A WEAPON IN NEED OF A DELIVERY SYSTEM

I think Spencer Ackerman is essentially right in this post about the firing of Palin fan Randy Scheunemann, and the points he's making, plus Palin's desire for a longer career and the GOP's desire for a savior, plus (probably) plain old desire, are the reasons why we're not going to be rid of Sarah Palin anytime soon:

... Scheunemann's alleged offense was his alleged griping to Bill Kristol of the neoconservative Weekly Standard and The New York Times about dysfunctionality in the campaign and to promote Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's interests ahead of the candidates.

... what's going on?

... Many have remarked that the imperialist strain in American foreign policy doesn't have a natural political constituency, so neoconservatism has to graft itself onto a host, invest that host with its doctrinal heft, and promote that host's futures once he or she becomes symbiotic with the movement.

... What conservative politician in his or her right mind would embrace neoconservatism now? And of that pool of available vessels, who could command an authentic constituency to glide the neocons back to power? Asked that way, the questions answer themselves, don’t they.

...Palin is a return to the Bush or Dan Quayle (Kristol's old boss) model: a vapid, ignorant politician with an angry streak....

So these guys need her (or someone). And I can't help thinking she'll go wherever she's championed and taken seriously.

Which is why I think she'll ignore the advice being offered by several sympathetic observers: that she should stay outside the Beltway and not appoint herself to the Senate seat held by Ted Stevens. Like her near-doppelganger George W. Bush, she's a reverse Groucho Marx: just for spite, she really, really wants to belong to precisely the club she feels is most determined not to have her as a member, even as she expresses contempt for it.

And we know that in the Senate there'll be no ethics constraint if she wants to write a book (I'm not sure that's true in Alaska). A Senate seat and a book deal would be a so-there! way for her to say she's in the same league as senator-authors such as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden ... and John McCain.

So I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of her in the near future.

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UPDATE: I'm reminded by Aimai in comments that Alaska now requires a swift special election in the event of a Senate vacancy -- it has to take place 60 to 90 days after the vacancy occurs. But it's unclear whether the governor can appoint a replacement for that interim period. Maybe she won't appoint herself to fill the seat for that interim period, but she might. Or she'll just run. Or both.