In any event, the Palin “problem” bears some similarity to another media tempest-in-a-teapot Republicans faced early in 2009 when, as they scrambled to recover from their steamrolling by the Obama juggernaut, it was alleged that iconoclastic radio icon Rush Limbaugh was the party’s “leader.”

Now, as then, the solution is simple: relax.

Very soon — presidential debates start up in the spring — Palin must cease her coy games and face a stark choice: declare for 1600 Pennsylvania or retreat into her cozy and highly lucrative cocoon of reality-TV stardom, best-selling authorship, speechifying before adoring mobs and Fox News, Facebook and Twitter commentary. If it’s the latter, as they did with the “Maha-Rushi,” fully engaged Republican leaders can slough off any notion that the out-of-office ex-governor represents the GOP.

If it’s the former, her fellow politicians can calmly sit back and watch, with the virtual certainty that Ms. Sarah will do exactly what she did on the campaign trail in 2008 and again in Alaska the following year: self-destruct.