The responses from the press and the political pundits were immediate and very predictable. Her media enemies, from Maureen Dowd to Kathleen Parker, all pronounced her to be “erratic”, a “quitter”, and her actions confirmed to them that she was not ready for the political spotlight. Why, if she cannot stay the course for the last sixteen to eighteen months as governor, how can she run for president? If she cannot take the media heat while safely ensconced in the ultimate flyover state in Alaska, then she will never be able to handle another national campaign. Why, there had to be some other deep, dark secret reason for her to resign; an affair or an FBI investigation being the most likely reasons. But whatever the reasons, Palin was officially dead as a national political figure. There is no way that she could mount a presidential campaign in 2012, and her “bizarre” behavior would likely preclude her from even attempting a run in 2016. The pundits could already see the anti-Palin campaign commercials, “If she could not be trusted to stick with her constituents in Alaska, how can she trusted to stick with the presidency?”

The thing that has struck me about all of the blathering about Palin’s future is how much of it centers on politics and completely discounts the idea that Gov. Palin was being honest about her reasons for stepping down. The reactions by the media and punditry are exactly what one would expect from people who are totally wrapped up in the Washington-Manhattan elite bubble; people who are unable to view any event apart from the usual political considerations. And we the people sit and listen to them, take their ideas to heart, and view things from a purely political prism. The problem is that we have all become political cynics, expecting everyone that holds a political position to be a professional politician.

That is the thing that has flummoxed the Left, and some on the Right, from the start about Sarah Palin, and it is why her explanations for her resignation have been roundly been dismissed by all the political ‘experts’ out there. Sarah Palin is something we all claim to want from our political leaders, yet when we get it we rebel against it; she is a citizen who is involved in politics, not a person who is consumed by political ambition. Look at her reasoning and the facts behind them; Palin has faced over 18 ethical complaints since 2008, the vast majority of them after her selection as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. Of the 18 complaints, 1 has been settled with a reimbursement to the state for the travel expenses of the Palin children when the governor traveled, two are still pending, and 15 have been dismissed. (See the full list at http://www.adn.com/palin/story/838912.html) These complaints have cost the state $300,000 dollars and have cost the Palin family $500,000; not to mention the time and expense involved in the time state workers have to put in to answer the charges. And since the end of the 2008 presidential campaign there have been 150 Freedom of Information Act requests; according to a Wall Street Journal article by John Fund (see it at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124700261179807839.html). And do not forget that every one of the FOIA requests, by law, must be answered by a date certain. And who can forget the crass ‘joke’ by David Letterman about her teenaged daughter Willow…which he claimed was meant for her other teenaged daughter Bristol? Or the jokes made at the expense of her youngest son Trig, who was born with Down’s syndrome? Is it so hard to believe that such pressures would not make leaving the governor’s office behind a viable option for someone who is not totally invested in political success?

The reason that we are so unwilling to believe that Palin is lying about her reasons for leaving, or that she is somehow betraying the GOP is that we have become, as I stated earlier, political cynics. We have become accustomed to a political class in this country that eats, sleeps, and breathes only for the chance to gather political power into their hands. We are accustomed to a political class that goes to all the right schools (Harvard, Yale, Brown, Wellesley), takes all the right classes (political science and law), and trains to work the levers of the federal bureaucracy. Not only have we grown accustomed to it, we have embraced it and reject nearly anyone who is different from the accepted norms of political behavior.

We claim to want elected officials that aspire to serve the public good, but we continue to vote for officials that only care about their next election. We claim to want officials who can look honestly at their service and will step away when they are doing more harm than good, but we elect people who can only have their hands taken off the levers of power if you chop their fingers off! We keep sending people to Congress, the state house, or the governor’s mansion that cannot imagine a time when they were not in elected office, and would damned near die if they lost an election. They have become a political oligarchy that we willingly prop up, while tearing down anyone that goes against that grain.

You see, the real story of the Palin resignation is not found in her reasoning, her timing, or her political future. The real story is how we all reacted to a person that decided that political office was not what was best for her and her family and actually made a decision that was in their best interests and not one that was made with an eye towards the next political goal to be reached. She explained why she did what she did, yet we were unable to accept it at face value. The story was never Palin, it was always us and how we have succumbed to the prevailing political cynicism.

Maybe Sarah Palin had it right when she decided to resign, but we have it wrong in reacting to it as purely a political event. Our reaction to her decision says more about us than the original decision says about Mrs. Palin.

Bitter as it is to accept the results of the November election, we should have reason for some optimism. For many years now we have preached "the gospel," in opposition to the philosophy of so-called liberalism which was, in truth, a call to collectivism.

This is no time to repeat the shopworn panaceas of the New Deal, the Fair Deal and the Great Society. John Kenneth Galbraith, who, in my opinion, is living proof that economics is an inexact science, has written a new book. It is called "Economics and the Public Purpose." In it, he asserts that market arrangements in our economy have given us inadequate housing, terrible mass transit, poor health care and a host of other miseries. And then, for the first time to my knowledge, he advances socialism as the answer to our problems.

Shorn of all side issues and extraneous matter, the problem underlying all others is the worldwide contest for the hearts and minds of mankind. Do we find the answers to human misery in freedom as it is known, or do we sink into the deadly dullness of the Socialist ant heap?

Those who suggest that the latter is some kind of solution are, I think, open to challenge. Let’s have no more theorizing when actual comparison is possible. There is in the world a great nation, larger than ours in territory and populated with 250 million capable people. It is rich in resources and has had more than 50 uninterrupted years to practice socialism without opposition.

We could match them, but it would take a little doing on our part. We’d have to cut our paychecks back by 75 percent; move 60 million workers back to the farm; abandon two-thirds of our steel-making capacity; destroy 40 million television sets; tear up 14 of every 15 miles of highway; junk 19 of every 20 automobiles; tear up two-thirds of our railroad track; knock down 70 percent of our houses; and rip out nine out of every 10 telephones. Then, all we have to do is find a capitalist country to sell us wheat on credit to keep us from starving!

Our people are in a time of discontent. Our vital energy supplies are threatened by possibly the most powerful cartel in human history. Our traditional allies in Western Europe are experiencing political and economic instability bordering on chaos.