No Time for Boring Things Like Governing

My take on why Palin is resigning is that there is not much more here than meets the eye. Many are guessing that a woman who has been surrounded by scandal and sensationalism since she was tapped to be VP would never run away from a fight unless the scandal was a quantum leap in difference from all the others, that there is some huge revelation right around the corner. Certainly possible, but my guess is that she simply got tired, bored and frustrated with governing. She seems like an extremely unserious person, one who's sense of responsibility to Alaska is overwhelmed by her personal issues with the media and her own love of self. She probably realized she didn't really need this crap, knew she could make tons of money writing books or speaking and would be able to dedicate herself to whatever self-loving career would come next. Being governor may have become a waste of her time.

A related, but slightly different take -- which I also think could be true -- is from Dahlia Lithwick, at Slate:

If you think of Palin as someone who never felt herself to be fully heard or understood, not truly politically realized in the eyes of the American public, her rage toward the country, the media, and those of us who fail to love and understand her is easier to comprehend. Think of an American visiting France who believes that if he just speaks louder, he will be speaking French. Palin has done everything in her power to explain herself to us, and still we fail to appreciate what she is all about.

I do have to say, the one thing that speaks for an approaching scandal is the fact that her press conference was so quickly thrown together that not even Fox News was given advance warning. When Fox News is out of the loop, I do have to wonder if she was trying to hide something.