Sarah Palin resigning gets two posts. Maybe three, depending on what happens into the next week.
Andrew Sullivan has a round-up. John Cole, Digby, Ezra Klein, etc…
Mark Steyn at The Corner:
National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.
Victor Davis Hanson at The Corner
Charles Johnson at LGF
John Dickerson in Slate:
Maybe she’s just being mavericky? Perhaps. That’s certainly how she framed her departure. To stay in office as a lame duck would have been to do the predictable thing, she said. But the challenge for Palin in the 2008 presidential campaign and again now is persuading voters that her maverick instinct isn’t just unpredictability and erratic behavior—qualities that can turn maverick-ness into a liability. Only dead fish go with the flow, she said, in what was a welcome addition to the political phrase book. But if you’re not swimming with the current, your options are still tough ones: Either you’re swimming upstream, or you’re flapping around on the dock.
Bruce Reed in Slate
Jennifer Rubin in Commentary
Seriously, what sort of “creative extremism” is Palin supposed to practice now that she’s gone Galt on Alaska and thrown off the gubernatorial shackles? Will she ride a unicycle? Wander the land holding a giant puppet? I must confess that I don’t understand why folks are straining to find some sort of credible motive or strategy in Palin’s resignation, as if she actually still possessed a political future, much less a chance of running the country. Though we have a tradition in the US of electing Presidents who have lost previous campaigns for lower office, there’s no precedent for advancing quitters to the White House.
There’s no doubt that Gov. Palin and her family have been through a very difficult year, and I sympathize with a desire to get out of the public spotlight. I hope that is what’s happening here, because it’s just not plausible that quitting the only significant political accomplishment on her resume would help Sarah Palin in a Presidential run. It’s awfully hard to go from “Alaska is better off if I am not Governor” to “Who wants to elect me President?”
On the other hand, Lefties can spare me their wailing and gnashing of teeth over just how irresponsible it is to quit in the middle of your first term. Take it up with the President first.
Ed Kilgore in TNR
Matthew Continetti in TWS
Palin’s surprise announcement was another reminder of how impulsive a politician she is. She zig-zags from office to office, from Republican Revolutionary to bipartisan champion of clean government, with nary a second thought. She resigned from the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission suddenly to make a point about self-dealing. She entered the race to unseat Frank Murkowski in October 2005, months before the primary. She accepted John McCain’s offer to be his vice presidential nominee without hesitation.
Indeed, Palin’s surprise move yesterday was another reminder of how she and McCain are so similar (remember McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign?). They are both spontaneous and unpredictable. They are both known for their attitudes rather than their policies. They are both political gamblers, and they both have been extremely lucky. But sometimes luck runs out.
And sometimes it doesn’t. “She is a lot of things,” another Alaska Republican wrote me in an email. “But NOT stupid …”
EARLIER: A Governor Is Resigning (No, Not That One)
UPDATE: Ed Morrissey with a video clip
Josh Marshall at TPM
Chris Dierkes at The League
UPDATE #2: Three posts at Hot Air, one from Robert Stacy McCain, one from Karl and Ed Morrissey
John Podhoretz in Commentary
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July 6, 2009 at 10:01 pm
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