I'm no political scientist or strategist, but I can't see Palin choosing to resign the governorship as a political move designed to help her into the White House; saddling herself with the label of quitter after less than three years at the state level seems a lot like political suicide.
I suppose we'll know more soon, but I'm beginning put my money on the idea that she did it because the abuse heaped on her family had just become too much. And that's where it really gets scary...
The sport of leftist blogs for the last week has been derisive, photoshopped pictures of Trig, her infant son with Down Syndrome. And then there was that infamous "joke" of David Letterman about one of her daughters being knocked up by a baseball player. Go back a bit further, and there are even more cases of her children being attacked at a national level.
When I try to picture myself in the position Palin has found herself, I can't imagine continuing to subject a single, teenage-mom daughter, a special needs child, and a precocious and vivacious 8-year-old daughter to that kind of abuse.
With similar thoughts in mind, Jim Gerahty writes,
The lesson that the ruthless corners of the political world will take from the rise, fall, and departure of Sarah Palin [is] that if you attack a politician's children nastily enough and relentlessly enough, you can get anybody to quit.Or as my mother said to me on this topic, "The thugs are running the country--political, entertainment and media..."
