The self-styled victim of “the politics of personal destruction” has struck back at her tormenters by leaving Alaska’s statehouse with trademark twinkly, crinkly aggression.
Sarah Palin dropped her bombshell on the eve of a holiday weekend, sending TV’s talking heads scrambling back from vacation to studios or huffing over long-distance phone lines to parse her resignation.
Their puzzled but predictable responses ranged from William Kristol and Mary Matalin hailing the move as a masterstroke toward the 2012 presidential nomination to the consensus about it as bizarre and, in the words of Republican strategist Ed Rollins, “terribly inept.”
In ten months on the national scene, Palin has tried to make ineptness an asset by equating competence with “politics as usual” and picturing herself as champion of the resentful and inarticulate from Joe the Plumber down
Palin’s complaints about the media notwithstanding, her next logical move will be to follow the folk wisdom, “If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em,” and become a commentator for Fox News, where Rupert Murdoch will surely be happy to provide her with an income and national platform to ease the pain of her abuse by David Letterman and Vanity Fair.
In that role, and in lucrative lectures to right-wing Republican faithful, the former Governor will be free to exhibit her 21st century Animal Farm–from the pit bull with lipstick through yesterday’s additions, the lame duck who milks a paycheck and dead fish who go with the flow.