Fishtacular: Palin Gives First Interviews Since Announcing Resignation
In interviews released this morning, Sarah Palin repeated that the reason she is stepping down is to spare Alaska from spending more time and money investigating ethics claims against her.
She blamed the ethics complaints on the "opposition research" flooding into Alaska after John McCain named her his running mate to "dig up dirt."
Palin gave a slew of interviews last night at her husband's family's fishing spot in western Alaska. During the photo op, in which she wore overall waders and full makeup, she gave 10 minutes to each news outlet: CNN, NBC, ABC and Anchorage Daily News. (FOX was also there, but hasn't aired the interview yet.)
She noted that she now has $500,000 in legal bills and, although she tried to keep the focus on the state's expenditures, she let loose this key point:
The adversaries would love to see us put on a path of personal bankruptcy so we couldn't afford to run.
That almost seems like an acknowledgment that she had to leave office in order to be able, financially, to run for higher office.
More highlights, and video, after the jump.
She deflected questions about a 2012 presidential, saying over and over that she couldn't say how the next fish run was going to go, let alone where she'd be in three years. When asked if she was worried that her resignation would end her political career, she said, "Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it."
Another reason to leave, Palin said, was because she knows she won't run in 2010 and doesn't want a "wasteful" lame duck session in which she wouldn't be able to get anything done. When one interviewer asked why she wouldn't stick around, she replied, "Because that's politics as usual!"
Her story, whether or not it's the truth, is becoming clearer than it was after that rambling speech last Friday. She made this decision because, one, she won't run for re-election and, two, she knows she may spend the majority of her last 18 months in office beating back ethics inquiries, a process so expensive it may preclude any future runs for office.
Also revealed in the interviews: Track, Palin's son who is serving in Iraq, was the one "hell yeah."
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Did anyone ask her why they should believe her now since just about everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie?
July 7, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait. So Palin plans to use her *personal* funds to run for office and paying her lawyer is putting that at risk?
July 7, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Doesn't make much sense, does it?
July 7, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
For someone who has been telling us since she first set foot on the RNC dais just what a tough customer she is, delighting in the role of attack dog, launching her VP campaign by ridiculing community organizers and pretty much anything else she isn't able to grasp...my god what a whiny crybaby loser.
Rule of thumb: When someone repeatedly tells you how rough and tumble they are, expect to see their true wimpy self exposed before long.
July 7, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Typical bully: she loves to dish it out, but she just can't take it.
July 7, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is something seriously wrong with this woman. Surely, no one can be this dense?
July 7, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ya Think????
July 7, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
spontaneous resignation? i think tweetie bird plans to keep her name in the news for all of july, one costume change after another.
July 7, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ethics violations, they won every one of them? Not Troopergate:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27105917/
"Investigator Stephen Branchflower, in a report to a bipartisan panel that looked into the matter, found Palin in violation of a state ethics law that prohibits public officials from using their office for personal gain."
July 7, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
We know, even if she denies it, that Governor Palin was found to have abused the power of her office in the firing of a state trooper. What about these other ethics charges? I don't think we can take her word for it that she "Won 'em all."
Is there a catalog of her suspect activities from the kickback supplies and labor used to build her house, the per diem she charged Alaskans for living there, charging the state for her children's airfare, the snazzy outfits that were to go to charity once they were pried from her cold dead fingers...
Keep those lies coming Sarah.
Where's the list?
July 7, 2009 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd be happy if it were a slow, gruesome, agonizing death. Politically speaking.
They must have caught her off-guard. She didn't have a chance to slip into her red leather stilleto-heeled hip waders.
July 7, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
This was in no way spontaneous: she gave the same interview to three MSM outlets, one right after the other. In fact, you can see the ABC News stenographer waiting for her chance to ask her scripted questions in the Andrea Mitchell NBC photo op/interview. Palin and the MSM are milking this contrived brouhaha for all it's worth.
July 7, 2009 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
These ethics charges, by golly, they're just a load of hooey! The only reason there are ethics charges against me is because people started looking into the things I did!
July 7, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ladies and gentlemen, the party of personal responsibility.
July 7, 2009 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
the real reason plain quit is she has been exposed and will never be able to function in secrecy in alaska anymore.
everything she does is deception and all her energy is used trying to hide her motives because she is always always,planning her next move.
who with any intelligence can believe her pathetic attempts at explainations?
she needs to step away to step back.
everything must be under her own control.
she feels out of control when not in control.
she honestly believes she can pull this off but she is finished on the national stage.
not because of this but because the party wants nothing to do with her.
they know her to well.
expect to see lots of her next when .if her book gets published.
till then not much of a splash.
no one really wants her around.
July 7, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I saw this CNN tape on TV, the closed caption showed her saying "gooder." Don't know if she really said that, but we were all surprised at the repair shop.
July 7, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could have been a problem with the closed caption. It doesn't always hear words correctly
July 7, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
What kind of makeup do you wear with waders?
July 7, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
certainly not blush. bronzer sounds right.
July 7, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not sure, but matching fishnet stockings can really complete the look.
July 7, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If I die, I die."
Who wants to bet that she was intentionally paraphrasing the big Russian guy from Rocky 4?
July 7, 2009 1:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's well-versed in the Classics.
July 7, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pit bull with lipstick? More like a possum in pantyhose.
July 7, 2009 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
She makes it sound like it's all about the ethics complaints, yet according to her previous spokesperson:
“Not one of the complaints actually reached the personnel board for its formal adjudication,” noted Bill McAllister, the governor’s communications director. “Rather the complaints have fallen short based on just a simple review of the facts and the law.”
If they were never even sent to the personnel board, who dismissed them? And why does she have $500k in fees "defending them"?
The State Personnel Board is a joke, anyway. The governor appoints/reappoints the three members who serve on the board, so it's not exactly an objective group.
I wish the media would explain that to people rather than letting Palin get away with making it look like none of the complaints had any merit.
July 7, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember that during the campaign, in order to defuse and somehow postpone the Troopergate fiasco, she filed an ethics charge against herself, presumable to move the matter to a board she had control over.
So, one of the 15 ethics charges was brought on my her.
July 7, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
But she doesn't have a "Department of Law" to protect her like the president.
Maybe she'll join the League of Justice to fight for little guy, the everyday dead fish floating upstream like point guard seeing the court for the first time while supremely beaming the rays of freedom from beyond her Russian backyard.
July 7, 2009 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even though she is a complete twit, mentioning a "Department of Law" is actually forgivable, since Alaska actually has one.
July 8, 2009 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
huh - my a-href didn't work, so I'll try this
http://www.law.state.ak.us/
July 8, 2009 7:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently she's moved on to paraphrasing Ivan Drago. During her next run at the presidency, she'll tell her debate opponent that "I must break you."
July 7, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dead link.
July 7, 2009 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
My Moderate Democrat Friend here at work tells me that there is a rumor that she is going to replace Gretta VanSustran (sp) at Fox News.
This seems to me to be the best explanation that I've heard about her sudden resignation. All the rest are just excuses to make it seem like she's not selling out.
July 7, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you friend is using what as her source of information. It could be but where is this coming from. I'm just sayin......
July 7, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
He just said that in passing. No Source no nothing, but that is the nature of a RUMOR isn't it.
July 7, 2009 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greta may be annoying, but at least she is educated! That would be the ultimate back-stabbing, though - they are great friends, and all.
July 7, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greta was great at CNN; then she sold out.
July 7, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin could rake in $20M next year:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-07-06/palins-25-million-payday/?cid=hp:blogunit1
Money talks, and bullshit walks...
July 7, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
in red leather pumps, looting Neiman-Marcus from coast to coast.
July 7, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which would leave a Sarah Palin with money in quite a pickle, wouldn't it?
July 7, 2009 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I really want to thank John McCain for opening up this can of worms for us. Nice job Maverick!
July 7, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's so tired of the intense media scrutiny of her and her family that she decides to conduct 5 major interviews while spending the day fishing. How very mavericky of her.
July 7, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I've said as a parent many times: "these are excuses, not reasons".
July 7, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the midst of trying to defend Sarah Palin, mika Brzezinski got herself into a bit of trouble. But when she continued to defend her today, she actually said conservative voices are not being represented.
You got to see this, she is insane.
http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2066
July 7, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
What are you a pitbull or a mouse? I'm in Alaska now and I can tell you she has lost all respect with this selfish move. A good hockey mom would stand and fight - very UN-Alaskan
July 7, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is absurd that pundits say a 7 time quitter (the four schools and 3 jobs we know about) has a political future. She can't finish anything she starts - this is not leadership quality, plain and simple.
The campaign and subsequent examination of Palin has exposed her for the power hungry, opportunistic sociopath that she is - real people would finish the term. She's not real people - even "pulling off waders" you MSM Sarah Fanboys. She's just trying to sell books. No sense of responsibility.
July 7, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
For Sarah Palin so loves Alaska that she's sacrificing her valuable TITLE.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/sarahs-sacrifice/
July 7, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's clears it up. Trigg was just a "yeah."
July 7, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does this really work : "I'm no longer in politics, so you { can't | needn't | shouldn't }
investigate my ethics anymore?
July 8, 2009 6:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...but in that sleep of death what dreams may come..."
July 8, 2009 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink