Sarah Palin letting you know she's eminently qualified for whatever.

What the heck happened to Sarah Palin?  Yesterday, July 3rd she resigned as governor, surprising everyone, including even those closest to her.Her resignation speech was a rambling incoherent mess explaining neither why she’s quitting nor what her vision of her future is.  She seems to have just thrown up her arms and given up.

This has precipitated much speculation.One of the most popular rumours up here is that she is resigning ahead of a federal indictment.  Maybe, maybe not.  I don’t think it really matters.

What we do know is that Palin is not at all happy with the media.  She feels she has been unfairly singled out, harrassed and maligned, attacked at every turn.  Um, well, it sure probably feels that way.  But the problem’s not the media. The problem is Sarah.  The media is not singling her out any more than any other politician.  The difference is, most politicians have learned to speak carefully, not exaggerate with easily checked facts and figures and know when not to argue or not to respond. Politically, Sarah Palin is a rube who was launched into the national arena years before she was ready.  I think being told she’s a charismatic personality who has ‘captured the heart and soul’ of the Republican Party has given her a huge ego problem.  But that ego is very fragile.  She can’t stand criticism or trash talk about herself.  She has to jump right in and respond.  The media follows. A joke in bad taste by David Letterman would have been forgotten the next day had Sarah kept her mouth shut. Levi Johnston would have had his 15 minutes of fame and disappeared but instead we got weeks of trailer trashing because Sarah had to respond.  The whole Alaska Independent Party thing would never had been an issue if she had just let it be. And on and on.

The latest blunder? She had a lawyer draw up a letter threatening to take action against bloggers repeating the rumor of an upcoming Federal indictment.  Then she promoted it all over the Internet.  Now it’s hit mainstream media.  If the rumours are false, they will just die away.  But not now.

My own personal opinion is that Sarah Palin is simply just aplain ol’  hockey mom. PTA and city council.  With a big but very fragile ego. Everything’s personal. All of these petty and not so petty squabbles have taken their toll.  She’s died of a thousand cuts as they say. I think we have been watching the agonizing slow motion self destruction of someone totally out of their depth. I suspect that lately there have been a few late night tears. But probably no lessons learned. Sad, really.