a fresh take on Gov. Palin stepping down: a must read if you find Palin interesting or frustrating

From Greg Beato in Reason-- who labels her a "real maverick at last" and gets off a ton of good and creative lines...

When Sarah Palin aborted her gubernatorial career in its final trimester, pundits and political insiders reacted with shock, bafflement, scorn, and dismay....

To [the establishment], walking away from a prime gig like Palin’s was virtually incomprehensible, signaling either imminent scandal or incipient dementia. To the rest of America, Palin’s move made perfect sense, firmly cementing her status as perhaps the one politician who truly feels our ennui. First she cheerfully admitted that she had no idea what the vice president actually does all day. (Just like me!) Then she stared blankly when asked to reveal her thoughts on the Bush Doctrine. (The what?) Then, after earning even higher Nielsen ratings in her first big prime-time showcase than the American Idol finale, only to return to Alaska and the dull reality of mulling over potential appointees to the Board of Barbers and Hair Dressers, she bailed. Sorry, politics, she’s just not that into you.

Palin has always positioned herself as a Drudge-like figure—an unorthodox interloper, devoid of the proper pedigree and old-boy connections, but nonetheless ready to shake things up. Until now, however, this pose was about as convincing as a veggie burger. The self-proclaimed hockey mom who supposedly entered the world of politics via the PTA was a career politician who’d won her first election at the age of 28...The self-proclaimed antidote to entrenched career politicians had spent 13 of the last 16 years as an elected official and the other three as a director of a nonprofit organization whose function was raising money to elect Republican women in Alaska.

That so many people found such obvious facts so easy to overlook shows just how great a demand there is for the kind of magical populist Palin claimed to be. On July 3, she took a giant leap toward making her actions match her rhetoric. She really is a maverick now, exploring territory few of her fellow politicians are likely to follow....

Beato then points to the impact of "non-journalist" Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, "non-music-industry" CEO Shawn “Napster” Fanning, and finally, Al Gore as ex-VP vs. VP:

If a wooden patrician like Gore can achieve such fruitful productivity by becoming a private-sector man of the people, imagine the potential accomplishments of a Wasilla beauty queen with a 10-megaton wink....

How Palin will ultimately capitalize on her populist appeal is a matter of great speculation, but one thing is clear: Whether she plans to run for president or star in a documentary about the pressing need to save the oil industry, Palin’s abrupt departure was a stroke of genius, the most sensible move she could have made. Spending 18 more months governing a state with fewer residents than Columbus, Ohio, was the political equivalent of releasing a straight-to-DVD movie. Now she can devote her full attention to all the things that enthrall her fans...