Not sure what to make of it

Sarah Palin's resignation has sent everyone into a tailspin, which just shows that she is still the most interesting politician on the American scene. There are those who think that she is now finished but, as we know, many a politician outside the usual suspects, such as Ronald Reagan, has been written off prematurely.

Others think that she has done the right thing for that 2012 presidential campaign. This way she can become more of a national figure, get people accustomed to her rather than the vicious slurs that the MSM and the various feminist organizations have been casting around, maybe borrow President Obama's ghost writer and teleprompter. After all, her life has been considerably more interesting than his.

Obviously, I am hoping she will be back. There are not that many politicians even among the Republicans who can be described as being small government; there are not that many politicians anywhere who have her grit and determination, who have risen quite genuinely from the bottom, just as it is supposed to happen but so rarely does in the United States; there are not that many women politicians with a good chance of reaching the White House, especially as one surveys the misogynistic anti-Hillary and anti-Sarah campaigns of last year.

On the other hand, I can understand why she might not want to carry on. Who on earth would like to have aging, prurient stand-up comedians make jokes about their 14-year old daughter being raped? Who would like endless analyses as to whether her youngest, disabled child is actually hers? Who would want to be told that she ought to have aborted that child because disabled people have no right to exist? These are only the most egregious of the vicious personal attacks aimed at Ms Palin and her family.

This Bloomberg report sums up the various opinions and there is a lively discussion going on at the NRO Corner. Mark Steyn is pessimistic about the political scene as well as Palin's possible future role:

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.

I have long ago worked out the best response to stupid and ignorant British attacks on Sarah Palin, based on information culled from low-grade reports by British correspondents in Washington. Cheerfully, I tell those people that I don't have their class hang-ups and can, therefore, look at the person and what he has achieved. Then I leave before they can work it out.

Still, Victor Davis Hanson gives a more cheerful prognostication. We can but hope.