Sarah Coulda (Shoulda? Woulda?)

I have no respect for quitters. Me or anybody else, which is why I rarely do. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Me, I keep going.

For fifteen of my nearly twenty-nine years of Federal service, I worked for people who could never have attained equivalent positions in the private sector. Naturally, a guy who gets where he's going the old-fashioned way would have been seen as a threat, and they dug themselves the hole they thought they were digging for me. What's worse, is that they had people around them who actually knew this. All that changed about ten years ago, which is the only reason I still work at the same place.

I didn't have to defeat my enemies. I outlasted them. Perseverance is omnipotent.

When a star athlete likens the game they play to the game of life, they talk about keeping their eyes on the goal. They will depict their metaphors as they may. What they do not do, is mistake walking away from the game, with being part of a winning strategy -- not in the game, never mind in life. That is what is so confusing about Sarah Palin's resignation as Governor of Alaska. She can talk about the challenges ahead, even as she walks away from the one at hand. She can talk about the good she can do for her cause, which is fine as long as it can never be referred to as "lame duck." She can dress it up any which way but loose. But at the end of the day, when the score is tallied and the numbers are in, quitting is still quitting.

Some people are saying that Palin in finished in politics. Political consultant Mary Matalin (you know, the gal who married that Cajun yahoo James Carville) thinks it's some kind of brilliant move. But there's another problem with this. It has less to do with Sarah Palin. It has more to do with us.

It can be said that the mainstream media and the Hollywood elite bullied her and members of her family -- they wouldn't stop at her fourteen-year-old daughter, would they? -- to such an extent that it was no longer about the issues. (Betty White gets on a talk show and calls her a name. Film at eleven. You see what I mean?) Those responsible for being such cads for our amusement should be ashamed. Those of us who watch them on television, who read about them in the newspapers, should do well to put their feet to the fire. We should do it regardless of whose side we're on. If they can do it to them, they can do it to us. If they can do it to us, we can do it to them. What's left will never be about the issues.

Sarah Palin may have walked off the field too early. Maybe she'll make a Nixonian comeback and thus make history. But the American people threw in the towel long before that, when they let a bunch of cake-eaters on the news channels do their thinking for them.

Sarah Palin didn't let the team down. We did. We're the ones who vote.

[POSTSCRIPT: Ed Morrissey of Hot Air: "If all Palin wants to be is a speaker and activist, then her resignation as governor of Alaska won’t hurt her at all... If, however, Palin wants to pursue national office rather than just be an activist for the rest of her life, her resignation will prove a very messy hurdle."]

[ATTENTION PALINISTAS: Karl in the Green Room at Hot Air puts the spotlight on Ace of Spades' remarks. Pay attention to what both have to say about agreeing to disagree, and keep in mind what Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal once said, about the GOP having to be a party of ideas.]
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