Sarah Palin Resigns

If someone just arrived back from Mars, they might not know that Sarah Palin announced yesterday she will resign as Governor of Alaska. Preparing for a presidential run in 2012 or just reclaiming her life? No one knows quite yet what she is up to. We do know she is planning a book.

But regardless of what you might think about Palin or her politics, there is one thing on which I think most can agree:

Palin and her family have been subjected to an unprecedented smear campaign from her leftist critics in politics and the media who have deliberately followed the destructive principles laid down by Chicago leftist radical and "community organizer" Saul Alinsky:

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

And this rule:

"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

These techniques are cruel and they are crude and they do work. And we know that this is exactly what happened to Palin and her family.

Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of Palin speculation and commentary here. His own take:

If the ever-so-thin-skinned Barack Obama got one-tenth the abuse that Sarah Palin has gotten, he’d cry like a little girl. And his defenders would scream raaaacciiiiism at the top of their lungs.

No kidding. For a thoughtful analysis of Palin's moment of fame, read Yuval Levin's study The Meaning of Sarah Palin at Commentary Magazine.