"Over the next few months. I will be seeking a more suitable way of combining a meaningful public role, with hopefully, a more private life."

"I hope you can find it in your hearts to understand and give me the time and space that has been lacking in recent years."

Before Sarah Palin, there was Princess Diana. Tina Brown makes the comparison:

Like Princess Diana, who was both an addict of fame and its tormented victim, Palin is at constant war with the exposure she seems to live for. In Diana’s case, it was the raucous tabloids and their pitiless photographers who stalked her every waking hour alone or with her children. In Palin’s case, it’s that malign aristocratic phantom, the “media elite.”

It’s hard to feel as sorry for Palin as one did for Diana. The comely governor is so cocky in her ignorance, so relentless in pursuit of her own rise to fame, her arrogance makes it much harder to see her vulnerability. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there....

Doesn't mean it is, either. And even if she is like Diana, Diana came back more powerful than ever.

(By the way, Tina Brown's book about Princess Diana, "The Diana Chronicles," is a terrific read, full of apt analysis of media and fame.)