Sarah, We Hardly Knew Ye

Phase Two of the political meteor known as Sarah Palin ended yesterday, as the Alaska governor, with 17 months left in office, officially quit her job. That the response to her leaving was mostly negative is not a surprise, and it probably says as much about us as it does about her.

In the 332 days since John McCain tapped her to be his running mate, Sarah Palin has endured many different political personas, much of it unfavorable. It's hard to remember that once upon a time, she was the person who was going to rescue the GOP and put McCain into the White House. That was, of course, before the near collapse of the economic system that ended any chance of a third straight Republican victory.

But it was also before Katie and Tina and the debates, when Palin became a caricature.

Still, as the Washington Post's Dan Balz wrote this morning, she embodied a "rise and fall almost unprecedented in modern politics."

The "fall" is what most people are focusing on as she leaves office.

 

On the Jezebel Web site — a site dedicated to "Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women," we are told — Anna N. discusses how she saw yesterday's farewell address, part of which Palin ripped the media:

This kind of anti-press guilt-trip (when you "make things up," you hurt our troops and our children!) isn't new, but Sarah Palin has become a poster child for the idea that no criticism is substantive criticism. Everyone who says something bad about her is attacking her, and not just her qualifications or her experience, but her family, her patriotism, her America. She's careful to say she's talking about "just some" in the press here, but Sarah Palin's basic refusal to engage with people who disagree with her makes her destructive to any sort of shared national discourse. Watch her respond to a heckler at about minute 7:30 of the second part of her speech. ...

Palin sees anyone who questions her resignation as "are choosing not to hear it" in her, because to anyone who actually heard her, the decision would be "obvious." Obvious because ... she loves Alaska! And because no more politics as usual! Yeah! Watch her bask in the applause at the end of this particular bit to see her in her element — people who don't question her, because she has no real response to those questions. All she can do is criticize the questioners themselves — as inattentive, immoral, or un-American.

Anna was hardly the only blogger critical of Palin's Sunday remarks. Gideon Rachman at the Financial Times called it an "astonishing performance — and I don't mean that in a good way."

Her early unscripted remarks were so inarticulate that they barely made sense. Some of what she had to say was comic, such as her suggestion that she would guard the interests of Alaskans with the ferocity of a grizzly bear guarding it cubs. Some of it was faintly sinister, such as her attempt to suggest that her critics in the press were betraying American troops abroad. The logic was that the troops are fighting to defend freedom, including freedom of the press. But Palin's press critics are lying and therefore abusing that freedom. Therefore they are betraying the troops.

Amanda Coyne, an Alaskan who has seen many people come to her state only to give up and leave, wrote a wistful post for Britain's Guardian:

No matter how she spins it, Sarah Palin is just like so many others who came before her, those who dreamed big and then something happened and they just gave up. They left defeated.

She's told us and herself that she is off to better things. But we know differently, and she will too when she leaves. We all know that that she's leaving a little something of herself, something that could have been so much more if she had finished the job.

Some Alaska Republicans are anxious to see her go as well. Ed Schoenfeld, the regional news director for CoastAlaska (Public Radio for Southeast Alaska), interviewed Bert Stedman, a powerful Alaska state senator with very similar politics to Palin's. In the interview, which you can hear here, he talks about her not being able to focus, not being able to function and generally lacking the understanding of (or interest in) government needed to govern. Ed adds, "This guy is usually a calm observer who does not serve up criticism this strongly."

A blog posting with a more balanced portrait came from "littleisis," writing on The Confluence blog. Littleisis starts off by flatly saying Palin "is not qualified to be President" and is wrong on a whole assortment of issues, including abortion and energy. But even for this liberal blogger there is a "but" to the Palin record:

But she has also, correct me if I'm wrong, taken on her own party Establishment and been elected as the youngest and first lady Governor of the largest and most beautiful state in the union, raised taxes on oil companies and created a state budget surplus, which she gave back to Alaskans. Her first veto in office was a bill that would deny gay couples health benefits (and you know how those lesbians love Alaskan Cruises. Good call, Sarah!). She appointed a pro choice member of Planned Parenthood to the Alaskan Supreme Court in favor of a bible humping Fundie Blowhard, and she supports funding Head Start. She is, contrary to popular belief, pro-contraception, and has said so many times. She is a Feminist. Her husband is an Eskimo Union man who owns a commercial fisherman business. She is personally socially Conservative, but based on her performance as Governor, does not use her office to inflict those beliefs on her constituents. She has stated that she believes in Science and Evolution. In fact, her father was a Science Teacher and track coach, and her mother was a school librarian, so she likes books too.

Fred Malek, a GOP fundraiser who is said to be close to Palin, says in the Dan Balz article in the Washington Post that the post-governor Palin should "try to focus on big themes and ideas":

She should try not to fan the flames every time some kernel of negativity erupts. Let Levi Johnston have his 15 minutes of fame. Don't answer these blogs. Don't answer these tweets. Look at the bigger picture.