Saradise Lost - Book 3 - Chapter 2 -- First Thoughts on The Resignation Announcement

At a news conference, held in front of the windows in her home that look exactly like some of the windows in the Wasilla Sports Complex (Palin's most dubious achievement as Wasilla mayor), Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced she will be resigning her duties in two weeks. Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, the man who put the "lack" in "lackluster," will assume her duties at that time.

The resignation comes as Palin is unsuccessfully attempting to deal with many issues in Alaska, and as her popularity among the bulk of Alaskans plummets.

Strangely proclaiming that she knows "when to pass the ball for victory," she stated in the conference that she will hand over the reins at the conclusion of the Alaska Governor's Picnic, later this month.

Palin, in her comments made allusion to recent caricatures of her with her youngest child, Trig, whose face has been photoshopped out of pictures in a variety of ways, first by Alaska bloggers, then covered extensively by Wonkette and other humor sites.

Watching Palin give her conference, between her house and Todd's Piper Cub, she seems to be on the verge of facade crackup.

Although speculation about possible investigations into aspect of her conduct, both as Alaska Governor, and in her earlier job as Wasilla Mayor, has been rampant, there is no hard data to indicate that any of the rumored investigations into Palin or the Palins will come to a conclusion soon.

Most recently, she has seen a crash in fundraising efforts. Last week, the Palin shrine, Conservatives4Palin, concluded a weeklong effort to raise $500,000 for Palin's legal bils, having reached only 21% of their goal. Wednesday, the state began releasing figures that indicated the majority of expenses borne by the state, involving so-called "ethics complaints' involving Palin, have resulted from a complaint Palin had filed against herself, and from complaints that resulted in negotiated settlements adverse to the governor's claim that she is a crusader for ethics reform.

Her legal bills are approaching 2/3 of a million dollars. Much, if not almost all, of her legal bills stem from her own conduct as governor, and over issues having to do what her daughter's son's father is strongly suspected of holding over the family.

Yesterday, a new records request was filed by one of Alaska's most activist bloggers, Linda Kellen Biegel.

With the web publication of the August issue of Vanity Fair's long article about Palin, and the high level of infighting among GOP figures and people involved in the 2008 McCain-Palin campaign about aspects of that article, Palin, for the fourth week in a row, was insinuated into the news in a garish way unprecedented in American politics.

Outside of Alaska, once a week for the past month, she made headlines that couldn't have helped anyone's long-term prospects:

1) She went back and forth with the GOP on whether or not she would speak or even attend the summer's major fundraiser for GOP legislators.

2) She picked a fight with David Letternman. Only far right groups like the Tea Party and her most devoted advocates believe Palin won that fight.

3) The thorough portrait of Palin in Todd Purdam's Vanity Fair article seemed to be ushering in a review of the piles and piles of material that came out on Palin last year, during the fall presidential campaign.

Inside of Alaska, though, these past two weeks have had the potential of a looming disaster for her.

Resentment against her policies by Alaska Natives has been simmering just below a boil all winter and spring. This past week, the resentment boiled over into open civil disobedience, as villagers along the Yukon not only fished in closed waters to obtain food for winter, they defied Palin's law enforcement agencies openly. In the village of Marshall, police officers joined in the illegal subsistence fishing, not even bothering to hide their involvement.

I've caught her in at least four major lies during the past six or seven days.

What we are seeing here is either a preface to some indictment, or the final chapter in the career of what has been the biggest political joke of the 21st century. She is so obviously a combination of extreme narcissism and even more extremely bad advice by really, really pathetically bad advisors.

Watching the family scene at her house on the raw video running on CNN right now, it is obvious that little knowledge about this was shared ahead of time, no matter what Palin said in the conference itself.

Andrea Mitchell is now being reported as claiming Palin has told some close to her that she is through with politics.

No matter where this goes next, as a Democrat, I am very excited that we can use her eclipse to leverage enough excitement in 2010 to take over our state legislature. Whether we can also regain the governor's office or finally unseat Don Young depends on how good the candidates we put into those races are.

Our Alaska bloggers, so generously covered by Eric Boehlert in Bloggers on the Bus, feel like setting off our fireworks today!

I might even go out and buy a $100 bottle of wine to share with Judy. Any suggestions?