Talk politics.

Sarah Palin's hasty resignation on Friday has yielded some new details;  www.bradblog.com/ speculates the Palin resignation may have something to do with a contractor hired to build a Wasilla Sports complex. He claims that the federal government is investigating whether the company hired to do the work also hooked up the Palins by redecorating their digs. Not so says Palin's lawyer, who threatened legal action against Huffingtonpost.com, and several other media outlets, some of which had not printed the story. Dumb move on Palin's part if there's anything to it. She could never win a libel suit and it will just make these news outlets more curious about the story to see what's there. Seems like a knee-jerk over-reaction.

Then we get word from the Anchorage Daily News www.adn.com/palin/story/854318.html that the FBI says she isn't under investigation. Unusually clear for an organization that often does not confirm one way or the other whether it's investigating someone.

So we're presented with two conflicting pieces of information; on the one hand Palin's behavior toward journalists suggests she doesn't want them pestering her with questions about what may or may not be a story but on the other hand we have a federal source ruling out an inevestigation.

This is all against the backdrop of a very suspicious resignation; she did it on Friday afternoon, normally the time you want to deliver bad news. But this was particularly conspicious because she did it on Independence Day weekend during the same week Michael Jackson died and Mark Sanford, R- Gov. of South Carolina, gave more psycho-babble quotes to the AP about his one true love. Seems an odd way to unveil your new role on the national stage.

Josh Marshall, of Talkingpointsmemo.com, holds that she could just be really crazy. At this point, barring any hard evidence there's some huge scandal about to break, I'd say that's a possibility. Even so she's really screwed herself and her party by making such a weird play at the time she did it. Say no investigation ever comes up; there will still be plenty of insinuation from people within her own party who want the Republican nomination that she has something to hide.

Sorry for the analytical post; I realize to most of you who follow politics it's old news. But I'm just fascinated by this whole thing.