Goodbye Ms Palin

Sorry, you won't be missed. I didn't vote for the McCain-Palin ticket because I didn't like the politics of either of the candidates for President and Vice-President. I wasn't entirely sold on Obama, but sometimes the old adage about the lesser of evils never seems to go away these day with all the bad choices we have in almost everything in life. But I was less sold on Sarah Palin as VP because she simply didn't have the experience a vice-president should have.

She wasn't a political naivete, she was politically inept. She pulled a Reagan out of her political hat. Almost everything she about her term as Governor of Alaska wasn't true, and in fact was almost always the opposite. She learned to do what old Ronny did, spin the truth 180 degrees and make your mistakes, misstatements, and even lies look like the truth, and when the media contests or questions it, call them names for their muckraking methods.

And now she's resigning as Governor. As they say in almost everything, timing is everything, so me thinks a few things are on the horizon. One, the state finances aren't good and, as Governor Palin learned this year, the tough choices are harder than you imagine. She's choosing to run from the hard work than do the time working hard to prove she really is a governor when things are good and when they're bad.

Two, she wants to run for the Senate in 2010, or maybe worse, the Presidency in 2012. In the first case, she'll need the help of the very people she pissed off, the Republican establishment in Alaska. She'll need them in the primary to support her campaign to replace the sitting senator. Anyone taking bets? And being out of the Governor role, she's just another citizen with political aspirations, richer than most for Alaska standards, but still just another wannabe.

As for the presidency, her personality will carry her part of the way but without any recent political experience to cite she's not much beyond just another hopeful, and one without name recogniztion beyond the 2008 election as eye-candy for the party who lost. In a republican presidential primary, how well do you think she'll survive against the likes of Romney, Huckabee, and the rest of them?

All that said, what angered me the most are her resignation and other statements is, as noted by several pundits, she picked and chose which of and who in the press were the enemy to call the "mainstream media" and which which and who were her friends. You can't pick and choose which of the media to put broad stroke labels on and exempt others without qualifying it. She didn't and didn't seem to recognize that.

And that's her obvious failure. She's totall oblivious to her own faults and failures. We all know someone like that, they just don't see themselves making mistakes and blame anything bad on everyone or everything else. They just roll on in life like they're perfect. She's one of them, except in the spotlight, it's obvious to the world, except those who she enamors with her prophetic sweetness.

Unfortunately sweetness isn't poltical experience. It's just eye-candy. She doesn't seem to even see that. She seems to think that just thinking you're a patriot, you're immune to doing anything bad or stupid or you're the victim of others who are out to make you look bad or stupid. But it's not you. Except it is and she is. Take her view of being "ordinary."

How many of us are governors? How many of us are worth in the neighborhood of a million dollars with a joint income of over $200,000? I won't argue she has some of the experience ordinary people face, a daughter who gave birth out of wedllock, a downs syndrome child, and others. But that doesn't make the rest ordinary. How many of us have caretakers for her downs child while she travels around the country during an election?

How many of us get all our expenses paid by the Republic National Committee? From clothes and stylists, to travel, lodging and food for the whole family. Remember while she complained the media attacked her and her downs child, she often used the child to show how "ordinary" she is. Like the kettle calling the pot black? Just a little?

Ok, I've ranted enough about Ms Palin. She deserves to go back to her life in Wasilla and fade into political history, not unlike Dan Quayle. And hopefully she'll see what happens to eye-candy when it sits in the dish too long, no one likes it anymore and it goes out with the rest of the trash. It's a long time to the elections in 2010, and she'll be sitting in the dish getting stale.

Update July 13th.--I've read some more about her resignation, both stories from politicial reporters, some from Alaska, and editorials and columns of the pundits, and it's clear she was overwhelmed and didn't the interest to continue. But it's nothing any haven't done similarly and anyone couldn't handle. She had all the best advice, support and staff, and she simply ignored them.

That's not what you want in a leader. Also, she brough much of it on herself with your fabrications about her view, exprience and knowledge of issues and her personal life. Standing in the spotlight you can't hide anything, and all of her lies came out of the shadows. And if you can't dance, don't try, you only look worse. So she quit. She's exactly what she said she is, a quitter who can't take the heat or work in the public light.

Alaska deserves a real governor, not a someone who just wants to pretend, take credit when it's easy and then quit when it's hard. And some folks wanted her to be our Vice President? Would you still want her to be that, all show and no substance?