Peace and Kendall: True, Palin did not say that she could see Russia from her house. I was referring to Saturday Night Live's send-up of her statement during an interview on September 11, 2008: "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." I referred to it because I was reminded of that particular gaffe by her recent challenge to run a footrace against Obama. Both are examples of her skewed logic: she seemed to think that Alaska's proximity to Russia somehow proved that she had ample foreign-policy experience to qualify her to be Vice-President (without describing what she had actually done); and she seemed to think that winning an endurance run against Obama somehow proved that she could be a worthy opponent in a political race against him (for the Presidency in 2012, perhaps?).

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Can't help wondering if she's resigning because her 14-year-old daughter is pregnant and that she conceived during that trip to New York that David Letterman joked about (after which Palin raised holy hell and Letterman apologized ad nauseum).

Nahhh, it's got to be because of the political iceberg that's looming ever closer to her, or because the Republican machine told her she had no place to go but out. Her MO is to use her concerns for her family as a smokescreen to obfuscate her concerns for herself and her political persona, so the more she whines about how her kids are being picked on, the more we should focus on what she's done that she's trying to hide.

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PEDANT ALERT: Joe Offer said, "One would think that if she were planning to run for President, it would be good for her to finish out her term as Governor - I suppose it ends late in 2010, since she was elected in 2006." I thought that this was incorrect because some US governors' terms begin in the January following their election, but then I looked it up! In Alaska, the governor's term commences on the first Monday in the December following the election (i.e. in the same year).