kreoth: "I think Palin just gave up (unless some scandal emerges, which would certainly make for yet more bad news for the GOP)."

There are several ethics violations under investigation as we speak. One of them involves Palin taking favors in exchange for granting contracts. The same company that built the rec center in Wasilla also built her lakeside house in two months.

There's also the matter of Palin's emails, which might become public due to FOI requests by bloggers. Those emails could very well provide evidence for her ethics violations. Palin may know she is about to be in serious hot water, and so she may have resigned to come across as looking like it was her decision and is doing Alaska a favor by keeping them out of her mess. Or something.

Everything is speculation anyway. Unlike Readerreader, I do not presume to know what Palin's actual game plan is. She could simply be exhausted. I am sure most people would be if in her situation. She went from a regional human-interest story on the back pages of Time Magazine to an A-list political player overnight. It hasn't even been a year yet since the bear scat hit the helicopter blades.

By the way, I don't buy that Palin is preparing for a 2012 presidential run. Considering that numerous polls show her as detracting from McCain's votes rather than helping him, I can't see any reason why she'd be considered a viable candidate.

At first I thought her timing really weird, then I realized that MSNBC's Maddow and Olbermann were off this week and that Stewart and Colbert are away next week. Plus holiday weekend.

Media fallout is thus reduced. Is it possible that she actually showed some smart in this?

The timing and the reasoning behind the decision show some strategic thinking, even if it may reveal itself as flawed down the road.

@svutlov

...SEXISM. Palin and Clinton were/have been attacked mercilessly (Palin by the left and deservedly so to an extent, while Clinton was savaged by both the left and the right) while "His Hopeyness", to paraphrase a previous commentator, got a free pass every step of his teleprompter aided, fawning-media accomodated way (granted, the right has gone after Obama, but the bile spewed in his direction looks like rose petals compared to the attacks Hillary has had to withstand over the years).

The MSM a** kissing has been a painful joke to watch:

"Oh my! Look at Obama's puppy, he must be so bright, he should be made czar of something, or at least ambassador to the Vatican! BEST DOG EVER."

your defense of the offensive on Palin seems very heartfelt, so I won't say anything, other than the word succubus is not exactly arcane (who the hell is Rebecca Traister?)

Who remembers Macarthur saying "advancing in another direction"? Wasn't that a Marine general at Inchon?

She's attacked because she's a dim bulb with a fadingly pretty face, and is wrong about almost everything. No wonder you like her. She most likely gives you a stiffy.

-- RenMan53

You describe Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra as well so by your reasoning why aren't they being attacked and hounded? Read all the comments here, the libs don't know what to do now. They had her under a microscope and were gonna play legal games with ethics laws to pre-occupy her time again and again.

She's attacked because the left realizes her threat period. Otherwise they would have been happy to let the "dim bulb" quietly fade away and would have stopped harassing her after the election and not keep drawing attention to Alaska.

What has Obama been right about? The Stimulus creating jobs or keeping unemployment under 8% if we hurried and passed it without reading it? What hasn't been a game to Obama? How many Czars do we need? How the hell do you determine a job saved? We know the Obama stimulus isn't working because we aren't. It's not rocket science. We've just had the coolest June on record across most of the country. The cap and tax bill will make buying foriegn oil cheaper than buying domestic and thus make us even more dependant on foreign sources, an unintended consequence? It would be one thing if practical green energies existed but they don't. In the fifties we had manned rockets to work on with a solid plan and technology in place, we could realistically set the moon as a goal. Instead today we will put ourselves at a market disadvantage during a hard recession with no new technology even ready. Will China,Taiwan or Pakistan burn less oil or coal when even more of our manufacturing is forced to move there? It is still one world and whether the smoke comes from here or there it all goes into the same enviorment. Doesn't matter what room a house fire starts in once it gets blazing the smoke fills throughout. Even enviormentalists agree that by 2050 this cap and tax bill would not have the ability to effect climate temperature more tham .03 of a degree. Experts agree the effect of man regarding CO2 is negligible. Temps are going down now but when they rose for a few years and the Al Gore scare tactics were in full force they never explained to me how all our SUV's could not only cause temperatures on Earth to rise but also on Mars,Jupiter and Pluto as well. Maybe the Sun has more to do with it than Al Gore's private jet and our SUV's. Yep RenMan you're seriously wrong and deluded by the left.

Sarah Palin is now free to expose these hoaxes. She is free to speak and from the comments here libs are very worried and scared of the force of her personality. They intended to box her in and harass her. Now she can box them in and go after the liberal frauds in full force 24/7. The pitbull with lipstick is in the room.

This August I think Palin will announce she is running against Lisa Murkowski for Murkowski's seat, which is up, I believe, in 2010.