Emails show Palin 'beat down' by scrutiny

JUNEAU, Alaska -- Just a few months after returning from the presidential campaign trail, a weary Sarah Palin shot off a 1 a.m. email to top colleagues in her office.

Ethics complaints were mounting, and the Alaska governor was feeling more detached from her family. She faced mounting legal bills that exacerbated the financial turmoil related to her family's travel.

"I'm just beat down on this one. I am tired. The opponents have succeeded on the drive towards our personal bankruptcy, and have divided my family," she wrote.

She finished the overnight email with a sobering conclusion: "One has to be single, wealthy, or corrupt to function in this political system."

The relentless examination and subsequent exasperation lingered for months after Palin's stint as a vice presidential candidate in 2008, and thousands of documents released by the state this week indicate that it ultimately drove her to leave political office.

Emails show that Palin remained engaged as governor in the issues of her day job, pushing for a natural gas pipeline, preparing speeches for civic groups, coordinating with the state's chief lobbyist in Washington, and even helping arrange a reception for football players at the governor's mansion.

The treasurer of Palin's political action committee, Tim Crawford, said Thursday: "We encourage everyone to read the emails. They show a governor hard at work for her state."

But the documents also show her becoming increasingly distracted by the external issues tied to her newfound celebrity.

One of her political critics, trying to tout his own international experience in early 2009, parroted a "Saturday Night Live" line about Palin being able to see Russia from her house -- a phrase that morphed from the governor's initial comment that Russia was visible from part of Alaska.

"Why does he suggest I said i could see russia from my house? I said u can see russia from Alaska, in trying to explain the proximity," she wrote to a staffer.

Palin then added in another email, "It's going to be a long two years . . . "

It turned out that Palin wouldn't last that long. She resigned six months later.

This week Alaska released some 34,820 pages of emails, generally spanning from October 2008 until Palin's resignation in July 2009.