palin quitting as governor, why?

[TripletDaddy]

Which one of us gets to be the lion?

I thought I was the lion, hence the location of your head.

[LA Ute]

I thought I was the lion, hence the location of your head.

I find the expression on the lamb's face enigmatic.

[scottie]

Levi Johnston talks about Palin's resignation

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – The former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter says he thinks he knows why the Alaska governor is resigning — concerns over money.

Levi Johnston, 19, whose wedding to Bristol Palin was called off earlier this year, says he believes the governor is resigning over personal finances.

Johnston says he lived with the Palin family from early December to the second week in January. He claims he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.

"I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars," said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.

Palin has a book deal, but compensation details haven't been disclosed. The governor has said she is facing more than $500,000 in legal fees.

"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Johnston made his comments at a news conference Thursday at the office of his attorney, Rex Butler.

Johnston came forward, Butler said, because Alaskans want to know why Palin has decided to resign. She made the announcement last Friday.

Johnston also is pursuing his own book deal. He is working as a carpenter while also pursuing a movie deal.

[JohnnyLingo]

"It is interesting to learn Levi is working on a piece of fiction while honing his acting skills," Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Ouch. Way to take the high road there, Palin family spokesperson.

[TripletDaddy]

Levi Johnston, 19, whose wedding to Bristol Palin was called off earlier this year, says he believes the governor is resigning over personal finances.

Johnston says he lived with the Palin family from early December to the second week in January. He claims he heard the governor several times say how nice it would be to take advantage of the lucrative deals that were being offered, including a reality show and a book.

"I think the big deal was the book. That was millions of dollars," said Johnston, who has had a strained relationship with the family but now says things have improved.

He must have a really unique relationship with the Palins if he feels comfortable going on record with these types of quotes.

Nothing will improve your relationship with a politician faster than spreading rumors about him or her to the press.

[I.J. Reilly]

An interesting article on Palin from Peggy Noonan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html

What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits.

"She's not Ivy League, that's why her rise has been thwarted! She represented the democratic ideal that you don't have to go to Harvard or Brown to prosper, and her fall represents a failure of egalitarianism." This comes from intellectuals too. They need to be told something. Ronald Reagan went to Eureka College. Richard Nixon went to Whittier College, Joe Biden to the University of Delaware. Sarah Palin graduated in the end from the University of Idaho, a school that happily notes on its Web site that it's included in U.S. News and World Report's top national schools survey. They need to be told, too, that the first Republican president was named "Abe," and he went to Princeton and got a Fulbright. Oh wait, he was an impoverished backwoods autodidact!

America doesn't need Sarah Palin to prove it was, and is, a nation of unprecedented fluidity. Her rise and seeming fall do nothing to prove or refute this.

"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites, from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.

"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan. Why do her supporters not see this? Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!

"The media did her in." Her lack of any appropriate modesty did her in. Actually, it's arguable that membership in the self-esteem generation harmed her. For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they're perfect in every way. It's yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.

I think it's about as fair of an assessment that one could give of Palin.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

An interesting article on Palin from Peggy Noonan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html



I think it's about as fair of an assessment that one could give of Palin.

I was going to post about this column but you beat me to it.

Noonan absolutely nails it. It became painfully apparent that Palin wasn't "thoughtful enough to realize that she wasn't thougtful enough." The reason she couldn't talk about what she read was because she probably because she didn't read very much.

The interesting angle that Noonan reveals is the role of some of the elites in the party to prop her up (e.g. Bill Kristol) because they're calculating that she appeals to some vast lower working class. What gets lost in the process is whether she can actually govern, and quite simply a lot of people have made the determination that they don't want her anywhere close to the oval office.

[il Padrino Ute]

An interesting article on Palin from Peggy Noonan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html



I think it's about as fair of an assessment that one could give of Palin.

Palin is from the "self-esteem generation?" What?

No, that generation would be the kids born in the 80s, not educated in the 80s.

[Babs]

Palin is from the "self-esteem generation?" What?

No, that generation would be the kids born in the 80s, not educated in the 80s.

No, it's older than that. I'm at the tail-end of genX and we're rife with entitlement and self-absorption.

[il Padrino Ute]

No, it's older than that. I'm at the tail-end of genX and we're rife with entitlement and self-absorption.

Well, it's certainly not Palin's generation as she and I were born the same year. We weren't raised to be wusses.

[Babs]

Well, it's certainly not Palin's generation as she and I were born the same year. We weren't raised to be wusses.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
now I understand.

I think you guys are a transitional year. Perhaps you're at the tail-end of the baby boom, and she's the first of gen x. :-)

[il Padrino Ute]

ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
now I understand.

I think you guys are a transitional year. Perhaps you're at the tail-end of the baby boom, and she's the first of gen x. :-)

Yes - I've always understood that baby boomer was '46-'64 which would put me in the last year of the boomers.

I had to wiki it, but she was born in Feb. of '64 while I was born a few months later.

[LA Ute]

I was going to post about this column but you beat me to it.

Noonan absolutely nails it. It became painfully apparent that Palin wasn't "thoughtful enough to realize that she wasn't thougtful enough." The reason she couldn't talk about what she read was because she probably because she didn't read very much.

The interesting angle that Noonan reveals is the role of some of the elites in the party to prop her up (e.g. Bill Kristol) because they're calculating that she appeals to some vast lower working class. What gets lost in the process is whether she can actually govern, and quite simply a lot of people have made the determination that they don't want her anywhere close to the oval office.

McCain's decision to choose her showed that he thinks with his gut. That would be OK if his gut were right most of the time, but . . . .

[TripletDaddy]

McCain's decision to choose her showed that he thinks with his gut. That would be OK if his gut were right most of the time, but . . . .

Hey....at least his gut was smarter than 5 other guts in his graduating class (of 899 total guts).

[Flystripper]

McCain's decision to choose her showed that he thinks with his gut. That would be OK if his gut were right most of the time, but . . . .

McCain never had a very big gut.