Sarah Palin

There’s nothing more staggeringly inane than this from Sarah Palin’s July Fourth Facebook message:

Though it’s honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make.

Wow. Palin’s got a chip on her shoulder the size of Alaska. Almost everyone is out to get her, not the least of which is the big bad “main stream” media (as opposed to the “mainstream” media?). Best of all is her completely ahistoric sense of what would be the patriotic, truly bold thing to do. This was the highlight of her rambling news conference from July 3rd:

As I thought about this announcement, that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what that means for Alaska, I thought about, well, how much fun some governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions. So many politicians do that. And then I thought, that’s what wrong. Many just accept that lame duck status and they hit the road, they draw a paycheck, they kind of milk it, and I’m not going to put Alaskans through that. I promised efficiencies and effectiveness. That’s not how I’m wired. I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual. I promised that four years ago and I meant it. That’s not what is best for Alaska at this time. I’m determined to take the right path for Alaska, even though it is unconventional and it’s not so comfortable.

Really? Resigning is so unconventional? Then why are you complaining about how the “main stream” media gives everybody else a free pass when they do it? And what’s all this about lame ducks milking their status for free trips? Politicians don’t need to be lame ducks to spend the taxpayers’ money in frivolous ways.

If Palin really wanted to be unconventional — if she really wanted to shatter the politics as usual — she would stay on for the rest of her term and, unbeholden to the politics of campaigning, take brave stances for the things she believed in. Indeed a Republican President was one of the first to recognize that being a lame duck could hold great promise.

In 1959, Time editors wrote in an editorial:

As the nation’s first President barred by the U.S. Constitution (22nd Amendment) from seeking a third term, Dwight Eisenhower once feared that his lack of a political future might hurt his political present. It seemed all too likely that political opportunists of both parties would declare open season on an Eisenhower deprived of a chance to take his program and his popularity to the polls again. But by last week the President had just about decided that his unique lame-duck position was one of strength, not of weakness.The reason seemed both simple and sensible: foreclosed from a political future, he can hardly be accused of political motivation in advancing his program. “I’m not talking about politics,” he said recently. “I’m talking about the good of the country, and I’ll fight it out on those terms.”

Ike saw the opportunity and seized it. Then again he was finishing up his political career while Sarah Palin is clearly just getting warmed up. And that’s what is so totally disingenuous about Palin’s claims. The only plausible reason she is resigning is that she wants to be in the best position to run for President three years from now.

The advantages are plain: No more being forced to hang around Alaska, far from the Republican Party faithful in places like Iowa and New Hampshire; No more drip drip drip of ethics investigations in Alaska; No more time spent on parochial state politics instead of writing a now de rigeur pre-Presidential-campaign book; No more living on a government salary.

But there’s a big disadvantage someone as smitten with oneself as Palin is cannot see. The more non-ideological conservative Americans see of her the more she risks being the next Barry Goldwater. Palin is a darling of hard-core religious conservatives and their mouthpieces like William Kristol and Rush Limbaugh. She will undoubtedly spend the next 2 years playing to that crowd. As Barack Obama showed, however, it’s the independents that matter and they disliked Palin so much when McCain added her to the ticket that the race was effectively over for the GOP within a week of her selection.

Sarah Palin appears to be like so many other politicians — the more you know, the less you like. Leaving Alaska prematurely could end up as her too-smart-by-half move.