Sarah Palin is not running for reelection and is resigning to boot. Those who think her flakiness quotient has always been too high are having a spasm of I-told-you-so’s. But I can’t help but think after watching that rambling, odd presser on a Friday afternoon before the 4th of July that (as some are reporting) she just wants to pack it in for good. (Did Mark Sanford inspire others to cast off the shackles of public responsibility?) None of this—the speech, the timing—strikes me as part of a well-designed long-term strategy.

Dana Perino, I think, gets it right: “While we all speculate about this, it could be that she’d just had enough and wants her life back. Who could blame her?” Whatever you think of Palin and however unfairly she has been treated, no one can make a political career out of being a media victim. And if you want to lead a party or the country you have to get your own act together first. Maybe at some level she realized this.

Some are debating whether her critics “won” by chasing her off the stage. Well, she chased herself off the stage and chose not to even fulfill her responsibilities to the state that elected her and put her on the stage. (Really, you mean she couldn’t have finished her term and refused national appearances for the balance of her term to lessen the media scrutiny? Hmmm.) She made a series of choices and appearances since Election Day that simply played into the psycho-drama.

But as for her critics, some of them have no excuse and should claim no justification from her exit. On this score, Jonah Goldberg certainly nails it in discussing McCain campaign honcho Steve Schmidt:

Schmidt’s leaking and self-aggrandizing during the campaign and after reflects poorly on him, and needlessly embarrassed the candidate — regardless of the merits of his complaints. The man is not a journalist, he’s not a priest, he’s not Thomas More. He’s a very, very partisan campaign functionary and his behavior has been tacky, his judgment questionable and his loyalty beyond dubious.

For now, the public, the conservative movement, her critics, her family, and Palin herself are all better off taking a timeout