She compares herself to a bear. Ever meet a cuddly bear. No. They rip your head off when you least expect it.

The Atlantic had an interesting story about this in the June 2011 issue, "The Tragedy of Sarah Palin".

Here's the blurb: From the moment Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech electrified the Republican convention, she was seen as an unbending, hard-charging, red-meat ideologue—to which soon was added “thin-skinned” and “vindictive.” But a look at what Palin did while in office in Alaska—the only record she has—shows a very different politician: one who worked with Democrats to tame Big Oil and solve the great problem at the heart of the state’s politics. That Sarah Palin might have set the nation on a different course. What went wrong?

@1 ?

Damn, #2 beat me to it. Sara Palin was apparently kind of awesome as gov of Alaska (I was unawares until I read that same article the other day.) It's interesting though...she was awesome because that's just where her weird carnivorous instincts pointed her at the time; basically a total coincidence and totally inconsequential. The instinct is the same today, only the surroundings changed.

As far as I'm concerned this only demonstrates that she's a fake, shallow conniving idiot, rather than a bigoted, psychotic conniving idiot. I am not impressed.

I'm a resident of the state, and back in the day she actually seemed sort of pragmatic, at least compared to Murkowski and Young. She approved extensions of state healthcare coverage for low-income children, etc. Had taken no obvious anti-choice action (although we knew she probably leaned that way). But I'm used to being surrounded by right-wing crazies up here, and I hadn't taken a close look at her at that point. No one really did until actual live, competent journalists turned their focus on her after McCain put her on the ticket.
Friends and family from the lower 48 asked me what I thought, and I told them, "Well, she and I probably wouldn't agree about a lot of things, but she seems reasonable."
And then we all got a good look at the dark shriveled cinder that is both her soul and her brain ...

I call BS.

Sarah Palin has never been about anything at all except Sarah Palin. Her "red meat conservatism" is a costume she has donned just as much as the soft semi-moderation she once displayed. She got into office as an anti-corruption, outside-the-clubber, but that's not because she was uncorrupt or anti-clubs; she just wanted the club to be formed around her instead of the Murkowski-Stevens axis. Her current rapid right-wing persona is there because it gets her attention.

Its a Republican nomination that will cause most moderates to swing fully to the right. John McCain was a very sane person until he started running for president in 2007. Palin just wants to be president, so she'll swing to the far right and tell them what they want to hear to win the primaries.

NOTE: It is my honest prediction that Palin wont win the primaries, its going to be Perry/Romney in 2012, but Palin will run as a third party spoiler and automatically re-elect Obama. Tea Party will be insistant that she run and get her on the ballot in all 50 states.

@2,4: I wouldn't say she was great ... she just wasn't a disaster. She was the bright young face following Murkowski, who really seemed like a corrupt, good-old-boy nutcase. My impression was that the "taming of Big Oil," which she's done a lot of crowing about since, wasn't exactly "taming," and it was in the works before she was governor. I could be wrong ... the filter of the past few years might be making me resistant to give her any credit. But no descriptions of Big Oil in Alaska today would include the words "humble" or "tame."

@9: Yeah. What you said.

FNARF- I agree. That is certainly what those emails are showing. A person who makes it up as she goes along. A moderate republican (by today’s standards) then and an ultra right wing hate monger now.
Funny thing is, she would actually have gotten the republican nomination today, if she wore her moderate republican mask instead of her current ultra right wing tea party mask, but I think her ultra right wing mask got her the media status she craved since she was a third rate media person.

My brother lived in Alaska while she was Gov and apperantly she was good at it. But she got greedy and grabbed for it all.

As a minor point, her desire for Alaska departments to be open to the press probably stemmed from the fact that she was once a local TV newsreader herself, prior to her entry into politics. She was probably encouraged to be more open to the press by her old palls at the TV station.

Fnarf pretty much nails it, in my opinion; my parents supported her when she was running for governor precisely because she seemed like someone who was fighting Republican-Big Oil corruption in Alaska. The problem is nobody realized she was a faux-populist till she quit her term.

The only other thing I would add is that she did sound more articulate when speaking before she got the VP opportunity, but I think that was part of the act as well.

@16

Don't forget the sudden development of her folksy accent when she ran for VP.

Maybe she's just always an opportunist, and said good things about Obama when it suited her ambitions.

An old coworker of mine was from Wasilla and lived there when she was the mayor. He said that she was fairly reasonable as a mayor but started to be who she is now when she was elected governor.

My theory is Sarah Palin quit the governorship to avoid being found guilty on any of the 50+ ethics complaints made against her. For example, the firing of the Troopers Director for not firing his subordinate who was engaged to a Palin relative.

Details on Shannyn Moore's blog here http://www.themudflats.net/category/ethi…