Back on 11/5/08, I called on Sarah Palin to resign as Alaska's Governor based on previous scandals she was involved in.

The Alaska state legislature, in a committee dominated by Republicans, has ruled that Ms. Palin violated Alaska's ethics laws. She has left a trail of wrongful terminations and attempts at wrongful terminations.

The vice presidential campaign might be a slightly plausible excuse for postponing the resignation. Now, there is no excuse.

It's time for Palin to resign.

Palin finally has left. I take no credit for her exit, but I do have to say it was long overdue. Her official explanation for leaving office makes no sense to reasonable people, which started fueling speculation on what is really going on. An attorney for Ms. Palin has taken steps that have only served to fuel the speculation.

Politico (7/5/09) has reported legal threats by Sarah Palin's attorney. (Hat Tip to From the Left)

In an extraordinary four-page letter, Alaska-based attorney Thomas Van Flein warns of severe consequences should speculation that until now has largely been confined to blogs — about whether Palin embezzled funds in the construction of a Wasilla, Alaska, sports arena — find its way into print.

“This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who republish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law,” Van Flein warned, citing Alaska liberal blogger Shannyn Moore.

I'm not a lawyer, but the allegations, if actually true, sound more like a bribery scandal than an embezzlement scandal. Anyway, the effort at intimidation certainly offended Christopher at From the Left.

Few things set me off faster than being threatened. People who know me are well aware of this. If you want me to do something for you — just ask. I’ll give you the shirt off my back, invite you to eat dinner with us and even give you my last dollar. But, don’t threatened me. Maybe at the end of the day, I’m just a typical male after all?

So when I learned Sarah Palin’s lawyer had the unmitigated gall to threaten legal action against news organizations if they publish “defamatory” stories relating to whether Palin is under Federal investigation, this became not only a threat to me as a blogger but, an attack on my First Amendment rights of free speech.

Those legal threats have backfired. When I just ran a Google News search on "Palin embezzlement," I literally got thousands of results. Palin's shark has made the scandal a news story by using such extreme tactics to try to shut that story down.

Efforts at intimidation by the extreme right are wearing very thin. Whether it's the murder of Dr. Tiller or a fascist attack on the First Amendment by Sarah Palin's lawyer, centrists, liberals, and leftists all have every reason to be pissed off. Legitimate conservatives (as opposed to actual fascists) should be furious too.

The Los Angeles Times is running a story with a statement from an FBI agent in Alaska who says that she is not under investigation. If not for the Palin team's legal threats, this might have put an end to the story. But, legal threats only heighten suspicions, and there are two logical questions.

1) What if the investigation is being run out of a different FBI office and the guy just doesn't know?

2) Do FBI offices always issue accurate statements during criminal investigations when doing otherwise could make suspects careless and slip up?

What we do know is that the legal threats have had the opposite effect of their intent.

In any event, GOP presidential primaries tend to be fought dirty. You can be sure that if Palin runs for president in 2012, there will be robocalls put out by consultants working for Gopper opponents accusing her of being guilty of these allegations. The legal threats by Palin's lawyer have firmly implanted these very same allegations in peoples' minds.

Sarah Palin's political career is officially over.