Open Thread - Happy Anniversary, Sarah Palin!

We couldn't leave this occasion go unnoticed, so here's a tribute to Quitter Palin:



Very noble sentiments, but this picture tells another story...

The cat that got the cream

The big Babygate post will be re-published at the top later on, after we had a bit of time to celebrate Quitter's Day. Have fun, let's keep our spirits up and our eyes on the ball.

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BONUS:

Here we have another all time classic - the edited version of Sarah's quitter speech, courtesy of Vanity Fair.

Example:

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We have long memories, Sarah Palin (UPDATED)

The Associated Press reported on Sarah Palin's Hong Kong speech:

Palin started off her speech — which was closed to reporters — with a light talk about the links between her state and the southern Chinese territory, then touched later on economic issues.

One attendee said she criticized the U.S. Federal Reserve's massive intervention in the economy over the last year, arguing its actions only exacerbated the crisis. She also praised the conservative economic policies of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Earlier, she talked of Alaska's salmon exports and complimented Hong Kong as a "beautiful city," according to a second attendee. Both people spoke on condition of anonymity.

I found this passage a bit puzzling:

CLSA requested Palin's speech be closed to reporters so she could make an "unfettered" presentation to investors, according to spokeswoman Wheeler. And Palin, whose supporters have long accused the media of bias and harsh treatment, agreed. Since resigning, Palin has ducked mainstream news outlets and communicated with supporters largely via her popular Facebook page.

Fred Malek (the dog killer) also chipped in about Sarah Palin's trip:

While she's thought to be considering a bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012, her Hong Kong trip bore no political overtones, said Fred Malek, a friend and Palin adviser.

"You can read a lot of things into it, 'Is she trying to burnish her foreign policy credentials?' and the like. But really, it's a trip that will be beneficial to her knowledge base and will defray some legal and other bills that she has," Malek said.

Bloomberg also reported on the speech:

Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke to fund managers in Hong Kong today about issues ranging from Alaska’s fishing industry to U.S.-Sino ties, according to people who attended the closed session.

Palin, 45, spoke about 80 minutes to a full house in the main ballroom of Hong Kong’s Grand Hyatt hotel shortly after 12:30 p.m. local time. Reporters were kept out by tight security at the investor forum organized by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.

People who attended Palin’s speech said she took only pre- approved questions. She also discussed the U.S. health care reform debate, the U.S. deficit and energy conservation, they said.

Ben Smith of Politico named the speech ghoswriters:

John McCain's campaign foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, has emerged as an advisor to former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as she attempts to build a serious public profile and begins to build a network of aides and advisors typical of a national politician.

Scheunemann confirmed this evening that he's with Palin in Hong Kong, where she is delivering a paid speech at a conference hosted by the brokerage house CLSA,

Scheunemann, an early supporter of the Iraq war, is prominent in the hawkish, internationalist, neo-conservative wing of the party's foreign policy thought, and his place beside Palin also offers a bit of a clue as to the direction in which her vaguely-defined foreign policy views are likely to develop. Two other Republican policy hands worked on the speech as well, I'm told: AEI China expert Dan Blumenthal and D.C. lawyer Kim Daniels.

Bree Palin has more information on the speechwriters.

There aren't any surprises regarding the speech or the identity of her advisors. It was the usual anti-Obama stuff, written by neo-cons...

The puppetmasters are attempting to create an aura of secrecy around the pitbull. They are trying to boost her credentials as an expert on many things, with prepared Facebook notes, op-eds and a carefully crafted speech delivered behind closed doors. She's not seen in public and doesn't speak to the press. The first and last time Sarah Palin gave a national press conference was on November 13, 2008 and that didn't last very long:

In Miami at the Republican Governor's Association, Sarah Palin held her first national press conference. About 100 reporters gathered. The bank of TV camera were two-deep on the risers. And -- drumroll please -- it lasted three questions and about seven and a half minutes.



Will Sarah Palin ever be able to speak to the press? Or do they plan to keep her under wraps forever? Are they waiting for people to forget her word salad, her idiotic answers to Charlie Gibson and Kate Couric, her inappropriate dress sense on many occasions?

Good luck, puppetmasters. We remember all that and more: the giggles on the Bob and Mark show, her talk to Sarkozy, her pearls of wisdom on Twitter, the ridiculous collection of photos on Runners World, all her tabloid rants. We remember a lot of stuff... from Wasilla mayor to unemployed quitter governor, we remember it all.




UPDATE

A first hand account of her speech by Cameron Sinclair
Bree Palin has more nuggets from the speech
(H/T to EyeOnYou for Hong Kong photos and link to HuffPo)
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Hell yeah, Sarah Palin!

Fox News:

Despite an invitation to speak at the conference, Sarah Palin, former vice presidential candidate, and until recently Alaska governor, decided not come to the National Federation of Republican Women's 35th Convention, according to the organization.

"It is disappointing," says Barbara Davis, who heads the Melbourne, Fla., chapter. "We were hoping that she would come. It would have benefited her to attend."

"We don't know what's going on with her," says Barbara Knauff, a NFRW member from Leesburg, Fla. "She's not the kind to go quietly into the night, but she's smart. She'll come out when she can make the greatest impact."

While Palin will not be going to Florida, she will be delivering a keynote speech in Hong Kong, China, later this month, according to her spokeswoman, Meg Stapleton.

Well, the women's convention looks like a freebie, the Hong Kong gig, on the other hand...

$

Yes, Sarah Palin will "come out when she can make the greatest impact". On her bank balance, more likely. Which brings me to another snippet of Levi's story on Vanity Fair, talking about Sarah after she lost the election:

Sarah was sad for a while. She walked around the house pouting. I had assumed she was going to go back to her job as governor, but a week or two after she got back she started talking about how nice it would be to quit and write a book or do a show and make “triple the money.” It was, to her, “not as hard.” She would blatantly say, “I want to just take this money and quit being governor.” She started to say it frequently, but she didn’t know how to do it. When she came home from work, it seemed like she was more and more stressed out

In her breathless resignation announcement, Sarah Palin said:

In fact, this decision comes after much consideration, and finally polling the most important people in my life – my children (where the count was unanimous…) well, in response to asking: “Want me to make a positive difference and fight for ALL our children’s future from OUTSIDE the Governor’s office?” It was four “yes’s” and one “hell yeah!” The “hell yeah” sealed it – and someday I’ll talk about the details of that…

What she may have asked the children: "Want me to make difference to our finances by making a pile of money from those suckers, outside this stupid governor's office?"

Hell yeah!
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Sarah Palin reappears

Sarah Palin made a weekend public appearance after keeping a low profile since she resigned as Alaska governor July 26.

The former GOP vice presidential candidate gave a speech on Second Amendment rights Saturday night at a banquet in Anchorage.

Internet fans have been eagerly awaiting an update from Palin, who has been laying low since she resigned with 16 months left in her first term.

So $arah is not in hiding anymore. And she attended the banquet with Todd! (that's all she needed to do to dispel certain rumours instead of issuing pressers on Facebook and threatening people with lawsuits, drawing attention to the "falsehood")

Yes, we're eagerly awaiting the twits...

Although we're not exactly fans.
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Sarah Palin's WTF quitter speech

Thanks to Mudflats, we now have a transcript of $arah Palin's quitspeech. I wanted to comment on some passages, but couldn't bear to listen to that voice again.

Together we do stand with gratitude for our troops who protect all of our cherished freedoms, including our freedom of speech which, par for the course, I’m going to exercise.

And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting power to influence. You represent what could and should be a respected honest profession that could and should be the cornerstone of our democracy. Democracy depends on you, and that is why, that’s why our troops are willing to die for you. So, how ’bout in honor of the American soldier, ya quit makin’ things up.

Anybody who reads $arah Palin's twits or listens to her speeches would think someone is trying to revoke the 1st Amendment and the country went to war to protect it. As a matter of fact, $arah doesn't understand the 1st amendment at all. She has moved on from "a task that is from God" to fighting to preserve freedom of the press, as far as fighting the present wars is concerned. Apples and oranges, fruit salad, word salad, take your pick.



As for making things up, she should take a leaf from her own book. The media consistently fail to report a lot of stuff about $arah Palin and are very sloppy in verifying the truthfulness of some of her statements, such as ALL ethics complaints having been dismissed and how much they really cost the state, for example. They didn't report much about the energy crisis in Western Alaska or how she took six weeks to act and that her only response was to take Franklin Graham's evangelical circus and some cookies to the wrong villages. The media didn't challenge her version of events regarding the wild ride from Texas to Alaska so Trig could have an Alaskan birth certificate. They haven't reported on the real issues surrounding her "legal" fund: the wording of the trust agreement and the implications of the conflict between what's on the AFT website and what's in the agreement.

If the media really did their homework and researched things properly, they would be informing the electorate more accurately. They gave $arah Palin a free pass on a string of issues. She should be grateful for their sloppyness.

I promised that we would manage our fish and wildlife for abundance, and that we would defend the constitution, and we have, though outside special interest groups they still just don’t get it on this one. Let me tell you, Alaskans really need to stick together on this with new leadership in this area especially, encouraging new leadership… got to stiffen your spine to do what’s right for Alaska when the pressure mounts, because you’re going to see anti-hunting, anti-second amendment circuses from Hollywood and here’s how they do it. They use these delicate, tiny, very talented celebrity starlets, they use Alaska as a fundraising tool for their anti-second amendment causes. Stand strong, and remind them patriots will protect our guaranteed, individual right to bear arms, and by the way, Hollywood needs to know, we eat, therefore we hunt.

Delicate, tiny Ashley Judd and the rest of Hollywood will be shocked to learn that Alaskans eat wolves!

Alaskans will remember that years ago, remember we sported the old bumper sticker that said, “Alaska. We Don’t Give a Darn How They Do It Outside?” Do you remember that? I remember that, and remember it was because we would be different. We’d roll up our sleeves, and we would diligently sow and reap, and we can still do this to carve wealth out of the wilderness and make our living on the water, with strong hands and innovative minds, now with smarter technology. It is what our first people and our parents did. It worked, because they worked. We must be prudent and persistent and press for the people’s right to responsibly develop God-given resources for the maximum benefit of the people.

This bit sounds like something out of the AIP manifesto. It seems to be a constant theme in her speeches... I wonder how her adoring fans from the Lower 48 feel about being called lazy and unresourceful. Well, people have the icons they deserve. They choose to follow her, hang on her every word, so be it.

Now, people who know me, and they know how much I love this state, some still are choosing not to hear why I made the decision to chart a new course to advance the state. And it should be so obvious to you (indicating heckler). It is because I love Alaska this much, sir (at heckler) that I feel it is my duty to avoid the unproductive, typical, politics as usual, lame duck session in one’s last year in office. How does that benefit you? No, with this decision now, I will be able to fight even harder for you, for what is right, for truth. And I have never felt like you need a title to do that.

There must be quite a lot of lame ducks all over the country. At least the media didn't swallow that one!

So, as we all move forward together, let’s vow to keep championing Alaska, to advocate responsible development, and smaller government, and freedom, and when I took the oath to serve you, I promised…remember I promised to steadfastly and doggedly guard the interests of this great state like that grizzly guards her cubs, as a mother naturally guards her own. And I will keep that vow wherever the road may lead.

Grizzly mama bear again. How come she's going back on her oath to serve and protect her Alaskan cubs?

Todd and I, and Track, Bristol, Tripp, Willow, Piper (hesitation), Trig…I think I got ‘em all. We will forever be so grateful for the honor of our lifetime to have served you.

As far as the electorate is concerned, SHE was supposed to have served them, not Todd, Bristol, Tripp, Willow, Piper, er...Trig. Alaskans elected $arah Palin, not her whole family.

Trig nearly slipped her mind. Oh dear...
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$arah Palin and the military

August 2008:

When John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his running mate, the campaign immediately began touting her experience, both foreign and domestic, as "commander-in-chief" of the Alaska National Guard.

In an interview with The Associated Press (Aug 31, 2008), Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell said he and Palin play no role in national defense activities, even when they involve the Alaska National Guard. The entire operation is under federal control, and the governor is not briefed on situations.

But suddenly - and strangely - the commander of the Alaska National Guard, Major General Campbell, changed his story. By the end of the convention, he was praising Palin's experience, talking on TV about how she had taken control of Alaska's National Guard operations and how she was a "great" leader.

Interestingly enough, Palin promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant General... only three days later.

Fast forward to July 3, 2009, the last bits of $arah Palin's resignation speech:

"Remember Alaska... America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future. It'll be good. So God bless you, and from me and my family - to ALL Alaska - you have my heart.

And we will be in the capable hands of our Lieutenant Governor, Sean Parnell. And Lieutenant General Craig Campbell will assume the role of Lieutenant Governor. And it is my promise to you that I will always be standing by, ready to assist. We have a good, positive agenda for Alaska.

In the words of General MacArthur said, "We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction."

Yesterday, at the Wasilla picnic, $arah went all military in her speech:

I thank everyone for coming out today on this beautiful Alaskan day. Thank you for celebrating the military, celebrating Alaska with us and our fiftieth anniversary of the state.
(...)
And I wish that some of the media would keep things like that in perspective, what is really important in our country and what is important is our freedom, America’s security, our liberties, and it is you who are protecting our freedoms and God bless you and thank you.
(...)
Now, one thing that Alaska is known for is our patriotic people who do support our military, and I think I have received no greater compliment than hearing from our troops who are stationed up here in Alaska saying they’re so thankful to be in communities throughout Alaska who truly love and appreciate our country and our United States military defending our country. No greater compliment have I received, so that goes back to the military. I thank them so much for all that they are doing and today as we get to present the blue stars to the families who are supporting their loved ones in the line of duty, we get to appreciate them too.
(...)
My family and I, we join you in honoring the heroic effort of our service men and women, and Todd and I we do proudly display our blue star banner in our home and I wear my pin to show my support for not just my son, but for all who are serving today and have served this great country. I urge you to do the same. Continue to draw together to offer community support to our courageous military and their families.

So, the commander-in-chief (not) was contradicted by Major General Craig Campbell, he backpedalled, was promoted to Lieutenant General three days later, then promoted to lieutenant governor a few months later?

$arah went to Kosovo with Campbell and has been twitting non-stop about warriors, soldiers, never misses an opportunity to smuggle a reference to the brave men and women who fight for the freedoms we enjoy and how they protect the rights of the frivolous complainants under the First Amendment, blah blah blah.

$arah Palin is military deranged!
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$arah Palin's Dairygate revisited

$arah Palin said in her resignation speech:

"We took government out of the dairy business and put it back into private-sector hands - where it should be."

Some highlights from a long article by Andrew Halcro about Dairygate:

After less than a year in business, the Valley Dairy has successfully produced 30,000 pounds of contaminated cheese, failed to pay lease and tax payments promptly, mishandled milk waste around the Wasilla Creek and obtained state loans through fraudulent information and insider dealings on behalf of the Director of Agriculture and the Chair of the Agriculture Board.

The Valley Dairy operations
There is no question that the Valley Dairy is being run by people with a track record of defaulting on government loans. Between Kyle Beus and Karen Olson, they've defaulted on $4 million in loans.

This past fall, after discovering that Beus had made a draw of $15,000 from the dairy's account, Olson was heard by her former office administrator saying, "we're all F--ked...probably doing some jail time," as she paced the floor.

According to the former Milk Room Supervisor, the dairy has continued to dump milk in their septic system as well as spilling milk behind the dairy, after promising DEC that it would be cleaned up before it drains into the Wasilla Creek.

Beus has been seen by employees making cash sales to customers in the ice cream room and pocketing the money, as well as paying employees in cash.

In December, Office Administrator Kay Schaugaard was let go after voicing concerns about Olson's derogatory language concerning her religion. "We're not hiring any more f---ing Mormons," Olson said a number of times. After Schaugaard was let go she filed a complaint with the Human Rights Commission for wrongful termination.

On January 3, 2009 at 1:30, Amy Moore, the Valley Dairy's Milk Room Supervisor, told Beus that she had been contacted by the Human Rights Commission to testify in the case of Schaugaard. She told Beus that she was going to have to talk about the things that have been going on in the creamery, including the repeated derogatory comments by Karen Olson.

One hour later, Moore was handed a letter of termination by Olson.

Ironically, the Valley Dairy, which is a private dairy, has asked for more help from the state in three months than the state owned Matanuska Maid did in twenty three years.

If Governor Palin was at all honest about open and transparent government, she would have never appointed such an incestuous group of people to manage the purse strings of Alaska's agricultural community.

But then again what did we expect?

After falsely accusing the prior Matanuska Maid management of corruption and mismanagement in order to justify getting rid of them, is it a surprise that she has allowed her friends and neighbors to get fat off the government trough?


I have said in a previous post that Dairygate is an extremely complex affair. The snippets above simply provide some background to help put $arah Palin's statement into some kind of context.

Dairygate in a nutshell:

Early in June 2007, the board of Mat Maid met and decided to recommend the dairy ceased operating due to projected losses in excess of $2 million.

The Board of Agriculture and Conservation heeded the advice and passed it on to the governor.

$arah Palin disagreed and fired the entire board, replacing all members with unqualified friends and neighbours from the Valley, some with obvious conflict of interest, such as Franci Havemeister (More about her in Andrew Halcro's article). The new board, chaired by Kristan Cole (the legal fund trustee), immediately voted themselves as the operating board for the dairy business, eliminating a whole tier in the management chain.

After bail-outs, many shenanigans and heavy losses, the dairy closed down and the equipment put up for auction in December 2007. No bids were received. Matanuska Creamery offered to lease the equipment and opened for business in March 2008, headed by people known to have defaulted on previous loans.

More shenanigans ensued, further loans advanced, grants obtained, the losses continued and not a dime of the loans have been paid back.

"We took government out of the dairy business and put it back into private-sector hands - where it should be."

$arah Palin failed to add that this transition from the government to the private sector cost the state around $1.5 million and that they have since operated at a loss with bail-out money from the state plus some pork from Ted Stevens ($624,000)

Where has the money gone?


The new Board of Agriculture and Conservation tried to pin all of Mat Maid's shortcomings on the previous management once they took over. But new evidence shows they were set up even before they recommended the dairy's closure. Guess who played a prominent role in the set up? Our dear Meg Stapleton!

Read more about fraud and the set up from Andrew Halcro.
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$arah Palin's reasons...

Still on the recurring theme of $arah Palin's lies, could we have an explanation as to why she caused the sticky constitutional mess if she had been planning to resign for quite sometime?

In her gasping resignation speech, $arah said: "Let's just say, this decision has been in the works for a while..."

So why didn't she arrange the lieutenant governor business a bit better? $he had plenty of time to consult with Joe Schmidt regarding this issue. It would be interesting to learn his reasons for turning down a job he sought only four months ago.

How long is a while? Was the Legislature still in session? They could have voted on her new choice of lieutenant governor without the need for a special session.

I think this "while" of hers means less than 24 hours. $arah Palin's resignation was very abrupt, her demeanour and gasping did not reflect "much consideration", as she put it in her speech.

The rumours about her reasons to step down may have died down, but the reasons remain, whether we know what they are or not.

Ethics complaints? Media? Bloggers? Naah...

Launching her campaign for president in 2012? I don't think she would have been so pissed-off and breathless if this was the case. $he would have given a triumphant speech, not a whining, gasping one, even if she didn't admit to a future presidential run at the time.

Is she going to pursue a career in the media, cash in while the going is good? Again, her tone didn't reflect it.

$arah Palin lied on July 3 and has lied many times since then. We're used to it. Her tweets are getting weirder by the minute, she's gone all Greek on us.

I still believe the other Franco Sarto is going to drop at some point...
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Playing catch-up with Sarah Palin

Having missed all the excitement of Sarah Palin's surprise resignation, I'm playing catch-up. Some things stand out while perusing the blogs and news sites:

1) Sarah Palin's lies: in her resignation speech and subsequent interviews, Sarah referred to the costs incurred by the state in dealing with frivolous ethics complaints, lawsuits and requests for public records as running into millions of dollars. The state published a spreadsheet showing these costs as $1.9 million. Her shiny new spokesperson, testosterone charged David Murrow, later pointed out that the salaries of various state employees were included in the calculations, giving a somewhat distorted picture of the real costs. Sarah Palin lying? What a surprise!

2) Margaret Carlson discussed Sarah Palin's legal expenses with Keith Olbermann on Countdown. John Coale, who masterminded both SarahPac and the Alaska Fund Trust, told Carlson that the legal fund paid most of Sarah Palin's legal expenses. How could the fund pay for anything if it's frozen pending the outcome of an ethics complaint?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

3) SarahPac published their figures: they raised around $733,000 since January 2009. Not bad, but not very good either... Sarah's fans claim the figures could be better if they had not diverted their focus onto the Alaska Fund Trust to help retire Sarah Palin's legal liabilities. A certain pro-Palin site ran a begathon and reported the total amount raised as $130,000, but that includes donations since the start of the fund, so nobody knows how much was raised in the begathon itself. There's a lot of confusion about SarahPac and the Alaska Fund Trust all over the place: who pays for what, what's legal, what isn't, etc... All very Sarah Palin.

I went through the list of donors (over $200) and didn't see any of the names of the high profile bloggers from that pro-Palin site. There are some possibilities: they didn't donate. They donated very little. They donated a lot in little amounts in order to remain anonymous... The only person I recognized was our troll Greg. The poor guy donates very often, every time he gets an itch somewhere... his total was nearly $2,000, from small $25 itches to $250 bigger ones.

4) Shannyn Moore discusses the constitutional conundrum regarding the appointment of the next lieutenant governor. Sarah Palin seems to leave some sticky mess behind, whatever she does... One comment on Shannyn's post is quite interesting:

By: TeamSarah4CHOICE on July 13, 2009
at 6:10 am

I wanted to bring up one more thing Palin is not talking about & needs to be complete before she leaves office.

Here goes: On June 17, ADN reported that
1) In April 29 letter – APOC asked the governor if she has any other gifts she hasn’t reported.
2) Palin response to APOC: “Mail continues to arrive. There are boxes of unopened mail at this point, even mail that was delivered in 2008. Thus, as initially disclosed, ‘we continue to open boxes’ and we consider any parcel ‘received’ at the time it is opened. I have reported those gifts received thus far that are required to be disclosed,”
—i.) Does this mean Palin will WAIT to open the gifts to avoid disclosure?
—ii.) It would seem to ME Palin has it wrong – the gifts ‘received’ date should be the post mark of the gift.
—iii.) The IRS, banks, etc ALL USE the “POST MARK” as the date received – NOT the date “opened.”

Next question:
Roughly a week after Palin’s Personal Personnel Board dismissed the Arctic Cat walking billboard – Palin filed with the APOC a written request for EXEMPTION of Financial Disclosure regarding Arctic Cat.
—i) What ever happened with that request?
—ii) IF: APOC decides Palin must follow the AS 39.50 law, THEN: Will she be able to skip out on that disclosure after her “iQuit” date?
—iii) Wouldn’t it be interesting if IN the secret Arctic Cat contract was a line suggesting the Gov wear the Arctic Cat logo.

This is important because:
a) Palin’s Personal Personnel Board SHOULD have investigated the Arctic Cat contract that Palin wants to keep secret and,
b) AS 39.50 requires, by law, that Palin DISCLOSE ALL GIFTS/DISCOUNTS for her family.

These are VERY pertinent questions. I'm very curious to see how APOC will proceed...

5) Pat Buchanan wants Todd Palin to drown Levi Johnston...

6) Finally, there's the ghostwritten Sarah Palin op-ed on the Washington Post. The only thing that makes it remotely palinesque is the use of "progressing" somewhere in the piece. Are they trying to preempt any claims about the op-ed being ghostwritten? "I wrote it all by my own little journalist degree self. Why, I even used my pet verb 'to progress', also, too."

Yeah, right!

Some people appear to be impressed by the op-ed, regardless of authorship.


There we have it: there's never a dull moment when it comes to Sarah Palin.

She may have resigned as the governor of Alaska, but unless that other shoe drops, she seems to have plans to enter the national stage, which means that blogs like mine can't afford to walk into the sunset just yet!
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