Palin Not a Quitter, Totes a Martyr, Still Unfit for National Office

In an interview on the shores of Dillingham, Alaska, yesterday, soon-to-be-former Governor Sarah Palin said, despite quitting her office 18 months before her first term was up, that she's not a quitter—and reasserted that she's leaving office because it's the best thing to do for Alaska.

"I am not a quitter. I am a fighter," Palin told CNN on Monday while on a family fishing trip, on the heels of her Friday bombshell announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor.

...She resigned because of the tremendous pressure, time and financial burden of a litany of ethics complaints in the past several months, she said. The complaints were without merit and took away from the job she wanted to do for Alaskans, Palin said.

She noted that the multiple ethics complaints against her costing not only Alaskan taxpayers, but also her family.

"You know conditions have really changed in Alaska in the political arena since Aug. 29, since I was tapped to run for VP. When that opposition research -- those researchers really bombarded Alaska -- started digging for dirt and have not let up. They're not gonna find any dirt," she said. "We keep proving that every time we win an ethics violation lawsuit and we've won every one of them. But it has been costing our state millions of dollars. It's cost Todd and me. You know the adversaries would love to see us put on the path of personal bankruptcy so that we can't afford to run."

Given what I know of the politics in Alaska and the Palin administration specifically, I'm guessing that while part of the reason for the series of complaints since she came to national prominence might be political animosities, another part of it is that people who knew their complaints wouldn't be vigorously investigated before the nation's eyes were on Alaska finally felt like their legitimate complaints might get taken seriously.

But as for whether another pursuit of national office, as she did less than a year ago when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.

There is no "Department of Law" at the White House.

Oof.

While I'm well aware that sort of shrugging, folksy, whatever!-you-know-what-I-mean shtick is actually quite appealing to lots and lots of people, it really, truly makes me cringe down to my freaking spleen.