Yesterday was Sarah Palin's last day as governor of Alaska, and she marked the event with a farewell address to a crowd gathered in Fairbanks. Below is a transcript of the speech, as filtered through my brain.
Gosh, thank you so much for all your claps and your welcoming yells. It's so great to be with you all on such a great, good day here in Alaska, with that bright, strong Alaska sun up there in the sky, warming our faces and necks and the tops of our heads and serving as a beacon, not only to Fairbanks but to the whole solar system, for freedom and prosperity. It's a real treat to be here among such common people as yourselves. People, who you are, those very same, loving this fine, big land of ours. You know, on such a rich, clean day, it's hard to believe that there are some who would tear down our country, who would say that our best days were yester. But how can that be, when, all around the world, so much blood is spilt in our name? If that doesn't make you proud, then I don't know what.
Yes, this is my last time addressing our Alaskan family as your leader. What brings us together is the way we cherish and prize our state, our clean air and our animals, our water, rocks, and various plants and mosses. Cold in the winter and warm in the summer - what other state can say that? We're a different breed here, us Alaskans. Unlike other Americans, we work hard and we love our families. We don't try to rob and kill our neighbors, oh no. We say hello to them, and how ya doin? We receive annual oil revenue checks from the state government because we believe in work, not welfare. In Alaska, the natural resources belong to the people because that's how capitalism functions! And we stand defiantly and stiff-neckedly against federal largesse. Because we are the top recipient in the nation of federal largesse, so we know firsthand just how many strings come attached to that hard, strong cash.
And also energy, we know about, in Alaska here. We understand energy and the future and energy and security are things connected to each other. See, we realize that, just as the cagey Poles continued to rely on horse power well into the mechanized era, so too is the continued greatness of the United States dependent on pouring money and effort into finding and hoarding fossil fuels - the very fossil fuels which, coincidentally, are the chief resources of our place of statehood. Nowadays you're going to see and hear a lot of pessimists, running around with colorful charts and a lot of ten-dollar words about how worldwide oil production will soon peak while demand will continue to rise exponentially, posing a dire threat to the world economic system. But the first people never had to worry about peak oil, nor our parents, nor uncles. They didn't even have a concept of peak oil! They carved wealth out of our woods and water with ropy shoulders and shiny minds. It worked, and since external forces never change, so thus today, also.
Now, even though I've been very clear and wise on the subject, there are some goofy folks who still don't understand why I'm abdicating office halfway through my first term to pursue other projects of an unspecified nature. So I'll say it again: why should I spend another year in Juneau, wholly unable to rule by fiat, hobbled by the demands of transparency and representative democracy? That's not why you elected me. It's a waste of my time, and my time is your time, so I decided to step down and stop wasting your time. See, I'm like that old mama grizzly, fiercely protecting her cubs by running off to accept lucrative book deals and national speaking engagements - which she discovers are her true, biological cubs, unlike those other cubs that were just trying to hold her back and bore her to death with tedious details and rules and data, sweet Jesus, page after page of numbers and who even knows what. What am I, Alex Trebek? No, I'm not. I'm just a plain old Alaskan. Like you. Like those pioneers of old, who knew how to pick their fights. Who knew when to fight by fighting, and when to fight by fleeing from the steadily growing pile of ethics complaints. So you're welcome.
I call upon God himself to bless you all. See you in 2012!