palinpodiumAlaska Gov. Sarah Palin faced a dilemma. Should she keep the federal stimulus funding her state is due or give it up? One rival for the helm of the Republican Party, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, chose to keep it. Another, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, first was going to give up $700 million, then decided to keep all but about $98 million. In the end, Palin made the same choice AIG executives did with their publicly funded bonuses: keep half. 

Palin is sending back 45 percent of the $930 million her state had coming — $160 million of which would have gone to educating people in a state where 40 percent drop out of high school. Maybe some of it could have been spent on sex ed: Alaska’s teen pregnancy rate is the fastest-growing in the land. But no, Palin insisted that any money she took fit her requirements to a T: ”timely, targeted and temporary.”

Oh, for the wisdom of Solomon! Wait — was Solomon a maverick or a community organizer? No matter — spurning half the federal government’s largesse to Alaska isn’t really like splitting the baby. For a GOP governor with lofty ambitions, it’s more like being half pregnant.