Saturday Alaska Progressive Blog Roundup - July 4th, 2009

This past week began with many speculating that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford would be announcing his resignation by Friday, the 3rd. It ended with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announcing her resignation on the 3rd.

The week began with Gov. Palin positively twittering away from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, about Alaska Natives and other rural residents on the lower Yukon having met 50% of their subsistence needs. It ended with Palin having little positive to tweet, speaking a half a mile from where the person for whom Camp Bondsteel was named, James "Buddha" Bondsteel, had worked for several years, running the Wasilla Vet Center.

The week began with Palin being the butt of hundreds of jokes, thousands of humorous blog posts around the country and world commenting upon her lack of irony. It ended with rampant speculation that her stepping down looked surprisingly like some part of a plea bargain deal.

For Progressive Alaska, the past week began with Saradise Lost - Book 2 - Chapter 73. It ended with Saradise Lost - Book 3 - Chapter 3, and with Book 2 having been completed.

The week began with Palin and her supporters attacking Alaska's progressive bloggers and citizen activists. It ended with Palin and her supporters attacking Alaska's progressive bloggers and citizen activists.

The week began with the crash of fundraising for Palin's dubious legal defense fund, handled by the Palin shrines Conservatives4Palin and Team Sarah. It began with Linda Kellen's successful conclusion to her fundraising drive to pay the costs of obtaining vital information about how the Palin administration may or may not be orchestrating its campaign against Alaska citizen activists through organs of the local media. It ended with Kellen actually filing her request.

The week began with the Anchorage Daily News, through their most aggressive reporters on the subject of Palin administration shortcomings, at least attempting to get the truth out to Alaskans on the gap between Palin's statements on subsistence fishing on the lower Yukon and the facts; and on the disparities between Palin's claims and reality, through Kyle Hopkins' reporting; and with Sean Cockerham writing about the huge disparity between Palin's claim of administrative costs pertaining to complaints against her conduct, and the facts.

But the ADN, then decided to run a fundraiser for Palin on their front page! It was a low point in the history of journalism in the state of Alaska. It was a local high point in the American tradition of presstitution.

For the ADN, the week ended with their reporter being shut out of the resignation press conference for the governor they had been so carefree about for the past, oh, thirteen years.

The week began with Linda Kellen's blog, Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis, through global interest in her fight for transparent government in Alaska, getting hundreds of thousands of hits per day. It ended with Alaska's highest traffic progressive blog, The Mudflats, crashing their server.

With so many important issues facing Alaska, this past week our progressive bloggers spoke and emailed back and forth about our growing frustration in having to deal with Palin's lies and distortions on a daily basis. She has been an enormous distraction at a key juncture in Alaska's future.

It is ironic, but also immensely pitiful that Palin, whose higher aspirations began with a mayoral campaign based on lies and distortions about her opponent (John Stein is "really" a Jew, John Stein's wife has a different last name, maybe they aren't even married, etc.), has ended with a speech rife with more lies and distortions.

Steve at What Do I Know? has brilliantly taken Palin's resignation speech to pieces.

Author Geoffrey Dunn, whose criticism of Palin's introductory remarks at an Anchorage speech in early June was noteworthy, has described another interesting symmetry to Palin's higher aspirations:

Some pundits have said that Palin's resignation is out of character. Hardly. Don't forget that she resigned from her last statewide office -- that as chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Sarah Palin is a quitter. She fancies herself something else. But, in the end, she quit her position at AOGCC and she has now quit her governorship. That's two-for-two at the statewide level. In Wasilla, there was nearly a recall launched against her as mayor. Trouble and turbulence have followed her everywhere.

Soon after the Alaska Legislature's sound rejection of Wayne Anthony Ross, Palin's totally unfit nominee for Attorney General, I wrote a column here, called Can We Return to Our Lives Now, Governor?

I'll ask the same question again, slightly rephrased:

Can we ALL now return to our lives, Governor?

image - Zina Saunders