Sarah Palin: What the heck happened?

AP photoWhile most of us were hanging out in our shorts, eating things cooked on a grill, and drinking perhaps more than we should, the most famous lady in Alaska, Sarah Palin, was resigning her position as governor of that fair and chilly state. She has 18 months remaining on this, her first term, but will leave by the end of the month.

From a podium in Wasilla, in a rambling, at times awkward and nonsensical speech, Palin explained that she needed to quit. She blamed it on the "politics of destruction" and suggested she could do a better job on a larger stage. She complained about the complacency of most lame duck governors and said:

"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'."

Huh?

So by quitting her job Sarah Palin is not taking the "quitter's way"?

Anyway. By announcing her news on the Friday of a holiday weekend, Palin likely hoped for mild media coverage. However, Independence Day didn't get in the way of reporters and pundits espousing a slew of theories for the "real " reason the governor abandoned her job. These are the big three:

She wants out of politics
On Friday, MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell said, according to sources close to Palin, "She [Palin] is out of politics, period. She is fed up with politics. She doesn't like her life. She feels that she needs to raise her family. She's sick of the commute from Wasilla to the capital. And she really does not want to run for higher office, that this is not a case where she is stepping down in order to clear the way for a presidential run. In fact, she has told some of her biggest backers in the national Republican Party that they are free to choose other candidates for 2012."

There's a big scandal
Alaska-based reporter-blogger Shannyn Moore suggests something more nefarious. Moore says talk of a criminal investigation into Palin has been circulating in Alaska for weeks, and that Friday's resignation was "damage control for news to come out later." The supposed scandal involves a rumor that when she was mayor of Wasilla, Palin assigned contractors the 2003 construction of the Wasilla Sports Complex in return for work on building her home. The Palin camp vehemently denies this.

She's planning her 2012 presidential run
Writer Bill Kristol theorizes: "She's freeing herself from the duties of the governorship. Now she can do her book, give speeches, travel the country and the world, campaign for others, meet people, get more educated on the issues - and without being criticized for neglecting her duties in Alaska...And haven't conservatives been lamenting the lack of a national leader? Well, now she'll try to be that."

Hmmm. This is the way I see it: Regardless of all of these rumors, Palin was hired to do a job. She chose to run, she campaigned, she was elected by the people, and she signed on for four years. She quit just over halfway through not because she couldn't do the work anymore, not even because she had been hired to serve Americans in another capacity. No, Sarah Palin quit because she couldn't stick it out and fulfill her obligation. She didn't finish the job she'd started because it didn't suit her anymore. And for all her talk about regular, hard-working Americans, this seems very un-hard-working American--lazy and opportunistic and just plain irresponsible--to me.

Sources: HuffPo, Weekly Standard, Facebook, You Tube