Sarah Palin says she resigned as governor "so that I could get out there and fight without the shackles..."

"... for our state and for our country, to fight for what is right, and to support the people who have more freedom than I do evidently to be able to cast those votes and administer the policies and the laws that we need to protect our Constitution... I’m going to be freer now to fight for what’s right."

Ha ha. That's why I like being an independent blogger, so I can identify. But I still think she's running for President... and talk about shackles!

Wait. I can't lie. I have to back off from that identification. I have no sense of fighting for what's right here. I'm just talking about things that interest me, expression for it's own sake. If the occasion to distinguish right from wrong arises in the natural course of things, it will be in the mix. But it's not a fight. It's a conversation.

Intrade trading on Sarah Palin to be Republican Presidential Nominee in 2012.

If Sarah Palin's quitting was so horrendous — Michelle Goldberg called it fatal — the trading graph would not look like that.

A similar message from Gallup polling:

A new USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Monday night finds a core of 19% of U.S. voters who say they are "very likely" to vote for her should she run, and an additional 24% who are somewhat likely to do so, giving her a decent reservoir of potential support to build upon. However, nearly as many voters (41%) currently say they would be not at all likely to vote for her....

The poll finds 70% saying their opinion of Palin has not changed as a result of her resignation. Though this is clearly the minority of Americans, more say their opinion of her has gotten worse (17%) than improved (9%).

A lot of people who don't like Palin are going to say their opinion got worse, but these folks don't matter to her. How many of them are in the 17%? Then you've got 9% who like her even more. And the vast majority of people say their opinion is the same.

So all this cogitating and opining over the weekend is just so much blather. Palin got away with extricating herself from her annoying duties in that remote northern outpost. And I was right to say that quitting might have been the best choice with her, it's not worth getting all exercised about now, and we can just wait and see how she does when and if she runs.

The hysteria-makers failed.

"Over the next few months. I will be seeking a more suitable way of combining a meaningful public role, with hopefully, a more private life."

"I hope you can find it in your hearts to understand and give me the time and space that has been lacking in recent years."

Before Sarah Palin, there was Princess Diana. Tina Brown makes the comparison:

Like Princess Diana, who was both an addict of fame and its tormented victim, Palin is at constant war with the exposure she seems to live for. In Diana’s case, it was the raucous tabloids and their pitiless photographers who stalked her every waking hour alone or with her children. In Palin’s case, it’s that malign aristocratic phantom, the “media elite.”

It’s hard to feel as sorry for Palin as one did for Diana. The comely governor is so cocky in her ignorance, so relentless in pursuit of her own rise to fame, her arrogance makes it much harder to see her vulnerability. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there....

Doesn't mean it is, either. And even if she is like Diana, Diana came back more powerful than ever.

(By the way, Tina Brown's book about Princess Diana, "The Diana Chronicles," is a terrific read, full of apt analysis of media and fame.)