Quitters Ever Prosper

Here’s the money shot from yesterday’s formal quitting ceremony, Palin, in the moment, offering “some straight talk to the media.”

…If you watched the video, seconds later, in a mocking tone appropriating the military to lash out at the press, the queen of the non-sequitur pipes out:

“How ’bout, in honor of the American soldier, ya’ quit makin’ things up.”

By now, that pose is signature, the blood-smelling “six gun” gesture packaged with that cocked head and part-coquettish, part sadist’s smile serving as the visual envelope to deliver, vague and scattershot, another hate-loving threat.

Softening the edges were those corsages that made the Governor’s combination picnic/quitting ceremony (and elevation of the successor) look more like a wedding. The microphone even played a part, the cover dressed up like a duster. That dais seemed to harden things up again, though, the shape and the marble offering something of a tombstone motif.

What to think of that raging arrogance and bravado, though, taking place in shameless juxtaposition to the Alaska state seal, the one signifier (as if reduced for the day to shiny gold bling) that afforded this woman any credibility at all.

(image: Eric Engman/Getty Images. caption: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin delivers her farewell speech as she officially resigns during the annual Governor’s Picnic July 26, 2009 at Pioneer Park in Fairbanks, Alaska. Sean Parnell was sworn in as the new Governor and Craig E. Campbell the new Lieutenant Governor.)