It appears the article by Todd Purdum at Vanity Fair might have helped poor Sarah decide that the public has asked too much of her, and as a dedicated servant of that public, she must needs skedaddle.
Onetime supporters have become harsh critics. Walter Hickel, 89, a former two-term governor and interior secretary, and the grand old man of Alaska politics, who was co-chair of Palin’s winning gubernatorial campaign, in 2006, now washes his hands of her. He told me simply, “I don’t give a damn what she does.”Palin is unlike any other national figure in modern American life — neither Anna Nicole Smith nor Margaret Chase Smith but a phenomenon all her own. The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan — the surprise pregnancies, the two-bit blood feuds, the tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game — give her family a singular status in the rogues’ gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection. Palin’s life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure.
Another aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if the mere act of raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs. This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin’s record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen.
Let's petition Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina to find an Argentine boyfriend for this poor hen pecked governor.
Posted by: evil is evil on July 5, 2009 8:01 AMWhy shouldn't she find an Argentine girlfriend?
Posted by: Mike Goldman on July 5, 2009 9:24 AMBy comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection.
"Avatars of Circumspection" would be a great name for a band!
Posted by: Roddy McCorley on July 5, 2009 11:20 AMOh, I dunno, outside the flummery of above-normal ambition, her station and the general celebrity freak show of politics, her life looks perfectly normal to me. It's how most people navigate the American existence. They're self-absorbed, incoherent, venal, spiteful, gullible and fatuously cunning. When they get on a roll, they don't know when to shut up. They routinely shoot themselves in the foot. They're trained to fight their better sides. The more principled folks are ridiculed and accused of mental illness. Hence, parenthetically, the value of the liberal regulatory state; the punishment, exploitation and empowerment of cretins needs strong limits, lest the whole country collapse. Palin is getting a brighter, more tenacious spotlight than the other notables, but in their time they were seized on with all the glee the culture would tolerate and media infrastructure could bring to bear.
There's a sickness to her level of ambition, but the smirking ghouls in the media can only plead poverty of character for paying so much attention to her personal life. A life spent in bootlicking and opportunistic sniping has ruined them. They're unable to produce anything but a more polished version of the vindictive gossip of spoiled high school kids. There's no tragedy, however ghastly, to their lives. They're the urine sample bathroom proctors of a piss-tested nation. One can but pity them the poverty of their chicken shit sins. On second thought, one can also pray they receive an invitation to hunt caged birds with Dick Cheney.
Posted by: Jim on July 6, 2009 2:56 AMSarah Palin:
What-ever.
I wouldn't kick her out of bed, at least for s couple of hours.