No Bebop

Writer Mary McCarthy once said of her rival, playwright Lillian Hellman, “Every word is a lie, including a, and, and the.” I won’t go so far as to say that of Sarah Palin, the soon-to-be-ex Alaska governor, but anybody who doesn’t see “starbursts” when she talks knows that the truth is not her best friend. She lied about the Bridge to Nowhere, she lied about her family’s involvement with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, she asked the McCain campaign to lie for her in public about AIP, she lied about the $150,000 shopping spree to buy her clothing to campaign in, she lied about why she fired the Wasila police chief, she lied about why she fired the state public safety commissioner, etc., ad nauseum, and half a dozen other pithy Latin phrases.

So it’s extremely important that anybody who wants to wax knowledgeable from the pundit’s perch about Palin’s sudden resignation/tantrum of today must start with the understanding that there is nothing expressed in her own words from today’s press conference that represents either a plain, accurate fact or an honest reading of other people’s intentions.

Her national enemies are preventing her from governing Alaska properly? Please. Nobody is preventing her from doing her job but herself. You think a lot of important stuff was left undone in Alaska because Todd Purdum was running around asking people questions? If the state isn’t being governed, it’s because the governor, after two months out of state running for vice president, has been running around trying to gin up more publicity for her narcissistic self. You think Alaska is a better place now because Palin sat for an interview with Runners’ World? How many new laws were passed or people’s lives improved while that was going on? Or during her frequent trips out of state to entertain at anti-choice rallies and Republican fundraisers?

“Millions of dollars are going to waste” investigating her “frivolous,” frequent and egregious missteps? Well, do what any conservative governor would do (not) — just raise the taxes on the oil companies again! The Alaskan people she claims to hold so close to her heart deserve to know what an Eskimo Pie-head they voted into office two and a half years ago, if the sheer fact that she’s running out on them now doesn’t speak volumes on its own.

So, what’s going on here? Bill Kristol told Fox News by telephone that, “If I had to guess, we just saw the opening statement of the 2012 campaign.” Of course Kristol is nearly always wrong, so even when he’s mouthing a gimme of a platitude like this one, we need to squint a little harder at it. Being the governor of Alaska is hardly a prime platform from which to seek national office, and that would hold for somebody whose IQ is well above room temperature, let alone Palin. So shaking her Timberland boots free of that 49th state mud is definitely called for in any scenario where she repeats her grab at the brass ring in 2012.

Of course, assuming she actually does shake loose of the governor’s job on July 26 — something I haven’t actually decided to accept as the truth until it happens — she no longer has a salary or a state expense account to abuse, these being necessary to finance frequent visits to the Lower 48 where 98 percent of us live. Her book deal, assuming a volume actually reaches the press, will help her with that, but she’ll only get one bite at that apple — maybe two when the book goes to paperback. So we can look forward to fat cats helping her with that problem by filling the coffers of her political action committee, which she started with the help of a Scientologist. Let’s see how the folks at Christian publisher Zondervan, which is co-publishing the Palin book, deal with that little factoid.

Using PAC funds as your own personal piggy bank can be problematic, however, as Rick Santorum found out when Will Bunch started sifting through his receipts. A better way for a statewide Alaska pol to keep his or her name above the fold is to parley that name recognition into a national office, say congressman or senator. The House is a bad idea because it’s only a two-year posting that takes significant effort to gain and retain; the Senate is a better idea because the six-year term allows Palin to hedge her bets — run after two years in 2012, and if she loses she’s still got a catbird seat from which to launch a 2016 campaign, when Obama’s second term ends and the Oval Office chair becomes an open seat.

Funnily enough, Palin has bad blood with the Murkowski family, having run against and beaten the father for governor, who lost in part because of the reaction to his nepotistic appointment of his daughter Lisa to an open Senate seat. With Lisa’s seat coming up for election in 2010, Palin previously was thought to have an interest in putting up a primary challenge against her fellow Republican, but she said she wasn’t going to do that.

Now refer back to what I said in the first two paragraphs of this rant. If Palin finds that Senate seat to her liking, she’ll thumb her nose at her state’s Republican party as well as the incumbent and go for it. The previously mentioned book, if finished in a timely manner — it doesn’t have to be any good, after all, considering the lip-moving mouth-breathers it’s aimed at — will help her turn that statewide race into a national one and encourage wingnuts from around the country to donate to that campaign, making her a lead-pipe cinch to turn Ms. Murkowski back into a civilian. From there, the crazy train doesn’t stop huffing and puffing until it drags her and her followers through the 2012 Republican presidential primary.

But Palin said she wasn’t interested in the Senate. But Andrea Mitchell said on MSNBC she was told Palin is “out of politics for good.” I already told you Palin isn’t as good as her word. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she abandons the resignation before long, citing the “disappointed reactions” of her beloved constituents. Which would actually consist of three weeks’ worth of condemnations from people who would normally be on her side. Wait and see.

UPDATE: I almost forgot to add my last bit of speculation. Freed of having to show up for work in Juneau 90 days a year, how quickly do you think “The Sarah Palin Show” will be cued up for daily viewing on Fox News Channel? Perhaps at 4 p.m., or whenever Oprah or Ellen are on one of the saner networks?

Also, I should note that my prediction that she might welsh on her resignation is currently contending with the claims of several bloggers that Palin might be named in a criminal indictment set to drop sometime in the near future — a development that would add some gravitas to her decision to step down.

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