Says outgoing Alaska governor Sarah Palin:
Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional ‘Lame Duck’ status in this particular climate would just be another dose of ‘politics as usual,’ something I campaigned against and will always oppose.
I am going to paraphrase Shakespeare here when I say “What a crock of shit.”
When I was a kid, I did a lot of community theater. And like a lot of kids, I changed my mind on a whim and whined things like “I don’t want to do the show any more.” No, said my parents — you said you wanted this, you made a commitment to this show, and the people putting on this show made a commitment to you. You have to honor your responsibility. Throughout my entire theater career, I never quit a show.
Palin’s quitting the show. There’s no other way to think of it. Whether this is in prep for a presidential run in 2012 or whether she’s trying to outrun some looming scandal behind the scenes, the motivation is personal and selfish. She’s quitting because she doesn’t like the game any more (and, by her own admission, her book deal is making things difficult). Never mind the responsibilities she said she wanted, the commitments she made, and the commitments the people made to her. I can’t win the next round of this game, she says, so I don’t even want to finish playing this one. Palin loses. Alaska loses. America loses.
Too many Americans believe they should quit as soon as anything gets difficult or — worse — boring. I live in a nation of entitled princesses. Please note that several companies have not taken responsibility for their mismanagement, and they received bailouts. This is an epidemic, all stemming from the same basic flawed mindset: “I don’t have to take responsibility.”
We need more public officials to not just talk about but demonstrate the value of responsibility. To this end, the absolute least Palin could have done was her job. And she’s not going to do that. By choice. And if this is a move toward a White House run…why elect someone to the highest post in the country whose resume reads “got elected; quit”?
Palin may have been unfairly victimized during the election, but now she has put herself out there as a shining example of American selfishness. She is failure.