I mean, really....that is not tough to figure out is it?

On our lovely vacation visiting family in Appalachia, we were blessedly removed from news but did manage to hear on the radio Palin's rambling crazy resignation (before she got some talking points in order....) She offered us some laughs through her antics and we smiled at the political demise of FORMER Governor Palin.

No one likes someone who walks all over them to get to the top and if I was an Alaskan I would be furious. As a woman and a working mother, she is a lousy role model. But as an American, I am happy to see her self-destruction. She is basically a pop star who has contributed nothing but low-brow entertainment. Only the truly committed delusional right wing nutcases can stand by that media whore. While delusional whore-slaves ARE legion, they do not present enough numbers to pull Palin out of the media trash heap.

Could be considered a presidential candidate says little about her but loads about the idiotic american people.

That's the kind of hilariously simple-minded political analysis Palin inspires in her supporters. And they wonder why non-Paliniacs make fun of them.

Note to smithstar15: Isn't Joan Walsh afraid of your Sarah, too? You forgot to point that out.

Palin creates her stories because like the members of the C street Family, she was chosen for a mission and like Ensign, Sanford and the likes she is above any criticism or scrutiny!

As political spectacles go, one would be hard pressed to find anything as ridiculous as the Washington Romper Room now starring Congressional Democrats and the CIA. If only the consequences weren't potentially so damaging for national security.

The latest episode comes courtesy of Silvestre Reyes, Chairman of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. In a letter leaked to the press on Wednesday, he claims the agency "misled" Congress about its activities after 9/11. Recall that this all started when Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted the CIA failed to brief her in 2002 about aggressive interrogations during her time on Intelligence earlier this decade. CIA Director Leon Panetta in May said the agency didn't, as policy or practice, "mislead Congress." Briefing notes from the time showed Mrs. Pelosi was told and didn't object to waterboarding. The CIA this week felt compelled to issue another denial in response to the Reyes letter.

Mr. Panetta must feel burned. After the Pelosi blow-up, he has tried to repair relations with his own party's Congressional leaders, and last month he reached out to the Intelligence Committee. On June 24, in a classified hearing, Mr. Panetta produced so-called new information about CIA counterterrorism efforts in the months after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. We're told that he informed the Members that the agency had considered, then abandoned, a major covert antiterror program. (Our sources wouldn't say what it was.) Bush-era CIA officials didn't tell Congress because it never got off the ground. But this is the "at least one case" Mr. Reyes claims his committee was "lied to" about in the Bush years.

There's apparently no limit to how far Speaker Pelosi's friends on the Hill are willing to go to salvage her reputation. The intentions are transparent enough. The Reyes letter was addressed to Peter Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on Intelligence. Mr. Hoekstra yesterday said the media received the missive before he did. And two days after the Panetta testimony last month, six Democratic Members of the committee called on the CIA Director to "correct" his statement in May that the CIA doesn't lie to Congress. He didn't. The six are allies of Speaker Pelosi. Her public standing -- and poll numbers -- have been battered since her run-in with Mr. Panetta and the facts this spring.

To his credit, Mr. Panetta sees the obvious danger to morale at the agency and its ability to perform its essential job, and is standing up for his troops. But the Democratic attack isn't limited to bad-mouthing America's intelligence professionals. As dangerous is the intelligence authorization bill before Congress.

House Democrats have set out to hobble the CIA and further handcuff the executive branch. Republicans, naturally, were frozen out. At Speaker Pelosi's insistence, gone would be the right of the President to limit disclosure of sensitive information to the so-called Gang of Eight -- the House Speaker and Minority Leader, Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairmen and ranking Members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. This authority would pass to Congress. The bill would also expand disclosure requirements for all sorts of intelligence activities.

This is a recipe for more leaks and more compromised CIA operations. Congress claims it needs to better monitor Presidential intelligence decisions. But the real lesson of the last few years is that Congress wants to know about, and often second-guess, intelligence decisions without being responsible for the result. Mrs. Pelosi could have objected to waterboarding but didn't at the time, becoming a critic only when it became a political uproar. Senator Jay Rockefeller could have resisted warrantless wiretaps of al Qaeda but instead wrote a letter and stuck it in a drawer.

The original sin was President Carter's for conceding so much intelligence supervision to Congress in the 1970s. The Obama White House is right to resist giving away any more, and on Wednesday it threatened to veto the Democratic bill. House Members who are willing to put the politics of protecting their Speaker above national security can't be trusted with adult decisions on intelligence and war-fighting.

For those few actually interested in the reality of the details as opposed to the politics, here is a link from mudflats, (an Alaskan political blog) with some more analysis of expenditures:

http://www.themudflats.net/2009/07/10/palins-millllions-take-2-a-closer-look/

do you insist on trying to figure Sarah Palin out? It is not that complicated. She lies. The simple truth is, she sees a more lucrative, financially, future for herself and family on the Book Tour circuit for a book that someone else will write, speaking engagements for those who can listen to her, etc.

Being the Governor of Alaska was boring; she reached her point of capability; and the locals no longer liked her. She was bored. It takes about 2 years for the image part to get old; then you have to perform.

Money, money, money. Public adoration and affirmation. The media needs to stop obscessing about her and stop covering her. Since when does a loser, a failure, a fluke get so much attention?