Sarah Palin Resigns! Madness!

Perhaps it’s appropriate that Sarah Palin concluded her incoherent, rambling, puzzling resignation statement by quoting General Douglas MacArthur’s absurd line that “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.” After all, MacArthur was a a megalomaniac who believed black could be turned white merely by saying so. The General was a great showman, but a poor strategist who was fortunate to even be given a command, let alone permitted to hold on to it for as long as he did. Flair might be important, but it’s not enough.

Palin’s resignation certainly gives her time to spend in Iowa and New Hampshire and the rest of the Lower 48 in advance of a 2012 presidential campaign. But that campaign would have been more credible had she completed her term as governor. Even then, a single term as governor of a small and strange state a long way from anywhere offered little by way of proof to substantiate Palin’s claim that she had the necessary experience to be a national contender.