living off the grid and don't want any government, but they don't vote so they aren't represented. The Libertarian streak is pretty prevalent in frontier areas like Montana, Alaska, and even in parts of Idaho.

Show me where she made a political decision or took an action in office that seemed religious, please. There was a lot of talk, but very little that she seemed to actually try to effect, as far as I can tell, but I may have missed stuff.

Compared to Alaskans and real Libertarian party members, sure, she wouldn't be libertarian; compared to the average GOP politician in Georgia? That's what I was thinking about. She has faith that personally guides her, but I don't think there's much evidence that she expected to actually change policies for others based on that faith.

I don't think Tina Fey & SNL had anything to do with it. The script writers used a LOT of words/phrases that Palin herself used.

Middle class question about bailing out the banks Fey vs Palin

She (Palin) also used lines like "I'll try to find some and bring them to ya," when asked about some specific examples on how her running mate McCain supported regulation

Video of the now infamous interview

If there was any damage made, it was her own, and not because Tina Fey portrayed her on SNL. SNL used the very words & phrases that Palin used. She probably added some "ya knows" ;)

I really wish I could find the entire SNL "interview" split screen w/ the one Palin did with Katie.

Dollar value meals, and asking Russians to "shoo" aside, a LOT of the skit from SNL was almost verbatim from Palin's interview. I would be concerned if people seriously thought Palin talked about dollar value meals.

I know reasonably intelligent people who think Palin said she could see Russia from her house.

Well if they aren't smart enough to watch the actual interviews, then I question their intelligence.

<edited out b/c KSigKid has an issue with it>

Political figures have always been mocked on TV and SNL especially. Why should Palin be any different?

Not 100% of everything used in the SNL skits were her words, but many of the words & phrases were actually used by her. The SNL writers didn't have to scratch their heads for very long when writing those scenes b/c Palin made it really easy for them.

Even if she could see Alaska from her house or some remote island in Alaska, that doesn't quite qualify her for Foreign Diplomat of the Year

The ONLY thing people remember?

"I can see Alaska from my house."

According to polls? Palin said it. You're overthinking this.

The people I was referring to aren't Right wingers for whatever that's worth.

So because Tina Fey said "I can see Alaska from my house", Sarah Palin's political future is over?

I doubt that.

Whether they were right or left it doesn't matter.

Just the fact that they actually thought it was true is kinda silly... Just like that study of people who thought Stephen Colbert wasn't using satire on his show

It's silly, but unlike the Colbert think the media coverage of Palin may have been a problem.

Not the only problem, but a contributing problem.

Being against same sex partnerships is part of her religious belief system, and she vetoed those benefits for state employees within a month of taking office in December 2006. Thankfully the Alaskan Supreme Court ruled that denying these benefits was unconstitutional. 1998 was when people voted for an amendment to make marriage between a man and a woman, so she claims she was upholding the AK constitution by vetoing it, but the bill predated her taking office as governor. It passed through the Legislature, and was only applicable to state employees.

Like many people, I have yet to see any reason against same sex partnerships and benefits that isn't backed by religion.

http://gov.state.ak.us/archive-16645.html

There are also much smaller things from her Wasilla days, but those are harder to dig out with official government documents.

ETA: I also found this http://gov.state.ak.us/archive.php?id=1500&type=6 and I searched through that site and found no mentions of anything comparable for other faiths, though I did find a Proclamation about the 50th anniversary of the Beth Sholom Congregation in Anchorage. Not mentioning other faiths in two and a half years, but proclaiming Tai Chi and Qigong Day is poor judgment and not inclusive. May is Jewish Heritage Month (Jewish Heritage Week falls in May), October is Islamic History Month, but they cannot be found in her proclamations, and I think that won't help her, or anyone, not look Christian centered.

I'm just so tired of people blaming others for their own failures.

No, Palin didn't say "I can see Alaska from my house" but that's not the only reason so many people thought she acted ridiculous. The few interviews she gave did NOT go well and every single one of them got her bad publicity. She said a bunch of ridiculous things that didn't even make any coherent sense that really hurt her own credibility.

SNL (or the "Liberal Media Elite") didn't have to do that. She did that on her own.

If she really thinks living near Alaska gives her foreign policy experience, more power to her, but a lot of people would disagree.

Then why did you specifically mention the poll results as they pertain to those on the "right?"

That's not what anyone is saying. At most, Honeychile was saying that the tone of the campaign may have been different. People (outside of Palin) talk about it as a factor, not "the" dispositive factor.

I agree that Palin's own actions and words have caused the most damage to her political career, but I also think you're mischaracterizing the statements in this thread.

Just so I'm clear, when y'all are saying Alaska, you're really meaning "Russia" right? :confused:

So Palin has said she doesn't need titles in order to help and effectuate change. So I dont expect to hear that she's running for President since she "doesn't need titles." :rolleyes:

I'm glad she resigned. I am still puzzled as to why she was elected governor in the first place.