Many greeted Sarah Palin’s sudden, July 3rd resignation from the Alaska governorship with a Nelsonesque “HAW-HAW” but Frank Rich, last Sunday, argues both why she’s dangerous (“The essence of Palinism is emotional, not ideological. ... The real wave she’s riding is a loud, resonant surge of resentment and victimization that’s larger than issues like abortion and gay civil rights.”), and why she might be back (“No one thought Richard Nixon—a far less personable commodity than Palin—would come back either after his sour-grapes ‘last press conference’ of 1962.”)

For me, I doubt 2012 could be 1968, just as I doubt BHO could be LBJ. But the whole column is worth reading.

Then I found myself actually agreeing with Peggy Noonan (that Reagan shoe fetishist) in her July 11th column on same. She’s of the good-riddance school, and says what I’ve often said: It’s time for the Republican party to get smarter, not dumber. Then she adds this:

Here are a few examples of what we may face in the next 10 years: a profound and prolonged American crash, with the admission of bankruptcy and the spread of deep social unrest; one or more American cities getting hit with weapons of mass destruction from an unknown source; faint glimmers of actual secessionist movements as Americans for various reasons and in various areas decide the burdens and assumptions of the federal government are no longer attractive or legitimate.

All of us, certainly, have fears of a prolonged American crash and an American city getting hit. But secession? Is that a concern serious enough for the pages of the WSJ? It's certainly more politics of resentment. It also reminds me of a child throwing away a toy that he himself has broken. He's not even waiting around to see if the nearest grownup can fix it.