Did Palin resign becuase she was pregnant broke and crooked?

The Republican party is imploding and exploding at the same time. The frontline leaders are either committing political suicide or can’t keep it zipped–the mouth that is. In this latest drama, Sarah Palin just cracked under the pressure.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” Hunter S. Thompson

There are consistent rumours that Palin resigned because she is pregnant again, and that she is totally broke. Resigning as the Governor would put her on the speaker circuit and and give her a book deal raking in millions. There are also a plethora of rumours that there are several investigations against her in Alaska that are about to surface. The resignation may be a move to slide out from under the prosecution.

Let’s stipulate that if there is some heretofore unknown personal, medical or family crisis, this was the right move. But Gov. Palin didn’t say anything like that. Her statement was incoherent, bizarre and juvenile. The text, as posted on Gov. Palin’s official website (here), uses 2,549 words and 18 exclamation points. Lincoln freed the slaves with 719 words and nary an exclamation; Mr. Jefferson declared our independence in 1,322 words and, again, no exclamation points. Nixon resigned the presidency in 1,796 words — still no exclamation points. Gov. Palin capitalized words at random – whole words, like “TO,” “HELP,” and “AND,” and the first letter of “Troops.” Paul Bagala

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska abruptly announced on Friday that she was quitting at the end of the month, shocking

Republicans across the country and leaving both parties uncertain about whether she was leaving national politics or laying the groundwork for a presidential run.

Ms. Palin, 45, the Republican vice-presidential nominee last year, was supposed to serve through the end of 2010; she said she would cede control of the state to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell on July 26.

Speaking outside her home in Wasilla, Ms. Palin offered conflicting signals about her intentions and her motivation.

In her tone and some of her words in an often-rambling announcement, she sounded like someone who was making a permanent exit from politics after what her friends have called a rough and dispiriting year.

But her remarks, delivered in a voice that often seemed rushed and jittery, sounded at times like those of a candidate with continued national aspirations, as when she suggested she could “fight for all our children’s future from outside the governor’s office.”

Ms. Palin said that she had decided not to seek re-election when her term expires at the end of next year and that, given that, she did not think it was fair to her constituents to continue in office.

“As I thought about this announcement that I would not seek re-election,” she said, “I thought about how much fun other governors have as lame ducks. They maybe travel around their state, travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international trade missions.”

“I’m not going to put Alaskans through that,” she said. “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.”

The news conference came at the end of a week in which a Vanity Fair article about Ms. Palin brought renewed focus on many of the criticisms of her as a candidate for vice president under Senator John McCain of Arizona and set off a new round of recriminations among Mr. McCain’s advisers about her competence.

But while Ms. Palin has been derided by much of the Republican elite, she remains extremely popular with many grass-roots members, especially social and religious conservatives.

Ms. Palin’s announcement was another unusual marker in what has been a tumultuous year for this first-term governor since Mr. McCain turned her into a national figure overnight by surprising his own party and naming her his running mate. It also underscored the instability in the Republican Party as it tries to find a strategy and voice in the wake of losses in 2008.

Ms. Palin made the announcement standing with her family. At one point she described how her children had voted in favor of her doing this — “Four yeses and one ‘Hell, yeah!’ ” she said — suggesting that the family had had enough of the scrutiny that had made them tabloid staples.

But at another point she invoked a military quotation, misattributing it to Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in what seemed to be an effort to wave aside any suggestion that she was abandoning the fight. “He said, ‘We’re not retreating; we are advancing in another direction,’ ” she said. (The remark was actually said by Maj. Gen. Oliver Prince Smith.)

Later in the afternoon, as questions reverberated in Republican circles about what exactly she intended to do, Ms. Palin posted a notice on her Twitter site, reading: “We’ll soon attach info on decision to not seek re-election … This is in Alaska’s best interest, my family’s happy … It is good, stay tuned.”

Ms. Palin is among a number of governors who are possible contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and whose terms expire in 2010.

Many Republican strategists have argued that it would be difficult for someone to run for governor in 2010 and turn around immediately, while running a state, and run for president in 2012. Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota announced last month that he would not seek re-election when his term expired in 2010, as he considers a race for president.

Quitting midterm, however, is highly unusual. It set off speculation about what led her to leave so abruptly. One interpretation among Republicans was that she had simply underscored how erratic she is as a politician.

“Good point guards don’t quit and walk off the floor if the going gets tough,” said John Weaver, a former senior strategist for Mr. McCain. “Today’s move falls further into the weirdness category; people don’t like a quitter.”

But some of her supporters argued that this could actually provide Ms. Palin an opportunity to recover from what has been a damaging year for her, and prepare herself for the 2012 race. She has been enmeshed in continuing battles with members of both parties in her Legislature.

The sheer distance of Alaska from the rest of the country complicated her ability to take care of the most basic kind of presidential preparation work: going to Republican Party dinners, developing a network of fund-raisers and supporters and becoming educated about the issues.

In addition, Ms. Palin just signed a lucrative contract to write a book.

“I think she is trying to determine how she can better get to where she’d like to be,” said Speaker Mike Chenault of the Alaska Legislature, a Republican from the Kenai Peninsula. “And she figures that if she resigns, people can’t be taking so many potshots at her.”

William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard and a supporter of Ms. Palin, said that in the end, this could turn out to have been a smart move.

“Everybody I’ve talked to thinks it’s a little crazy,” Mr. Kristol said. “But maybe not. What is she going to accomplish in the next year as governor? Every time she left the state she got criticized for neglecting her duties.”

“She’ll take a little hit for leaving the job early, no question about it,” he said. “But if she writes this book and gives speeches and travels the country and educates herself on some issues, that’s good.”

The way Ms. Palin presented her decision seemed to leave open the possibility that she had been motivated by any one of a number of reasons, including being sick of politics and wanting to get out or taking pre-emptive action in anticipation of some embarrassing disclosure.

“It caught everybody by surprise,” said a former Alaska House majority leader, Ralph Samuels, a Republican who is contemplating a run for governor in 2010. “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies, and everyone is asking the same questions: Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it? Don’t have a clue.”

John Coale, a prominent trial lawyer and Democrat who helped Ms. Palin create her political action committee, said in an interview that he had been given no advance word of her decision.

“She didn’t even tell her brother,” Mr. Coale added.

Mr. Coale said he had spoken to Ms. Palin’s husband, Todd. “And he’s like, they’re not sure what they are going to do from here on out, but they’re sure they don’t want to do this,” he said.

Andrew Halcro, a former Republican state legislator who ran against Ms. Palin as an independent in 2006, said, “From a purely logical standpoint, this doesn’t make sense.” As governor, Mr. Halcro said, Ms. Palin had the standing to remain in the news.

“She had 16 months to score some points getting some policy wins and showing she’s a leader,” he said.

If there was widespread shock over Ms. Palin’s decision in Alaska, there was also widespread acknowledgment that she had political problems that were hobbling her in office. Lyda Green, a Republican and former president of the Alaska Senate who is from Ms. Palin’s hometown and who counted herself a friend until a falling out in recent years, said she took the announcement as tacit confirmation that Ms. Palin was running for president.

“The longer she stays in, the more people become disenchanted and see something they hadn’t seen before,” Ms. Green said. “This has been a pretty precipitous fall.”

Reporting was contributed by Jo Becker, Kitty Bennett, Serge F. Kovaleski, Peter S. Goodman and Kim Severson. Palin’s Move Shocks G.O.P. and Leaves Future Unclear, By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JIM RUTENBERG

Reporters are beginning to piece together an explanation for Sarah Palin’s abrupt resignation announcement that stands in stark contrast to the reasoning Palin offered in her speech.

Speaking on MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell reported that, according to “people very close to Sarah Palin,” she has “told her supporters that she is out of politics, period. She is fed up with politics. She doesn’t like her life. She feels that she needs to raise her family. She’s sick of the commute from Wasilla to the capital. And she really does not want to run for higher office, that this is not a case where she is stepping down in order to clear the way for a presidential run. In fact, she has told some of her biggest backers in the national Republican Party that they are free to choose other candidates for 2012, which of course opens new avenues for Mitt Romney, for Tim Pawlenty, for other potential candidates who are definitely in the running.”

Meanwhile, Alaska-based reporter-blogger Shannyn Moore is hearing potentially more damaging revelations are to come. “For weeks the rumors of a criminal investigation against the governor have been brewing,” she writes. She spoke of the rumors with MSNBC’s David Shuster, saying the talk of a criminal probe into Palin has been circulating for six to eight weeks, and that today’s press conference seemed to be Palin’s effort at “damage control for news to come out later.”

Moore also noted that it made little sense for Palin to resign now to prepare for a presidential run, especially considering she continued on as governor during the 2008 presidential campaign unlike Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, who both turned over power to their Lieutenant Governors when they were running for national office.

Writing for the Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal pinpointed a burgeoning story that may be the source of the rumblings in Alaska:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide open state.

Posted in Current Affairs, Politics, US CA Tagged: Sarah Palin