Sarah Palin Resigns.

[Richard (T.A.F.K.A.T)]

Palin Resigns

Thoughts: Is this a good thing? Or a great thing?

Do you reckon she will be back?

Should we go to Team Sarah and gloat? (no don't)

Do you think somehow, someway she will still end up running in 2012?

[Leviathan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu_VRaVaEjw

thriller reference ftw!

[Katie]

There are a few scenarios I can think of off the top of my head that this could be:

1. She's finally fed up with politics and stupid tabloid headlines about her poor family, and wants to go back to being a private, normal citizen. I can't say I blame her for this, and I wish her the best for the rest of her life if it is true.

2. She wants to run for Congress or president in the next couple of years, and for some odd reason thinks this move is best. Yeah, it would be one of the dumbest ideas ever, but I never know what to expect from her.

3. (This is the one is the one I'm strongly leaning torwards.) Some kind of scandal is going on and she wanted to get out of there before it broke.

[Gabrielle]

Oh my God, Katie, you said exactly everything I wanted to, even with regards to the one you're leaning towards.

I'd just elaborate on 1. by saying it could also have to do with her son specifically. He has Down, and while there is no solid evidence about it, from the little I have seen of him, I don't think that's his only diagnosis. He appears too low-functioning for a child with Down and a normal I.Q., so I wonder if perhaps her support team has told her all of the pressure her celebrity status has put on their family is doing everyone no good, but it's more importantly 1) making him, a child unable to communicate their needs, even more frustrated (which is itself frustrating- spirals, spirals) and 2) getting in the way of the services he probably needs (speech, sensory integration, occupational therapy, etc.). And note, I base this opinion on having two special needs siblings and having worked in a special education classroom going on six years now.

And some general political strategy theory:

It's a scary thought, one of her being a puppet, like some other figures, but strategically, it's really, really stupid to cut-and-run mid-term- and a puppet master would, presumably, know this, since being one implies extremely sneaky and intelligent (even it it means crazy, too). If those puppet masters are powerful enough to protect her from any scandals, they'd do it and keep her in. Her leaving before the end of her term will make getting back in the game astronomically more difficult if she ever attempts to. And if there wasn't a scandal, it still has the same effect on any future political aspirations.

[Conz]

Yea I'm not worried about Alaska's four citizens. I think she'll try and come back, but our overly liberal media won't allow it... Not sure if thats a good or bad thing.

[Kreacher Real]

50 bucks says it's to start working on her presidential campaign in 2012 which will kick start the apocalypse, because god's going to look down and be like "To hell with it! They still haven’t improved since evolution!" XD. Seriously though, is there ANY presidential hopeful that doesn’t make you look out the window to see if the sky is falling and seems semi competent?

[Wesley Arend Goble]

As a non-republican Conservative, I greatly admire Sarah Palin. She is only torn apart because she is threat. To both parties. The cancer in this world is 20th Century progressivism. Big Government Statists. It's Unamerican. Even if you don't like her politics, she is genuine, real, and a good person. Take a look at all of your politicians. None of them have come through on what they promise. Not Bush, not Obama, not any of them. She did for Alaska, because it is not about HER, its about Alaska. She shrunk government the way our founders had intended it to stay.

As for her resignation, she did it for precisely the reasons she stated... at least I believe. Hasn't Alaska and her family gone through enough? The things she has been accused of have all been proven wrong, but at great expense. So she has kept her promises from her campaign for Governor, and she has decided to take the burden of ethics investigations off of the state. Sounds like a truly altruistic politician to me. Open your minds, kids.

-Wes

[Matt]

"She is only torn apart because she is threat."

To education and whatever she's governing. Have you looked at what the outcome of her as a mayor was? She put it in debt to rival that of the American deficit per capita.

"The things she has been accused of have all been proven wrong, but at great expense."

It's not the ethical matters that bug me about her. It's the fact that she took Wasilla, a city that was in the green on budget spending, into the red by quite a few million dollars for a town that had less than 10,000 people as of 2007, and by the time she had left was still under 7,000 people. Let's see something really quick.

20,000,000 \ 7,000 = $2,857.14 = How much debt per capita Palin left Wasilla

11,040,807,027,558.10 \ 306,848,095 = 35,981.34 = Debt per capita in United States

Something to remember is that the American debt has been piling up since 1835. Let's look at the ratio of debt per capita for Palin and Wasilla.

2,857.14 \ 6 = $476.19 per capita per year

At this rate, let's see what the American debt would be per capita since 1835.

476.19 * 174 = $82,857.06 per capita

Multiply that by the population and you get: $25,424,531,018,300.7

That's more than double what the American debt is. So I was wrong to say that it rivals the American deficit. What I should have said is that it far surpasses the American deficit per capita per year.

[Madi]

"None of them have come through on what they promise. Not Bush, not Obama, not any of them."

First, I'd like to point out that Obama's been in office for less than half a year. That, as you might be aware, is not a lot of time.

According to the Obameter!, which accounts for more than 500 of the promises made by Obama during his election campaign, Barack Obama has fulfilled thirty-one of his promises in less than six months. 106 of his promises are currently in the works, compromised on, or successfully completed.

6 / 48 = 12.8% (percentage of his term it has taken him to green these promises)

No matter some might say, Obama is not superhuman (and neither is Palin or Bush or anyone, for Pete's sake); it is perfectly impossible to fulfill every promise that he made. But, if he were to even to 470 out of the 514, I would consider his promises reasonably fulfilled.

470 / 514 = 91.4% promises kept (an "A" grade on promise fulfillment)

91.4% * 12.8% = the number of promises he should keep in any six-month period of his term, or 11.6 %

Therefore, to "come through" on his promises at a reasonable rate, 11.6% of his promises should be green the first six months, 23.2 % the next six months, and so forth.

So, for this first six-month period, he should be 11.6% green.

106 / 514 = 0.206 or 20.6%

20.6% > 11.6%

To put it another way, he accomplished something he should've been able to do in 9.6 months in less than 6 months.

[Matt]

Team math ftw!

[William Redd]

It's a pity that any news outlet is too lazy to do the math...

[Leviathan]

I love you Madi :D

[Gabrielle]

You totally rock my socks on a consistent basis.

As such, I do believe it's cookie time (and none of this newfangled "sometimes" thing with Cookie Monster lately):