What's behind Sarah Palin's resignation?

I'm still going with my first blush reaction: "Best guess: Palin, or a close family member, just got very bad medical or legal news."

Here's video of yesterday's lakeside train wreck:



The event was obviously thrown together on short notice. Her speech was rambling and at times barely even coherent, indicating lack of preparation. She thanked her husband for flying in the night before to stand with her, and it's a reasonable supposition, based on the way this thing rolled out, that her decision to resign was made after he arrived -- made, in other words, under some kind of perceived pressure, without taking time to pre-spin it and set things up for a smooth announcement.

Rumor Has It: According to Brad Friedman, citing Shannyn Moore and hat-tipped to, three guesses but you'll only need one, memeorandum, I may have been spot-on with the "bad legal news" guess.

If these guys are right, there's an ongoing investigation -- possibly about to bear fruit in the form of indictments -- into who paid for the materials used in the Palins' house, with strong suggestions that those materials may have been "donated" as a bribe-in-kind by a subcontractor who made out on then-mayor Sarah Palin's white elephant: A budget-busting ice rink and sports center for Wasilla.

In other words, the kind of shenanigans politicians pull all the time, and that Democrat politicians usually slick their way right through without substantial damage. Sounds plausible. Whether or not it's true, I guess time will tell.

The conspiracy theorist in me keeps coming back to the fact that the GOP seems to be in serial implosion mode at the moment, and wondering if there's not some external reason for that. Could Republican politicians be getting little notes: "I've got your FBI file. Out yourself or I'll out you. xoxo, Barry?"