The same week she is blasted by staffers of her former running mate, John McCain, Sarah Palin has resigned:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) stunned political observers Friday by announcing she will resign the governorship after just two and a half years in office.

The first-term governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee made the announcement at her home in Wasilla. Some political observers had expected Palin to forgo an opportunity to seek re-election, but few expected Palin to resign office. Her reason for stepping down was not immediately clear.

Alaska's NBC affiliate, KTUU, was the first station to report that Palin would leave office. Her departure paves the way for Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell to be sworn in; KTUU said he would take office at the end of the month.

The move, coming nearly a year before she would be forced to reveal her plans by filing deadlines, is sure to lead to widespread speculation that Palin will devote herself full-time to a presidential bid in 2012.

Analogizing herself to a crafty "point guard", Palin said in her announcement (transcribed from MSNBC) that she was resigning:

...So that Alaska may progress, I will not seek reelection as governor. And so, as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn't run for reelection, and what that means for Alaska, I thought well about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks - travel around their state, maybe travel to other states, maybe take their overseas international diplomatic trade missions, so many politicians do that. Then I thought that's what's wrong - many just expect that lame duck status, they draw a pay check and milk it and I'm not going to put Alaskans through that.

I promised efficiencies and effectiveness, that's just not how I am wired. I promised that four years ago, and I meant it. That is not what is best for Alaska at this time.
...
I am determined to take the right path for Alaska even though it is unconventional and not so comfortable
...
My choice is to take a stand and effect change and not just hit our head against the wall and watch valuable state time and money - millions of your dollars - go down the drain in this new political environment.

We know we can effect positive political change from outside government at this moment in time and actually make a difference for our priorities, and so we will.

Okay,

Howie Kurtz worked all day yesterday trying to come up with a narrative that would make the WaPo's Pay2Play scheme look less damning. His latest effort is notable for several reasons:

• He killed the anonymous quotations from Weymouth and Brauchli
• With those anonymous quotes, he also killed any description of what the Pay2Play dinners were supposed to be
• He let Weymouth spend 356 words claiming "everyone does it"
• He gave a list of the planned attendees

Nevertheless, the bottom line of the story is that Katharine Weymouth still appears to defend the concept of Pay2Play in her living room.

Killing the anonymous quotations from Weymouth and Brauchli

Perhaps Howie killed the anonymous quotes because, in an article trying to defend the WaPo's "journalistic integrity" and "integrity of the newsroom" it just looked bad to grant the WaPo's Publisher and Executive Editor anonymity to blame another employee and make vague claims about what the real intent here was. Perhaps Howie killed those quotes because I was already harping on him for them. But as I pointed out yesterday, Howie granted anonymity to WaPo executives who were almost certainly WaPo publisher Weymouth and WaPo Executive Editor Brauchli so they could blame this all on Charles Pelton and make claims about what the Pay2Play Dinners were supposed to be.

Two Post executives familiar with the planning, who declined to be identified discussing internal planning, said the fliers appear to be the product of overzealous marketing executives. The fliers were overseen by Charles Pelton, a Post executive hired this year as a conference organizer. He was not immediately available for comment. 

[snip]

Weymouth knew of the plans to host small dinners at her home and to charge lobbying and trade organizations for participation. But, one of the executives said, she believed that there would be multiple sponsors, to minimize any appearance of charging for access, and that the newsroom would be in charge of the scope and content of any dinners in which Post reporters and editors participated. [my emphasis]

Those anonymous quotations are now gone. Howie replaced the first with on the record quotes directly from Pelton, falling on his sword for not vetting the fliers (but not, it should be noted, for the plan itself).

The fliers were approved by a top Post marketing executive, Charles Pelton, who said it was "a big mistake" on his part and that he had done so "without vetting it with the newsroom."

The WaPay2PlayPo's Jeffrey Smith is usually a much better reporter than this. In his report on DOJ's latest attempt to keep the materials from Cheney's Fitzgerald interview secret--published right under a link to all the evidence released in the trial--Smith "reports,"

A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's employment by the CIA and that he was at the center of many related administration deliberations.

Which, if you take "new evidence" to mean "a new list summarizing many of the events described in evidence introduced two years ago at the Libby trial," would be factually correct.

But this isn't.

Barron also listed as exempt from disclosure Cheney's account of his requests for information from the CIA about the purported purchase; Cheney's discussions with top officials about the controversy over Bush's mention of the uranium allegations in his 2003 State of the Union speech; and Cheney's discussions with deputy I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, press spokesman Ari Fleischer, and Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. "regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure" of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity. [my emphasis]

Smith gets that last bit from this language in the filing.

Vice President's recollection of discussions with Lewis Libby, the White House Communications Director, and the White House Chief of Staff regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA employee.

Now, the language used there--"the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity"--ought to be a pretty big clue to Smith that this conversation happened after Plame's identity was actually made public. That is, after July 14, 2003, which happened to be Ari Fleischer's last day, meaning it's pretty clear that Ari Fleischer (who was White House Spokesperson, not Communications Director) isn't the guy referenced here. But you don't really need clues like that to figure out that Smith is wrong here. Had Smith only clicked that link above his article and actually looked at the evidence released at trial, he would have seen the famous "meat grinder note," a note Cheney used as a talking point document for conversations with Andy Card (correctly identified by Smith as Chief of Staff) and Dan Bartlett (in his role as "White House Communications Director," the position listed in the filing) in early October 2003 to get them to force Scottie McClellan to exonerate Scooter Libby publicly. 

Has to happen today. 

Call out to key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl.

Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others.