To be honest, though, if she is leaving for good I can’t blame her. After she was named as the vice presidential nominee, the press and the left savaged her and her family. Their behavior was abhorrent, and no doubt left its mark. Recently, Democrats have gone after her daughter and her infant son, and I think that’s what broke the proverbial camel’s back. I can take a lot of abuse, but if someone started insulting my daughters because they disagreed with me politically, my sense of protectiveness for my kids would lead me to make the same decision. I don’t know what Palin is thinking, but it seems to me that she doesn’t want to sacrifice her children’s chance for a normal life on the altar of her own ambition, and that is ultimately an admirable decision.

And for giving her that benefit of the doubt, you are far higher on the decency scale than her critics on the right that are savaging her for her decision. Good job.

Or, to put it in starker terms, David Letterman should be ashamed of himself. If I had to guess, I would say it was his “jokes” about her daughter that helped start Palin down the road to today’s decision.

Ashamed? He just won himself a Lifetime Achievement Emmy!

I still don’t have a satisfying answer for why Governor Palin resigned, and Tito’s magic 8-ball is on the fritz, but I’ve read some interesting speculations this morning -some more believable than others- that I thought I’d pass along: Max……

Boy, aren’t you the two faced little slug!
Blake on July 4, 2009 at 8:03 AM

Interesting. Explain.

“you can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office.”

Yeah, it’s not like she’s a U.S. Senator.

As Ace said today, “you can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office.”

As was mentioned already, circumstances do matter. Alaska is a long way from the rest of the country (a lot farther than most people realize). If she intends to “advance in another direction” she will have to cut herself off from such an isolated home base and take the fight to the enemy.

A lot depends on what she does in the next year, but an awful lot of Republican candidates are going to be tripping over each other to get her at their fundraisers and rallies. She can pick and choose her venues (and her allies) and say exactly what she wants without being directly responsible to anybody — including the national Republican Party, which essentially abandoned her when she could have used an ally.

People who are stating as a categorical, unarguable fact that she is done as a national candidate are jumping the gun by a mile. Wait and see what she’s done 6 or 9 months from now and then maybe they can make that kind of empahtic statement — or maybe they’ll be doing an “Obama” (i.e. doing a 180) and prefacing their new statement with, “As we’ve said all along…”

I’d hate to be wrong about this one. I think that she is done with “politics as usual” and I think that means everything except “I’m leaving politics”! The Libs that NEVER get challenged by our side may need to start preparing and organizing their closets and skeletons for a reunion with the public

One cannot jump out of a frying pan to prepare to run for an office that is mostly fire.

While I’d tend to agree with this generally, I think the circumstances matter at least a bit. It seems like she was spread very very thin. If she were to write her memoirs to make money and then to able to afford a strong campaign staff of her own, she would be much better able to handle the fire. So far she’s had a tablespoon of water to fight the 50 foot flames of bogus ethics charges, media attacks, McCain’s staffers, etc.

It really depends on what she does next, doesn’t it?

I’d absolutely respect Sarah if this is her sunset. Letterman and the rest of the idiot press have been brutal, and the despicable fools running McCains’ campaign have poured on the lemon juice….

However.

Sarah is, far as I can tell, a fighter. This may be more about taking off the gloves or minimizing the collateral damage – private citizen Sarah can say and do things that Governor Sarah just plain can’t. As it stands, she can only devote part of her time to responding to her critics – while doing her day job – but as a private citizen, she could come out swinging…

I’m not sure what to make of the “there’s a scandal..” rumor – I’m hoping it’s Dem wishful thinking…

Mew

her departure really is a loss for the GOP, which has few truly magnetic personalities.

The GOP could’ve done more to defend her while she was being savaged. They deserve to live in the wilderness, lousy feckless turds.