If Sarah Palin was trying to make news today, she had odd timing. At a time when Farah Fawcett and Ed McMahon’s deaths paled — almost as much as another recently departed celebrity’s skin — into insignificance, perhaps she hoped her resignation on a holiday Friday would pass unnoticed. But that isn’t really her style, which makes today’s abrupt announcement seem more like a whim — a characteristic her detractors worried about during the campaign.
I suspect the media is both concerned and delighted by her news. On the one hand, she’s great material — ridicule sells, and if she really does exit the stage, they’ll have to find someone else to pick on. On the other hand, the great 2012 GOP nominee chess match has already started, and this ensures that her name will be in the mix, even if she has no plans to launch a campaign.
Here’s something I’ve always thought — if a major television network pre-empts regularly scheduled programming to run its anchor comedy show during prime time, and you are the butt of their jokes, you have a serious problem. And I’ve never felt that politically she could ever recover from the 2008 campaign.
While we all speculate about this, it could be that she’d just had enough and wants her life back. Who could blame her?
I wish her well.