Palin headlines: What's next?

Palin will never become a party elder stateswoman. Over the past three years, it became apparent to all but a handful of cultists that her only interests were money and celebrity. She had no concept of public service, and no capacity to serve even if she had wished to do so. Soon even those last cultists will quietly abandon the argument. We talk often these days about makers and takers. Sarah Palin was the ultimate taker. She abandoned her post as governor of Alaska to cash in on lectures and TV. She squeezed her supporters for political donations and spent the money on herself. To adapt an old phrase, she seen her opportunities and she took ‘em.

But she's relatively young and there's plenty of time for a comeback, argues David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network:

She is still a force to be reckoned with and young enough to run in 2016 if Obama gets a second term. Heck, she can run in 2020 and age wouldn't be a problem. In the meantime, watch the focus turn to Palin's quest to remake the Republican party into a band of constitutional conservatives. That's the future, and Palin will be one of the big leaders in this movement.

Richard Cohen of The Washington Post agrees with Frum: Palin is history.

Palin will fade. She does not have the diligence to build an organization. She is fated to be an after-dinner speaker, fees slowly declining. But she had made her fortune and showed others how it can be done. So long, Sarah - from headlines to footnote in about three years.

Echoing that sentiment, the Los Angeles Times has posted video highlights of Palin's political career. They're calling it "The Rise and Fall of Sarah Palin."

Hold on, jokes Kathleen Parker of The Washington Post. The future is in God's hands -- or so Palin has always told us.

This week, when Palin finally announced her decision, she made her priorities clear. In a statement to supporters, she said that she and her husband, Todd, "devote ourselves to God, family and country." Her decision, she said, maintains that order. We can only infer from these tidings -- glad or sad, you pick -- that God did not open that door or reveal it. I'm not exactly sure how this works, but clearly Palin got the word that she should not run for president.

More headlines:

If she wanted to be president, Palin should have put country before her God (Jacques Berlinerblau, Washington Post): Palin works from the assumption that one enters public service not to uphold the Constitution, not to defend the nation, not to enrich the lives of citizens, but to honor God. Whose God, you ask? That's a great question in a society as religiously diverse as our own. From Palin's vantage point the answer to that can only be: my God and my interpretation of God. Which, chances are, won't be your God and your interpretation of God.

Palin broke a glass ceiling for women in politics (Libby Copeland, Huffington Post): Even if you're one of the many who feel grateful at the prospect of hearing less from a certain woman from Wasilla, it's worth considering what we might owe Palin. Politics aside (a big aside, but let's shelve them for the moment), Palin has excelled spectacularly at one thing that American women should feel grateful for: She is an exceedingly talented self-promoter. This is a big deal, because self-promotion is something that American women have historically been bad at, and they pay for that shortcoming in everything from mediocre salaries to thwarted ambitions.

Parsing the swan song of a political poseur (Mark Axelrod, Chapman University via Huffington Post): She quit on running because she's essentially a coward. ... To state, as she did, that she didn't need a "title" to be a political activist, is merely political persiflage on her part. The truth is the presidency isn't a title. The chancellor of a university is a title. Having a Ph.D. or an M.D. gives one a title. By marginalizing the presidency, by calling it a "title," it allows Palin the failsafe escape for which she's always been searching, and if one parses her prose, that's patently clear.