If anyone has any insight, please let us know for tonight's newscasts. First the former Republican Vice Presidential candidate says she has announcement on a holiday Friday afternoon. Then it comes out that she's not running for re-election next year as Alaska's governor. And now it turns out - not only is she not running for re-election, she's resigning, in two weeks.
Is this just to clear the calendar for a run for the Presidency in 2012? Or is there some other reason?
It's our job to ask questions; but tonight there seem to be few answers, but loads of speculations.
I watched Palin's announcement - "keep your eye on the basketball"??? who ever says that? - and I am dumbfounded. I can't figure out why she's decided she can't be a Governor and at the same time set the table for a run for the White House.
But maybe I'm just thick.
Her speech was disjointed, and I kept wondering as she talked in her trademark Prof. Irwin Corey manner, whether she had actually written anything. It sounded like she was talking off the cuff.
We'll have the latest on Palin's decision, tonight at 11.
So the nurse was right. Those close to /*Michael Jackson*/ hesitated not at all questioning the truth of what personal nutritionist Cherilyn Lee alleged earlier this week - that the troubled singer had begged her for the powerful sedative Diprivan.
It was a tad pitiful to see the Jackson family lawyer on the cable talk shows tsk-tsk'ing Ms. Lee's claims. She sounded credible; they sounded incredibly defensive.
Now comes word that authorities have found Diprivan inside Jackson's $100,000 a month rented mansion in the Holmby Hills section of Los Angeles.
Diprivan, also known as Propofol, is regularly used in operating rooms as an anesthetic; it's unusual to find it in someone's home.
But then, this whole case of the death of Michael Jackson has been "unusual."
Including his memorial service. It was going to be at Neverland Ranch, remember? The place where all those allegations of child sex abuse might have happened. The place that Jackson lost in foreclosure and then recaptured in part because of some sweetheart deal with a friendly investor. The place that the Jackson family and the man in charge of the ranch have now opened to every reporter on the planet and given tours of Jackson's bedroom and secret closet with a keypad lock.
Don't get me started.
The memorial follows a private service this Tuesday morning, at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. There's something of a lottery for 11,000 free tickets inside, and another 6,500 seats in the adjacent Nokia Theatre, which will air a simulcast.
Better, to be sure, than the initial report that the seats would be sold for $25 each.
We'll have the latest on the investigation into Jackson's death, tonight at 11.
Also at 11, the story of a couple in New York City - furious that their water bills had suddenly ballooned - and by ballooned I mean $400 a quarter.
Turns out the City had been estimating the bills, rather than reading the water meter, which had been moved. They were owed thousands of dollars, but they got nowhere until they called Tappy Phillips and got 7 On Your Side.
We'll also have the pre-fireworks shows information you need to make sure you get a front-row seat for the festivities tomorrow night.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Lee Goldberg's holiday weekend AccuWeather forecast, and Scott Clark with the night's sports. I hope you can join Sade Baderinwa (in for Liz Cho) and me, tonight at 11, after 20/20.
BILL RITTER
