Take a deep breath. The year 2012 isn’t just a date any more to Sarah Palin.

It has now become simply ‘Twelve’: the kind of gung-ho abbreviation you might give a billion-grossing movie franchise (‘Rings’), or a war (‘Nam’), or — more to the point — an historic ex-beauty-queen-takes-the-White House presidential election campaign.

"If there is an open door [to run for president] in Twelve — or 4 years later — and if it’s something that’s going to be good for my family, my state, my nation, an opportunity for me, then I’ll plough on through it," said the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential candidate in an interview broadcast on Fox News last night.

In other words: See ya in Twelve, Obama. Oh, you betcha!

Mrs Palin's interview was the first serious sit-down she's had with a journalist since losing the November 4 election.

If, that is, the term ‘serious' can ever be applied to a politician who says things like, “sometimes, y’know, I consider myself too a feminist — whatever that means!”. Not to mention a politican who is capable of using the term ‘Sarahcentric’ without any detectible irony, and who replied to a question about the fervour of her supporters by explaining that, “too though... not me personally were those cheers for”.

Yes, Mrs Palin’s syntax is now so back-to-front it’s as though she’s auditioning for the role of Yoda in Star Wars Episode VII.

It's hard to believe that it’s been only a week since November 4, when Mrs Palin’s contribution to the presidential ticket of John McCain seemingly helped terrify traditionally conservative American voters into electing a black liberal whose ex-friends and mentors include an unrepentant former terrorist and a preacher who believes that the United States ought to go to hell.

Yet, some of Mr McCain's staffers have already spent even longer trying to get their own back on the woman who made some of the worst gaffes of any vice presidential candidate in US history.

Anonymously, they've accused her of being a 'whackjob', of acting like a diva, of going on a $150,000 clothes shopping spree at fancy Fifth Avenue stores, of not being able to name the members of the North America Free Trade Agreement - and even of confusing the African continent with a single country. They've even spread rumours about Mrs Palin entertaining colleagues in her hotel room while dressed only in a wet towel.

The Alaska governor, in response, has called her former colleagues "cowardly" and "jerks".

The interview on Monday night was attempt by Mrs Palin to answer her nameless critics while attempting to strike a more conciliatory tone. Indeed, the only time she wrinkled her nose in disgust was when describing: "Those bloggers in their pajamas sittin' in their parents' basements, just writin' garbage."

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