JOE McGINNISS

The president’s announcement, which included plans for expanded drilling in Alaska demonstrate[s] his commitment to reducing oil imports by increasing domestic production…Mr. Obama said the administration would begin to hold annual auctions for oil and gas leases in the Alaska National Petroleum Reserve, a 23-million-acre tract on the North Slope of Alaska. The move comes after years of demands for the auctions by industry executives and Alaska’s two senators, Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, and Mark Begich, a Democrat.

In crediting Murkowski and Begich for the policy change, The New York Times omitted the name of Sarah Palin, who’s been screaming about this for at least as long and even more loudly than have Alaska’s two U.S. senators.

Hours later, Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 Iowa Caucus, announced he would not be a candidate next year.

Today’s news makes it clearer than ever that Sarah will have a second chance–and her last chance–at the brass ring of national political power.

And don’cha think she’s gonna take it?

Because Sarah is not an elected official, but only a celebrity screecher from the sidelines, she can’t claim credit (except on her Twitter and Facebook pages and on Fox News) for having persuaded President Obama to change his mind about the vital economic and environmental issues posed by the prospect of reopening Alaska’s North Slope to further exploration (some would say “exploitation”) by Big Oil.

And won’t it gall her to see Sen. Lisa Murkowski, in particular, cited as one who made “demands” to which President Obama eventually caved?

Especially with Huckabee handing her, gift wrapped, the USA’s evangelical base, it seems obvious that Sarah will announce her candidacy for president later this year:  if she doesn’t, a year from now people won’t even remember how she spells her name. (Is it p-a-l-i-n, or p-a-l-l-i-n, as in “pallin’ around with terrorists”?)

Even if, as many argue, the personal bottom line of   http:www.Palingrifters.com is what Sarah cares about most (or only), she must recognize that as soon as she definitively takes herself out of the GOP 2012 candidate pool (aka “The Sargasso Sea”), nobody will care any more about what she says, what she wears, how she looks, Track’s latest brush with the law, Bristol’s latest plastic surgery, Willow’s latest brush with the law, or even whether she really gave birth to Trig.

Sarah’s greatest fear is irrelevance. What if she fell in a forest and nobody heard?

Bruce Springsteen might as well have been writing Fade Away for Sarah in 1980, when she was a sophomore at Wasilla High:

(Disc 2) 04 – Fade Away

I don’t wanna fade away
Oh I don’t wanna fade away
Tell me what can I do what can I say
Cause darlin’ I don’t wanna fade away

Do you really think she’ll just fade away now?

Having come out of nowhere to get this far,  will she go gently into that good night without even a last hurrah?

Especially after Huckabee’s Saturday night announcement that he won’t run,

His decision to forgo a run presumably leaves that space wide open for Ms. Palin, a self described “Bible-believing Christian”

Doesn’t it seem that God is working overtime this weekend to open doors for her so she can plow through?

Hope he gets at least time-and-a-half.