Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee, followed up yesterday on a promise to commit career suicide, ending a two year run as chief executive in the land of the midnight sun.

Palin's rise to the middle was as surprising as it was short.  She burst on the political scene in 2007 as the former Mayor of Wasilla, winning the Republican nomination against a longtime fixture of Alaska politics, Frank Murkowksi, by "taking on members of her own party."

She is survived by ethics probes, political scandals, mounting legal bills, and political scandals surrounding how she paid for her mounting legal bills.  Services for Palin's career were held in the form of picnics throughout her home state, where Palin continued to compare quitting her job as Governor to instances in which people don't quit, like when trout swim upstream ("only dead fish go with the flow"), and when good point guards drive to the hoop ("[they] keep [their] eye[s] on the basket").

Despite her insistance that she'll now be able to focus on bigger goals and projects (ostensibly the 2012 White House race), those who miss her will remember her as they believe she'd want to be remembered: relevant.

Like others who inspire so much for so many, Palin's career spawned big screen portrayals of the former governor, including an Emmy-nominated performance by Tina Fey, and another "biofiction" inspired by some true events, the moving and uplifting, "Nailin' Paylin," by renowned filmmaker Larry Flynt.

Much like the late (?) Elvis Presley, Palin's considerable band of colloquialism-loving followers theorize that rumors of the death of Palin's career are only a result of a conspiracy by the liberal media, and that Palin's career is alive and well.  Already, there have been reported sightings of Palin's career on the book circuit, and the campaign trail.

Palin's career will be missed by dozens, but perhaps by no group more than late-night television hosts.  ABC fixture David Letterman is said to be taking the news particularly hard.

In other political obituary news, Levi Johnson's 15 minutes of fame also died with Mrs. Palin's career.

SARAH PALIN'S CAREER, (2007-2009)

 

...in mourning today.

Letterman had to be talked back into the building from a ledge at Rockefeller Center.

Jay Leno is in seclusion, reportedly waxing his cars while he "pines away for the Palin Days".

Keith Olbermann was so upset that he took the entire week leading up to Resignation Day off from his show.

Nobody has seen Tina Fey for more than 3 days. Her publicist says that she may be "hiking the Appalachian Trail", but a nationwide search by Argentinian Police turned up no trace of the woman and Governor Sanford's whereabouts have been confirmed.

Many professional funny people have joined in small bands around the country - holding candle light vigils, drinking to all hours of the night, and lamenting the loss of their Mother Lode of Material. Some of the more creative had honed their acts to where all they had to do was speak her name and the audience was rolling in the aisles...

Yes, there's great sadness in the comedy community today. Mighty Casey has struck out...

Celtic Merlin
Carlinist

Palin is a quitter or as W.L. Iggiagruk Hensley describes her, a qiviter. There is a related post at http://iamsoannoyed.com/?page_id=588

Alaskan Nights
Trailin' the Palin's.
Life With Sarah (and the 1st Dude)
1001 Nights with Track & Trig
Sarah Gigante
Locked Up Abroad

August 9, 2009, 11:24 pm. Timothy Egan, New York Times "Outpost"

Palin’s Poison

In Egypt, 43 percent of people think Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks in America, a poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org found last year.

In the United States, six percent of Americans say the moon landing of 40 years ago was staged, according to Gallup.

And in Alaska, the former governor, a woman who was nearly a heartbeat away from the presidency, now tells followers that “Obama death panels” could decide if her parents and her baby, Trig, who has Down’s Syndrome, will live or die.

The United States, like most countries, has long had a lunatic fringe who channel in the flotsam of delusion, half-facts and conspiracy theories. But now, with the light-speed and reach of the Web, “entire virtual crank communities,” as the conservative writer David Frum called them, have sprung up. They are fed, in the case of Sarah Palin, by people who should know better.

For a democracy, which depends on an informed citizenry to balance a permanent lobbying class, this is poison. And it’s one reason why town hall forums on health care, which should be sharp debates about something that affects all of us, have turned into town mauls.

The lies and shouts have had the effect that all crank speech has on free speech — stifling any real exchange. In my state, Representative Brian Baird, a veteran of more than 300 town hall meetings during his 11 years as a Democratic congressman from southwest Washington, has decided not to hold any such forums this recess after receiving death threats.

But is it any wonder that some are moved to violent threats, given the level of misinformation being injected into the system? If you really believed that Obama was going to kill your baby and euthanize your parents, well — why not act in self defense?

Here’s what Palin said on her Facebook page Friday, in her first online comments since quitting as Alaska governor.

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of health care.”

This is pure fantasy, fact-free almost in its entirety. The nonpartisan group FactCheck.org said there was no basis for such a claim in any of the health care bills under consideration in Congress. One House bill would pay for counseling for terminally ill patients — something anyone who has lost an elderly loved one of late, as I have, will find essential.

Palin was given some cover Sunday by the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a master of slipping innuendo into his arguments. Defending the “death panel” post on ABC’s “This Week,” Gingrich said, “you’re asking us to trust the government.” By such reasoning, American foreign policy is not worth its word, the currency is worthless, and the moon landing was indeed a fake.

The last time Gingrich went so far was when he called Justice Sonia Sotomayor a racist. He retracted it then. We’ll see what he does now. As for Palin, she should follow her own advice to the media of a few weeks ago — lay off the kids and “quit makin’ things up.”