No, I have to think, there’s got to be some there there. There’s a reason Sarah Palin got elected governor, and there’s a reason she was selected as the Republican vp nominee — something beyond “cute” because if it were a matter of “cute,” we’ve got tons of “cute” women out there. Why isn’t Oprah president? Or C. Crawford, or any number of beauties?

Although, man, what a story. That’s why the media laps her up . . . you just can’t make this kind of stuff up and be believed, I think.

And I am as flabberghasted as Naked UMC about the strange events. Very much stranger than fiction, and it has been ever since 9/11. Are we all living under the ancient Chinese curse (-:? Interesting times, indeed.

What do you think this means for fiction? I mean, when the real news is so bizarre, do you think fiction will trend toward the even more bizarre? Or will people be looking for plain, wholesome fare, and that’s the next niche to fill?

It addresses both Palin AND exclamation points.

I honestly think we’ve scapegoated her as a way of avoiding the hard work, which is to truly see our own personal responsibility for the way the world is functioning at present, and do our part to improve it. It’s a lot more convenient to be absorbed in her world than turn inward.

IMO, Sarah Palin is one of those larger-than-life, defies-all-categories characters which any of us who write would kill to be able to create and then capture on paper. Yet there is a thirst in us to reduce her to something smaller. (Please note, I am definitely including myself in this category.)

Anyway, don’t mind me. I’m awash in nostalgia today for a time when people were allowed some dignity and a personal life even though they had a public career.

I’m just a dinosaur.

I don’t believe in astrology but honestly, WHAT is the DEAL?

And speaking of copyediting and speeches: like oil and water. Or to drag another sage into the fray, half of the speech is 90 percent delivery. Or perhaps it’s 90 percent the speech and half the delivery, or some other permutation. Nobody really knows (except possibly Yogi Berra). But in any case, most speeches are written by committee, and we ALL know what a bad idea that is. That’s why a speech that BOTH reads well on paper AND makes your goosebumps pop when you watch it on YouTube–well, that is a rare and beautiful thing.

* I am afraid that in such a context, “spunky” is being used in the same way it was applied to Lucy on I Love Lucy: if you were a man, we’d call you unreasonable, but since you’re a woman, we won’t expect much.

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Regarding the motive for Palin’s resignation, I’m willing to take her at her word: she doesn’t want to deal with the ethics investigations and being constrained by the requirements of actual governance (like having a legislature that demands you take the federal stimulus dollars, as abhorrent as that is to your principles), but she’s planning to stay in the game.

The theory about a scandal somehow coming out of the construction of her house simultaneous with that of the Wasilla Sports Complex is a pretty fevered imagining even for the DKos-swamp. Even if the construction company did a favor on their house (similar to what happened with Sen. Stevens), the mayor of Wasilla has no obligation to report such a favor to the feds (unlike a Senator), and at worst she failed to report a gift worth more than $12k to the IRS, but you don’t get indicted for that; you pay what you owe in taxes plus interest and maybe a fine and move on (as Obama’s various nominees did).

I don’t want Palin in our national politics, but I don’t want her out based on a string of frivolous ethics complaints. I want people to reject what she promotes on its (lack of) merit.

You and I will have to disagree about Andrew Sullivan but one of his commentators came up with the best explanation I’ve heard. Which is that nothing happened. Her water didn’t break, she wasn’t in early labor, she didn’t go into labor until she got home. She just made it all up because she does that.

I’m so glad you brought up copy editors. I read this last night (early edition of the WP) and thought of the discussion as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/03/AR2009070301129.html

Sorry, I don’t know how to do the tiny url thing.

You know, it could be that the pressure just got to her. Bob and I went to forty cities to promote DLD, and we almost lost our minds. And that was without people sniping at us (reviewers don’t count). She’s taken a beating in the press and on the net, and while that’s what any politician goes through, she was so white hot for awhile that the entire focus of the press was on her. If she stays in the background, that goes away, but she seems to love the spotlight–well, she’s a politician–so she puts herself forward again, and the hammering starts again. I think a lot of it is fair, but some of it definitely isn’t. I adore Andrew Sullivan, but whether she or her daughter was the mother of that baby was nobody’s business but theirs. I also think it was pretty disingenuous of the Republican party to parlay her looks the way they did and then dump the $150K of designer clothes on her as her fault. So I can see where the stresses would get to her. If she’s decided to take herself out of the spotlight for good, that’s entirely understandable. Just not in the middle of your term. Everybody gets tired, but if she concentrated on Alaska for the next two years, she’d take herself off the stage and she’d be free of worrying about re-election so she’d have all that time to serve the state. That thing about lame ducks taking junkets? That’s not a requirement, she could stay home and govern. I still there’s another shoe that’s going to drop, but if there isn’t, that’s almost worse because then she just quit because the job was so tough.

BTW, tying this to the copy editor discussion, go read the text of her speech on her website. The sticklers will have a coronary. Anderson Cooper even twitched about it on the news, the first time I’ve heard anybody talk about punctuation and grammar on CNN.

Your quote is MacArthur.

And it shouldn’t be a big thing, but it’s one more careless mistake which should have been caught. If she’d done any prep for this resignation. If it wasn’t all last minute.

A lot of both conservative & liberal bloggers have been theorizing that there’s some huge political scandal over her head. And if nothing hits in the next few weeks, it will be pointed to as part of the MSM “plot to get Sarah Palin.” “See, they said she resigned because she was about to be idicted but she wasn’t so it was all a plot” sort of thing. The trouble with Palin is that she’s so unpredictable that I think that there may be no scandal coming.

Which means that she decided to quit and throw together a last minute press conference with no prep because… because what? She’s bored? Because four years is too long to stay in a job where your approval rating isn’t in the 90s? I think worse of her because I can’t be sure there’s a scandal coming. I think she might have actually switched 180 degrees because it seemed like a good idea in the middle of her not running again speech to just move on to the good parts. And therefore she opens up this whole big can of drama over what may be nothing.

Maybe she was being forced, maybe not. But her story is never consistent.

By the way, Strop–she wasn’t reading a speech, she was extemporizing. And I agree with you, Jen, she looked furious. Very angry barracuda.

I’m with Micki–eating my veggies and exercising regularly so I don’t miss out on how the story ends.

I don’t have to agree with everything someone believes to support them or cheer them on.

I wonder if Sarah was a fan….