Allahpundit mentioned last week that he had thought Hillary Clinton would probably be lying low for awhile yet, allowing time for President Obama’s second term to continue to curdle and any disapproval over her own tenure at State to continue to dissipate, and then gloriously reemerge into major public life a little later on and hit the 2016 ground running — and he certainly wasn’t the only one. Even some of the Meet the Press panel this morning expressed some surprise over her all-but-declarative announcement that Clinton is going to be spending her autumn delivering a series of ‘major policy addresses’; Chuck Todd notes the negatives for stepping down from the Above-the-Fray platform too quickly, and Robert Gibbs worried about her distinguishing herself from both Obama’s and her husband’s presidency. My, this is all happening so fast:

Well, she also has to distinguish herself from her husband, too, right? Listen, if her campaign becomes an extension really of either her husband’s term or the current president’s term, it’s not necessarily a good deal for her. I completely agree with Chuck. I as a strategist am fairly floored that she has decided to enter the public fray so quickly. She could do the foundation work, she could do issue work, she could build the campaign, she could develop a message without having to be so far out front there. And Chuck talks about strong bipartisan approval ratings, those will whittle quite quickly as she steps further and further…