Sarah Palin's Retirement Story Just Doesn't Hold Up

To the extent that Sarah Palin has offered a rationale for her retirement, it is that her remaining in office would be a waste of Alaska tax dollars because she had been targeted by a series of frivolous ethics complaints since being tapped as John McCain's running mate.

As Alaska blogger Mel Green and The Plum Line's Greg Sargent took the lead in arguing, Palin's story doesn't hold up.

For starters, as Green notes, under Alaska law truly frivolous complaints can be dismissed, but thus far, only one complaint has been found to be frivolous.

Moreover, as Greg Sargent discovered, all of the money Palin claims was spent defending her from ethics investigations would have been spent anyway. The government lawyers who defended her weren't doing anything that hadn't already been budgeted. Put another way, they were just doing their job, and their job would have existed with or without the ethics complaints.

The icing on the cake comes from work conducted out by Green and the Anchorage Daily News showing that the figures provided by Palin to defend her claim don't add up.