Good bye, good ...

So Sarah Palin has quit eh? Didn't want to be a "lame duck" and actually, you know, govern the state to which she was elected governor.

As noted in this Vanity Fair article, one of the reasons she is popular with certain elements of the right wing rantosphere is that she's the first fertile (and semi-hot) woman on the right to ever come along (as best as I can tell) and gain national prominence.

Another aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if the mere act of raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs. This pheromonal reality has been a blessing and a curse. It has captivated people who would never have given someone with Palin’s record a second glance if Palin had looked like Susan Boyle. And it has made others reluctant to give her a second chance because she looks like a beauty queen.

Did this make her a good administrator? Hell no.

UPDATED: Richard Cohen on the Wash Post weighs in...

Naming Palin to the GOP ticket -- a top-down choice by McCain -- was the most reckless decision any national politician has made in the longest time, and while it certainly says something about McCain, it says even more about his party. It has lost its mind.

Recall, after all, that Palin was not McCain's first choice. That was either Joe Lieberman or Tom Ridge. Both were rejected by the party establishment because of their appalling moderation on social issues over which the president has little direct authority anyway -- abortion, above all -- and in Lieberman's case because he had been a Democrat. In desperation, McCain turned to Palin.

Was there a scream of protest? No. Did the Republican Party demand to know of McCain what the hell he had done? Again, no. Was it okay with the GOP if the person a heartbeat away from the presidency was -- pardon me, but it's true -- a ditz with no national experience whatsoever? You betcha. The party had cracked up, accepting a nullity because she was antiabortion over a seasoned senator and former governor because they were not. Ideology won. The nation lost.

See here.

UPDATE2: ... and Eugene Robinson's view...

The reasons she gave for stepping down are not just contrived or implausible but literally nonsensical. She can most effectively serve the people of Alaska by ceasing to exercise the powers of chief executive? She worries that as a lame duck she would somehow be compelled to waste taxpayer money on useless junkets? In her "Don't Cry For Me, Alaska" news conference announcing her departure, the folksy non sequiturs -- "Only dead fish go with the flow" -- were like nuggets of Cartesian logic amid a tub of mush.

See here.