I've said it before and I'll say it again: The people who actually know Sarah Palin, those who have actually worked for or with her, have no respect for her. This goes for conservatives as well as liberals as well as moderates.

She is a narcissist. She is delusional. She is entirely self-centered. She is lazy. She is destructive. And she is a liar.

Those who adore her are people like the occasional Salon letter-writer (RR anyone?) who has never met the woman.

I know her. She's a disaster on every level. Though I will admit, she looks good.

Does your fiancee, Morgan Fairchild ("Yeah, that's the ticket!"), know about your relationship with Mrs. Palin?

Sorry. Couldn't resist.

Those who adore SP the most seem to be people who don't actually know her.

Is RR ever delusional.

He certainly demonstrates that the farther away you are from her, the better Sarah Palin looks.

Up close, she is a disaster and a fraud. And that's in the eyes of Alaska conservatives. (RR continues to believe the myth that Palin's only critics are liberals. He should talk to some of the conservatives who worked on her 2006 campaign.)

Sure, Levi is Valley Trash, but so is the whole Palin clan. Remember Todd's sister, caught burglarizing a home? With her 4-year-old daughter along for the task? How about Track's not-so-stellar record?

Levi's account backs up what legislators and state employees have long been saying -- that Palin did little work and was totally disinterested in the job. She couldn't handle the responsibilities of being governor. Now she's trying to cash in on her brief and undeserved time in office, which is an insult to all Alaskans, though it is totally in keeping with her self-serving Valley Trash ways.

Frank Murkowski is looking better to Alaskans every day.

Successful governors don't bail out 2/3 through their term, unless maybe they have been promoted by the voters or the president to positions of higher governmental responsibility (example - Hickel being appointed to be Interior Secretary). Successful governors use good ideas and hard work to overcome critics, skeptics, gadflies and, yes, even harsh editorials in the ADN.

Sarah Palin started out with so many advantages -- lots of money flowing into the treasury, an erased deficit, tremendous goodwill, a legislature eager to work with her, the fact that she was not Frank Murkowski and almost an entire state very hopeful for her prospects and a fresh start. She had the potential to be another Jay Hammond. (Hammond, you will recall, was constantly attacked by the Anchorage Times, but that didn't stop him in any way.) I, for one, hoped she would be a great governor.

But one by one, she alienated people and whole groups of people, like many staff members who worked their hearts out for her and then were discarded, the Alaska Municipal League and the Alaska Federation of Natives, not to mention an initially very supportive legislature. When you think about it, it's astonishing how she turned gold into, well, something much less valuable. It's actually kind of tragic for Alaska.

If Sarah Palin had been a successful governor -- if she had fulfilled the promise that many of us believed she presented -- she would be cruising to a graceful end of her first term and probably already planning for a productive second term. If she had been a successful governor, she wouldn't be quitting in this mass of confusion and recrimination.

As for her being ambitious, well, there's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is a portrayal of her as an accidental citizen-politician who was surprised when an opportunity for higher office "presented itself." She has been as ambitious and calculating as any other politician, and it's silly to deny that.

As for Barack Obama, this isn't about him.