Picking Up Her Marbles

If death comes in threes, and political deaths are no exception, who's next after Sanford and Palin?

We'll see if she's born again, either in 2012 or later. But for now her resignation (and her bizarre announcement of it) confirms how much was at stake for this country last November. The months since have not gone well for her, and in that sense her quitting is a desperate and understandable attempt to stop the clock. Do it now, while some still think of her up on that stage in Minnesota -- fresh, composed, and articulate. This is a politician who does not age well. In American political history at the national level, has any figure ever been simultaneously so charismatic, fascinating, frustrating, and terrifying?

As time passed, Palin's appeal exposed some dark undercurrents in the national character, and this will demand vigilance now as her orphaned supporters lash out at those who "brought her down." Frustration and anger were growing on the Right, especially on the fringe, even before she quit. Absent a miraculous upturn in the economy, it increasingly feels like there's some sort of seminal socio-political event brewing out there. Her resignation could hasten that or bring it into sharper focus. It's unlikely to defuse it.