Sarah Palin’s “Higher Calling” Reason for Quitting

The guessing as to what Sarah Palin will do, now that she is quitting her governor job, continues.

Ofttimes, in the reporting on Sarah Palin’s magnanimous decision to quit her day job, the lines get blurred between why Sarah Palin quit, and what she’ll be doing next.

Joe Gandelman posted a piece today, summarizing—and shooting down—a couple of the alleged reasons for Sarah’s quitting.

One is that she did not want the state of Alaska to continue to pay exorbitant amounts of taxpayers’ money to defend her against the many ethics violations charges, as all that money could be “going to things that are very important, like troopers and roads and teachers and fish research.”

Gandelman quotes from The Plum Line:

…David Murrow, a spokesperson for the Governor, said in an interview that much of this money was budgeted to the lawyers in advance and would have gone to them anyway, even if state lawyers hadn’t been defending against these ethics complaints…In other words, while these lawyers might have been free to do other legal work for the state, the ethics complaints have apparently not had the real world impact Palin has claimed, and didn’t drain money away from cops, teachers, roads and other things.

This one has now been added to a long and growing list, “The Odd Lies Of Sarah Palin: A Round-Up,” kept by Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish.

Another reason is probably a very natural and valid one: Palin is just fed up with the incessant and sometimes vile criticism of her and her family.

As I mentioned, the lines between why Palin quit and what she’ll be doing next, get blurred and probably rightly so, as the two are pretty much intertwined.

A good example was provided by a USA Today Opinion piece earlier this week, combining the two into “what this move really means.”

In, “Palin’s Flameout,” we read:

Sarah Palin’s surprise announcement Friday that she is resigning as governor of Alaska has spawned a thousand theories as to what this move really means.

Take your pick. Palin’s fed up with the news media and late-night comics turning her into a caricature and her family into a national joke. Or she is crazy like a fox, taking a clever, but risky, gamble to position herself to run for president in 2012. Or, she’d rather cash in on her celebrity than tend to governing. Or she’s getting out ahead of some lurking scandal.

Let’s take a look at these four “theories.”

Over the weekend, the FBI probably eliminated one of them: the lurking scandal.

Also over the weekend, after Palin’s reference to a “higher calling,” she most likely eliminated cashing in “on her celebrity,” unless she is totally bereft of scruples. I would not classify making money hand-over-fist as a “higher calling.”

That only leaves getting out of the limelight altogether for her family’s sake and gambling “to position herself to run for president in 2012.”

Being “fed up with the news media and late-night comics turning her into a caricature and her family into a national joke,” could very well be a reason for Palin’s quitting—and a noble one. However, jumping right back into the frying pan of publicity and of that mean media and public opinion, by campaigning for others, for issues, and/or making money hand over fist is really not consistent with such a noble intention, and certainly not a “higher calling.”

Finally, does this move “really mean” that she’ll be gambling “to position herself to run for president in 2012″?

Assuming that, after having been a governor, becoming a U.S. Senator is not that big of a higher calling, the only other higher calling left for Palin is indeed to run for U.S. President in 2012, or 2016.

There are other ways for Sarah Palin to answer to a higher calling, but that takes us into the religious realm, and I don’t know that much about that, or about Sarah Palin.

If this “analysis” of Palin’s decision-making process appears rambling, topsy-turvy, jumbled and not making sense, it probably is.

Perhaps I should have listened to the one thing that made sense in Sarah Palin’s rambling, topsy-turvy, jumbled and not-making-any-sense, “I Quit” speech last Friday, when she referred to a saying kept by her parents on their refrigerator: “Don’t explain: Your friends don’t need it, and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.”