Video: Palin resigns; Video: Andrea Mitchell says sources tell her Palin's out of politics

There’s a lot of video coming but this should tide you over for a bit. I don’t follow her logic at the beginning here: Essentially, she says that once you’re a lame duck, the responsible thing to do is to get out of the way rather than go around milking the office while your influence diminishes. Does that mean presidents in their second term should quit early too? Instead of quitting, why not redouble your efforts to be an effective governor despite the lame-duck pressures working against you?

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The crux of this is that she’s quitting because it’s in Alaska’s best interest, not her own. If it turns out this was nothing more than a way of clearing her schedule to start early on running for president, her primary opponents will make her eat those words.

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Update: Given the source, take this not with a grain of salt but a boulder of it.

Some have speculated in the past that Palin may be interested in running for president in 2012, but she did not mention running for another office at her press conference. Sources told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Palin is out of politics for good.

If it’s true, there must be a major scandal somewhere in the shadows here. If it’s not true, well, that’s MSNBC for you.

Update: Real Clear Politics has video of Mitchell’s report, including the detail that Palin’s allegedly told her top backers to go ahead and commit to other candidates for 2012. Bill Kristol thinks resigning now could actually be a bold gambit to free herself up for an intense presidential campaign, but I think she’s following more of a Nixonian strategy here. I.e. it could be she’s burned out on politics and dispirited by all the crap she’s put up with it and wants to get away at an opportune moment. If, as is likely, The One wins a second term, the GOP will be so dejected that it’ll happily give her a second look as a potential savior in 2016, much as it did with Nixon after he lost the 1960 presidential election and 1962 California gubernatorial race. The question is, what does she do with herself in the meantime?

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