Monday, July 6, 2009

UPDATE 3: Goofy Sarah’s Goofy Money Problems

It’s sort of fitting that the annual running of the bulls begins today in Pamplona where the bull’s shit will be as deep as it is these days in Wasilla, Alaska.

Yet another possible reason for Gov. Palin’s resignation crops up in this morning’s New York Times which reports that she resigned because of the rising cost of her mounting personal legal bills incurred in dealing with the 15 ethics violations filed against Palin – with new charges allegedly on the way. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell told a Fox Sunday news interview show that she owes her lawyers around $500,000.

No word so far on whether Palin’s lawyer served Parnell, the Times or Fox News with a copy of its “stop speculating or we’ll sue” threat it issued Saturday.

Maybe if she had done a better job paying attention to the rules of the game in Alaska that she chose to play – and there don’t seem to be too many rules up there to begin with – she wouldn’t be a half-million dollars in debt to her legal eagles and other birds of prey.

Naturally, Palin claims an entirely different reason – her third or fourth or 10th since announcing her resignation. On her Facebook page, Palin is signalling she wants a larger, national role in politics, citing what she now insists is a “higher calling” to push for conservative causes.

Oy.

Didn’t George Bush claim that God told him to invade Iraq? Well, I suppose since Palin is free of witches, she has plenty of time on her hands to listen to God whispering in her ear since running Alaska – the job she was elected to do – is so boring she hardly ever shows up in Juneau.

As if all of this isn’t enough to give you dry heaves, also in this morning’s Times, Ross Douthat claims on the Op-Ed page in an article titled "Palin And Her Enemies," that if only Palin had waited to enter the national stage and not leap at John McCain’s offer to be his running mate, “There would still be plenty of time to ease into the national spotlight, to bone up on the issues, and to craft a persona more appealing than the Mrs. Spiro Agnew role the McCain campaign assigned to her.”

Not only does Douthat mirror Palin’s credo that her fall from heaven is always someone else’s fault, he blames it all on the McCain campaign that picked her for the sole purpose, apparently, of ruining her. And then he goes on to claim that she is “talented enough” to have a national political future.

Excuse me?

Uhm, Ross, this is the woman who wouldn’t read briefing books, refused to prepare for network interviews, didn’t want to rehearse for her debate with Joe Biden, claimed Barack Obama palled around with terrorists and didn’t silence yahoo’s in the crowd who shouted back “Kill him!”

In only about 30 months of being governor of a very small state, she’s faced more ethics violation charges than a Chicago ward heeler, tried to refuse stimulus money for a state with more problems than it has oil until the Republican legislature forced her to do so, charged the state for living in her own home and tried charging Alaskan taxpayers for her children’s travel costs, accepted speaking invitations before declining them before saying she didn’t mean it and would speak after all, and saw her popularity plummet as voters in the 49th state came to see what a wacko they’d elected.

Exactly where does her talent lay, Ross, other than being a foil for Tina Fey?

Still, if a money crunch is the final, real, last chance to get off, reason for walking away and she wants to answer some “higher calling,” I assume it means Palin will continue to haunt us and provide Jon Stewart with plenty of lead stories for years to come.

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