Clinton is perhaps the first presidential candidate of the modern age who needs a Rip Van Winkle strategy—a disappearing act that removes her from the witless swirl of speculation and gossip that preserves her presidential options. But what is this strategy? Does she go on a kibbutz for a year? What about a prayer retreat? She is a woman of skill. Surely, she can find some way to escape from the clatter or at least turn it into a force for good. (Perhaps she should launch a website on mindless Clinton speculation and donate the ad revenue from the site to one of the worthy causes she’s been promoting most of her adult life).

It’s frankly hard to imagine a place she could retreat (without the aid of rocket propulsion) that would quiet the appetite of editors, gossips, and TV producers. Retreating would give voters a pause and Clinton a chance to live a normal life, but there’s also a governing benefit: We get sick of our presidents pretty quickly in the age of the hyper news cycle. Who pays attention to an Obama speech these days? With candidates starting to position themselves for the presidency earlier and earlier, it’s almost certain that we’ll be sick of the next president by the time he or she is in office. If Hillary Clinton is that president, it will be particularly acute in her case.