United States Senator Jim DeMint, (R-S.C.) on the Health Care bill yesterday:

“If we’re to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.”

Isn’t it lovely that the Republicans are so clearly focused on helping the American people?

While Obama is trying hard to fix what’s wrong with the country, the all the Republicans can think of is, how can we use this to help us win elections by destroying our political enemies? All they can do is live in the past–they think that this is 1993. They remember that when Bill Clinton tried to fix health care, they successfully used it to break his momentum. Screw the American people and their need for affordable health care, what self-respecting right-winger gives a crap about that? Economic stimulus? Fight it tooth and nail–Americans should be happy to suffer from economic depression if it means better polling for the GOP!

I noted the same thing back in March: right-wingers are naively fantasizing that everything is the same as it was 16 years ago, and all they have to do is run the same playbook and the voters will sweep them back into power. Be massively obstructionist, block everything, attack the president mercilessly, destroy his attempts at reform. What morons. This is, in all seriousness, their version of “Country First”–the distinction being that their version of “country” is “whatever is good for Republicans.”

If the economy fails to get better, then the one thing that can perhaps save Obama is the fact that the Republicans have been such asses that people will accept the idea that it was at least as much their fault as it was the president’s.

Republicans have made it clear: the well-being of the American people takes a back seat to GOP’s political fortunes.

So, why did Palin resign? There are several different theories:

1. She was telling the truth. Just from her record alone, we can pretty easily dismiss this one outright. Palin is, for the most part, congenitally incapable of telling the truth where her record and policies are concerned.

But truthfully: the media hounding her and political enemies calling for investigations? Please. Even if we accept Palin’s worldview and ignore the fact that she has personally invited every single jab in the media and every single investigation into her wrongdoings, either by making a huge deal of herself or by literally welcoming scrutiny, then what this says about her is that she can’t take the heat. If she is so weak a politician that she can’t stand up to the media, how can we believe that she’ll be capable of standing up to a serious opponent? How would she deal with North Korea? Resign from office because they’re being so mean?

2. She wants freedom to run for president in 2012. If this is true, then Palin is even more of a schizophrenic moron than I thought she was. Nothing says “presidential material” more than quitting in mid-term because you just can’t take all that negativity from the media and the ethics investigators.

She may just as well tattooed the word “QUITTER” on her forehead, because that’s what every opponent–especially her fellow Republicans–will label her as if she tries to run against anybody from now on.

But she might actually believe that this is the right move: that by doing this, she will be a victim (which played very well for her in the Letterman affair), a martyr who sacrificed herself for the people, the party, and her cause. She may actually believe that her speech defused the whole “quitter” stigma just because she tried to call “quitting” “winning.”

If this scenario is true, then she’s in for a bit of a disappointment.

3. Something Big is coming. There is a huge scandal that we haven’t heard about yet, and Palin resigned so as to avoid the worst of its consequences.

This seems to be the best theory because nothing else makes sense; the other two theories are so lacking in credibility that it is commonly assumed that this must be the real reason. We just haven’t seen the other shoe drop yet.

This makes sense on many fronts. First of all, Palin not only lies, steals, and breaks the law, but she has done it so transparently that it defies belief. As we just found out in Vanity Fair:

After one meeting between the governor and legislators in 2007, Lyda Green, then the president of the state senate, returned to her office to catch up on some paperwork. She caught Palin on the news. “And she comes on TV and says, ‘I want to once again confirm that neither I nor my staff ever holds closed-door meetings.’ Well, we had just been in a closed-door meeting for an hour and a half!”

That Palin does this suggests that she may simply have no “ethical filter,” that she simply cannot tell right from wrong, or truth from lie–or else is so blindingly arrogant that she just believes she can get away with anything without even trying to hide it. Either way, it makes it much easier to find her guilty of something. And that may be what happened: that she did something so illegal or unethical that it’s coming to bite her in the ass.

Second, the way she resigned seems tailor-made for pre-emption. She set the stage by making multiple claims that her political enemies were out to get her with false accusations, wasting all that taxpayer money. She’s a victim, she’s trying to tell us–so that when charges come out, she can say, “See! Just what I was talking about, what a coincidence!” and pretend like it’s just another false charge that her enemies have trumped up.

Third, if she quits before charges are made, she removes the scrutiny of being an office-holder. If a huge scandal erupts while you’re governor, then being in office is a liability. If you’re an ex-governor, then it’s old news. She can claim that all of that is behind her, hope that people forget it, and then run for office after it’s all gone away. And let’s face it, you can get away with murder while in office–all you have to do is resign and suddenly investigations collapse. [Edit: in retrospect, this claim is a bit much–criminal investigations can certainly follow you out of office. But it is also true that prosecutors will often stop following a case after the office-holder has left office, that being commonly considered ‘punishment enough.’ A sitting governor who took a bribe is far more of a threat to society than an ex-governor who can no longer cause any harm.]

Sure, quitting and then having a damaging scandal revealed aren’t exactly career-builders, but it may be that she simply has no choice–that staying on as governor would be far worse. If there’s a big scandal coming, then this could be Palin’s best chance to salvage her career.

Of course, there are two more theories:

4. Palin is a total wimp. This is an alternate reading of theory #1, above. Maybe she just can’t take it any more. In which case she doesn’t belong in politics. Or:

5. Palin is batshit insane. This could simply be the act of a completely stupid and crazy person doing things for reasons that only make sense to her. We certainly cannot rule out that possibility. Crazy people don’t need good reasons.

Any other theories?

Late thought: I forgot to mention something that had been rolling through my mind: the timing. Palin announced this on “Take Out the Trash Day,” Friday before a holiday weekend. If this was a push where she really wanted to ride the wave of publicity, she would not have made the statement on a day perfect for burying news stories, a day famous for killing the momentum of news stories.

Another reason not to buy into the idea that she is “gearing up” and “reloading both chambers” for a new political offensive–unless, of course we return to the “crazy” or “stupid” scenarios, in which Palin is showing extremely bad judgment.

Later Update: The Brad Blog is following the stories that the “iceberg scandal” is the reason why Palin resigned, and that it has to do with upcoming federal indictments for embezzlement. Short version: Palin is in trouble for her relationship with the building contractor, Spenard Building Supplies, which has been under investigation by federal authorities. The Wasilla Sports Center and the Palins’ home are both part of the focus. These reports have been circulating for a while, but nothing solid has come out about it yet. Keep in mind, this could just be baseless speculation–people searching for a ‘scandal,’ latching on to an investigation that may or may not be going anywhere, that may or may not even involve Palin herself.

If it is what pushed Palin out, then I have another prediction: seconds after the official announcement is made, the Right Wing will explode in conspiracy theories about how Obama directed the FBI to sabotage the career of his most likely rival in 2012.

I could be wrong; any takers on that bet?

For the time being, the right-wing blogs are speculating on much friendlier theories, like ‘she wants to spend more time with her family,’ or ‘there is a grave illness, and won’t those nasty liberals feel like crap when it comes out.’ Other are still on the ‘brilliant political play’ theory that she’s getting ready for 2012.

This is what I get for reading the news last. I get up every morning and check out batches of web sites–the computer batch, the entertainment batch, the blogs batch, and the news & commentary batch. Sometimes I check the non-news sites first, but when there’s a big story, it gets referenced elsewhere and I find out about it second-hand, as if it’s already old news. I found out about Jackson’s death on Gizmodo, and today read about Palin’s resignation on Pharyngula. PZ Myers did a nice Monty Python “Brave Sir Robin” sendoff, and for a minute I thought he was making the “Palin resigned” story up.

But no, Palin did resign, as I’m sure you know by now. What’s very interesting is to read her official statement, as originally posted, with all the quirky formatting bits.

Right from the beginning, she sets the tone, using the story of Alaska’s purchase by the United States. In essay writing, this is known as an introduction technique, an anecdote that is supposed to be interesting and which (in this case revealingly) supports the thesis statement:

But [then Secretary of State Seward] endured such ridicule and mocking for his vision for Alaska, remember the adversaries scoffed, calling this “Seward’s Folly”. Seward withstood such disdain as he chose the uncomfortable, unconventional, but RIGHT path to secure Alaska, so Alaska could help secure the United States.

Palin, from the start, sets out to define herself as an Alaskan and American hero unjustly maligned by fools. It’s worthy of note that Palin identified Seward as “a member of President Abe Lincoln’s cabinet,” despite the fact that he arranged the purchase two years after Lincoln’s assassination. No good conservative could fail to throw in a Lincoln reference somehow to add oomph to their Republican creds. Palin continues:

People who know me know that besides faith and family, nothing’s more important to me than our beloved Alaska.

So, I’m quitting.

So to serve the state is a humbling responsibility…

So humbling that I’m quitting.

My administration’s accomplishments speak for themselves. We work tirelessly for Alaskans.

Right up until we quit!

Palin then drones on about her masterful achievements, including some of her classic whoppers:

And we made common sense conservative choices to eliminate personal luxuries like the jet, the chef, the junkets… the entourage.

The jet that she (didn’t) sell on eBay (for a $600,000 loss)? Oh, and the chef who was “eliminated” first to a make-work job, and then to cook for the legislative lounge (because Palin moved to Wasilla and didn’t need a full-time chef anymore), saving Alaska nothing. And the “junkets”? They must have been ginormous under her predecessor for Palin’s to claim that she “eliminated” them; As of 2008, Palin had made 72 trips including cross-country travel to places like Texas and New York (and let’s not forget Kosovo), and even had the state pay for her children traveling with her on ten of those trips. Alaska paid $43,490 for Palin’s husband and children to travel, and Palin herself claimed $16,951 in “per diem” payments she was not entitled to for “travel” which was actually her just staying at home in Wasilla. As for frugality, shall we even get in to the $150,000 wardrobe? The RNC paid for that, but it kind of made a joke of the whole “we’re frugal” business.

And the Lt. Governor and I said “no” to our pay raises.

Like the 46% pay raise she got her first day in office? She said “no” to that? Funny, there’s no record of her turning that down, and indeed that was her salary.

Actually, Palin is talking about another pay raise that was suggested by a panel whose members she hand-picked. A cheap stunt–get a panel to recommend a big pay raise right after you got a huge pay raise so you can turn down the smaller one and act like you’re being “frugal.” Not to mention that Palin tried to get that money by other means, like the per diems.

Palin then proceeded to her central thesis:

But you don’t hear much of the good stuff in the press anymore, do you?

That awful “Liberal Media™” taking a fantastic governor down just because of a few dozen scandals, several violations of law, multiple abuses of power, and dozens and dozens of brazen, bald-faced lies. How dare they!

She then blabs on about how she’s been victimized by evildoers; here’s the distilled version:

Political operatives descended digging for dirt, their weapon of choice, frivolous ethics violations dismissed. We’ve won! State has wasted THOUSANDS of hours of YOUR time and shelled out some two million of YOUR dollars to respond to “opposition research” – political absurdity, the “politics of personal destruction” … these silly accusations? Spending other peoples’ money in their game, pretty insane – I promised no more “politics as usual.”

Palin then edges toward her surprise:

If I have learned one thing: LIFE is about choices!

Like quitting!

Here’s the money quote, the one everyone has been talking about–where Palin goes up-is-down and white-is-black:

Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow.”

Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.

Or, as Josh Marshall quipped, “Quitters stick to it. Winners quit.”

The most sympathetic reading of that statement I can come up with is, “I have been taking a horrible, undeserved beating from my political enemies who want me to just sit there and take it; I won’t quit the fight by staying on as governor and letting them keep using me as a piñata, so instead I am resigning so I can fight those bastards without having my hands tied by public office.” Which is pretty absurd, when you think about it–why can’t she fight back as governor?

But no, she has to leave, which, for another few paragraphs, she explains as being what is RIGHT to HELP people in a PROUD and INSPIRED manner (using LOTS of CAPITALIZED words JUST like in the BIBLE when referring to the LORD!).

She also takes some time explaining, in a rather meandering way, how she decided to leave office at the end of her term, but didn’t want to be a lame duck, so she decided instead to leave right away. Um, yeah.

But the essence of what she’s saying is this:

My choice is to take a stand and effect change – not hit our heads against the wall and watch valuable state time and money, millions of your dollars, go down the drain in this new environment.

She’s going to fight, but not from the governor’s office, where she can’t do anything. That makes sense. Governors are pretty powerless and ineffective.

Of course, she’s claiming that she can’t do anything because of the environment, that being the damned Liberal Media™ dogging her every move and making it impossible for her to get anything done.

So… what’s the real reason? Analysis in my next post.

Sheesh…

Not that I expect Fox to be any better than the morons posting to Free Republic who automatically label any and every criminal/terrorist as “registered Democrat,” but still. All I can say is, we better not be hearing lame excuses about “accidents” in the Fox graphics department. Better to simply fess up to what is obviously intentional.

Right-wingers are on a new rant: Sotomayor is a racist. This is the statement she made which they are objecting to:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Sounds racist, right? Sexist as well! Latina women are wiser than white men? Racism! Sotomayor must withdraw!!

Except… the quote, of course, is completely different in context. The above quote is in the context of making a decision on sex discrimination cases. Is it racist to say that a Latina woman is more likely than not to better understand the realities of sexual harassment than a white male? Of course it’s not racist. It’s completely reasonable. Of course a woman will understand sexual harassment better than a man.

Sotomayor points out, correctly, that when the court was all white-male, issues regarding race and gender were not handled in an unbiased manner, and that adding people with more diverse life experience to the court could help correct that. And she’s perfectly correct.

Soon after the ‘controversial’ statement, Sotomayor continued:

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Note that she does not exempt herself from the dangers of judging unwisely outside her field of experience. A little later, she repeats that sentiment of self-caution, that her experience tints her perceptions just as much as a white male’s experience would tint his, and she must be careful to learn and understand:

I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations.

Boy, what an unreasonable, flaming racist she is!!!

It should be noted, by the way, that whenever Bush nominated an extremist non-white judge and Democrats opposed the nomination, Republicans went on a frenzy of calling Democrats “racist” even though their objections were clearly on political grounds alone. Similarly, when an extremist woman nominee was opposed, Democrats were sexist as well. In fact, when an extremist Bush nominee was white, Democrats were reverse racists. Essentially, Republicans scream “racist” pretty much all the time.

Why is it that whenever a judicial nominee is discussed–no matter which party’s president is nominating–somehow, the Democrats are always all racists?