Sister Sarah Saga: The Reason, Redux

I know, I know, I said I was done with her, but reading Steve Benen, there's ample evidence that the reason Sarah Palin gave for quitting, that is the state of Alaska being overwhelmed by ethics investigations costing the state valuable money, isn't even a valid reason.

Some of this may sound vaguely plausible. A constant stream of ethics charges may very well prove to be distracting and cumbersome. It's not a compelling reason to quit and walk away from one's responsibilities to a state, but it's not inconceivable.

But there's new evidence to suggest the argument is just factually wrong. Greg Sargent reported that the governor's own office conceded yesterday that money used to respond to the ethics charges are part of fixed costs that would have gone to the same lawyers, whether the charges were filed or not. The funds wouldn't have to go schools, police, or transportation, as Palin claimed. The $1.9 million "was arrived at by adding up attorney hours spent on fending off complaints -- based on the fixed salaries of lawyers in the governor's office and the Department of Law. The money would have gone to the lawyers no matter what they were doing."

What's more, Palin is currently only facing three pending complaints -- hardly the kind of burden that should take up "most" of a governor's staff's time.

And there's something else that's been bugging me about the official explanation. For years, the Alaska Republican establishment was deeply involved in widespread corruption. According to Palin's version of events, when she took office, she championed a major overhaul of the state's ethics laws. To hear Palin tell it, her opponents are now using her own achievement against her -- exploiting the law to waste taxpayer money, bankrupt the state's governor, and paralyze state government.

Doesn't that suggest there's something wrong with the new ethics laws? If the measures were written in such a way as to make it easy and cost-free for anyone to cripple the state's political process, then don't the reform laws need reforming? Indeed, even putting Palin aside, won't all future Alaskan governors have to deal with the same problem?

And those are excellent questions. None of this makes sense. It's looking more and more to me like Palin just wanted out of the job, and is simply blaming her political enemies for her own problems with the ethics rules she demanded be passed and signed into law.

She's still a quitter, now it's looking like she's a liar, too.