Tag: Alaska

Sarah Palin Denies She and Todd to Divorce

Multiple sources in Alaska are reporting that Todd and Sarah Palin are planning to divorce.

First, from AlaskaReport:

AlaskaReport has learned this morning that Todd Palin and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are to divorce. Multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage have confirmed the news.

A National Enquirer story exposing previous affairs on both sides led to a deterioration of their marriage and the stress from that led to Palin’s resignation as governor of Alaska.

The Palins were noticeably not speaking to each other at last Sunday’s resignation speech in Fairbanks. Sarah ditched Todd (MSNBC) right after the speech and left without him. Sarah removed her wedding ring a couple of weeks ago.

The Immoral Minority has more:

According to my source Sarah is finished with Todd and has decided to end their marriage.

She has purchased land in Montana (I wonder whose donations paid for that?), and may be considering moving herself and the children as far away from Alaska as she can get.

Do you remember all of that talk about her missing wedding ring during the three part going away picnics? Well it turns out that ring now sleeps with the fishes. Apparently in a fit of anger Sarah stripped the ring from her finger and tossed it into a lake. (No I did not think to ask WHICH lake so I cannot confirm if it is Lake Lucille, on which her house is located, or some other lake. I apologize for not getting clarification, but I was a little tired last night and so was my source.)

So it appears that the reason Palin has been so quiet, and has given her tweeting fingers a rest, is NOT because of any master plan, or carefully orchestrated new direction, but simply the result of the emotional stress that prevents her from communicating with her fan base or making any public appearances.

Palin’s representatives deny that these reports are true:

Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman is denying media reports that the former Alaska governor is divorcing her husband, Todd Palin. Meg Stapleton wrote Saturday on Palin’s Facebook page, “The Palins remain married, committed to each other and their family…” Two Palin attorneys are also insisting that the claims are false.

Several online publications were reporting Saturday that the former Republican vice presidential candidate and her husband were divorcing. Web siteAlaskaReport.com cited “multiple sources in Wasilla and Anchorage” in their report.

Round and round we go.

I’ll post as more information becomes available.


Gail Collins on Sarah Palin’s Implosion

Once again, the best I can say is I have no idea why Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska.  Why show you’re not a quitter by quitting?  Why leave the highest office you’ve ever held?

Nothing about this move makes sense.

Gail Collins shares her thoughts at the New York Times.  Collins quotes from Palin’s rambling press conference:

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time … to BUILD UP.”

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to … resign.

“Life is about choices!” declared the nation’s most anti-choice politician.

Is this a brilliant move (as Mary Matalin asserts)  for a rising star launching her run for the White House?  Collins comments:

So if she’s starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around.

Now we know she not only doesn’t have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can’t focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do.

I want to hear George Will try to spin this one.

And you betcha I’m looking forward to commentary from Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and David Letterman.


GOP Strategist Ed Rollins: Sarah Palin Looks ‘Inept,’ Timing ‘Suspicious’

GOP Strategist Ed Rollins echoes what many are already speculating: Sarah Palin’s timing is very, very suspicious.

“Everyone’s goint to assume there’s another story,” Rollins told CNN.  “You don’t just quit with a year-and-a-half to go as governor.  You certainly don’t do this as a stepping stone to run for president. You finish the job that you’re in, and obviously she’s not doing that.  I think people are going to be very suspicious because of the timing.  You don’t quit on a Friday of a three-day holiday.

“If you’re going to do this, you think it through, you give  a good speech.  You basically have an audience.  I think, to a certain extent, this has just made her look totatlly inept.”

If you’re accessing this via one of our affiliates, please click through for a video of Rollins’ remarks on CNN.

Very suspicious indeed.


Did Palin Resign in Face of Scandal?

Believe me, I am beside myself trying to figure this one out. Why did Sarah Palin resign? Is this a strategic political move, or is this a move out of politics all together for a governor who craved headlines almost as much as Rod Blagojevich? Resigning and claiming that she was “not wired” to be governor does not smack of brilliance; she might have let Alaskans in on that epiphany before she ran for office.

I suspect there’s something else going on here.

Max Blumenthal speculates in The Daily Beast that Palin’s resignation is an attempt to avert a major scandal:

Many political observers in Alaska are fixated on rumors that federal investigators have been seizing paperwork from SBS in recent months, searching for evidence that Palin and her husband Todd steered lucrative contracts to the well-connected company in exchange for gifts like the construction of their home on pristine Lake Lucille in 2002. The home was built just two months before Palin began campaigning for governor, a job which would have provided her enhanced power to grant building contracts in the wide-open state.

SBS has close ties to the Palins. The company has not only sponsored Todd Palin’s snowmobile team, according to the Village Voice’s Wayne Barrett, it hired Sarah Palin to do a statewide television commercial in 2004.

Though Todd Palin told Fox News he built his Lake Lucille home with the help of a few “buddies,” according to Barrett’s report, public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for the house. While serving as mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin blocked an initiative that would have required the public filing of building permits—thus momentarily preventing the revelation of such suspicious information.

Just months before Palin left city hall to campaign for governor, she awarded a contract to SBS to help build the $13 million Wasilla Sports Complex. The most expensive building project in Wasilla history, the complex cost the city an additional $1.3 million in legal fees and threw it into severe long-term debt. For SBS, however, the bloated and bungled project was a cash cow.

Prior to her sudden announcement, Palin gave every indication that she intended to complete her tenure as governor.

Blumenthal relates a report from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell to the effect that Palin “has told some of her biggest backers in the national Republican Party that they are free to choose other candidates for 2012.”

Honestly, I don’t see how this is any kind of political strategy except to map an exit to the door.

This could be Palin’s curtain call. If that’s the case, I wish her well. She may be returning to the soccer fields of Alaska.

Until the Alaska Attorney General comes calling.


Sarah Palin Gives Alaskans 4th of July Gift: Resigns as Governer

The nod goes to ABC for this one:

ABC News’ Kate Barrett Reports: Sarah Palin announced Friday that she will step down from her post as Alaska governor at the end of the month, and will not run for reelection. 

In a press conference from her Wasilla home, the Alaska governor said “this decision has been in the works for awhile,” and said, “I’m not wired to operate under the same old politics as usual.”

There’s been speculation that Palin has had her eye on the 2012 presidential race, but it’s unclear why she’s leaving before the end of her term. Her current run as governor ends in 2010.

So she’s “not wired” to be governor.  As chief executive of the state of Alaska, she was in a premium position to define politics any way she wanted, and to walk right into a presidential campaign.

I don’t see how this helps. Quitting on the job? Saying she’s “not wired” for this kind of work, “not wired” to be chief executive?

And how does this help someone desperate to stay in the news?

I don’t see how that helps her at all.

Do you sense that there might be more to the story?

Happy 4th of July, America!