"I can't fight for what's right when I'm shackled to the governor's seat," Palin said. For the last seven months the governor's office has been a ward. A trap. She is breaking free.

However, when it comes to the point that a person who is attempting to do her best in the position she was elected to do cannot do so, and when the cost in time and money to the individual and to the state to defend against allegations, becomes the prudent thing to do to step away.

I think it was an unselfish move to have chosen to step away from the office of governor and I believe that it was a matter of analyzing the ability to continue to be effective and judging that with the onslaught of attacks of every move and concluding that it was time to step aside.

Sarah Palin's following is growing on both Twitter and Facebook. The number of favorable articles and blogs are outnumbering negative ones.

"The numbers are staggering the amount of support is being shown for Sarah," one Team Sarah member wrote. "Yet, not one word of this has hit the mainstream media."

"Sarah Palin's resignation as Governor of Alaska is a brilliant liberating move for her career, and a potential turning point for the national conservative movement," Peter Ferrara writes on FoxNews.com.

Even media outlets hostile to Palin are painting a guardedly positive picture, although they still cling to the notion of counting her out for 2012. CNN's Ed Hornick writes:

"She was never going to be president of the United States. But who's got all the sway in the Republican Party right now? It's the political pundits; it's the talk show hosts; it's the people who are not responsible to an electorate," (John Ridley of National Public Radio) told CNN's Campbell Brown. "I would not be surprised if around 2011 people are circling around Sarah Palin, saying, 'please, anoint us for the road to the White House.' She's never going to be president but possibly a kingmaker."

While still in denial about the ultimate possible outcome, skeptics and critics are beginning to face the reality that she is far from dead as they originally thought on Friday.

Larry Sabato, however, seems to be one of the few who missed the boat on this with his inside the box, slide rule, crystal ball, formulaic political scientist approach. “Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Palin is political toast,” according to FoxNews.com.

She’ll be much bigger now and can play on the national stage without constantly setting off state ethics investigations by loons, parasites and liberals. None of this applied to McCain or Kerry – both of whom went back to the Senate – because their national campaigns diminished them. Palin’s national campaign made her a major star. As she said, she’s not retreating, she’s advancing in another direction.

Three McCain staffers, however, were immediately willing to go on the record with the Washington Times in their support for Mrs. Palin after the Vanity Fair piece was published online.

Randy Scheunemann, director of foreign policy and national security for the McCain-Palin campaign and who played Joe Biden in Mrs. Palin’s debate prep, was happy to push back against the Vanity Fair piece, saying she was an impressive and capable candidate.

He recalled her performance in the vice-presidential debate where she “held her own and went toe-to-toe” against Mr. Biden, a candidate with much more experience in debates and decades of public service. She was “incredibly hard-working and concerned she’d do a good job for John McCain who was a national hero and plucked her from obscurity,” Mr. Scheunemann said. “That weighed on her every day.”

“It’s disheartening and dishonorable anyone that who worked for John McCain would participate in this kind of character assassination against his running mate,” Mr. Scheunemann said.

Jason Recher, who worked closely with Mrs. Palin as a vice presidential candidate, said “The mean tone of this article is completely false, this is not the Sarah Palin I knew and spent two and a half months with."  He also said he was tired of reporters using information about Mrs. Palin from people unwilling to go on the record.

David Welch, deputy research director for the McCain-Palin ticket, said he was “shocked to read the Vanity Fair article about Governor Palin and the allegations made against her by former staffers” and complained “significant parts of the story are based on half truths and gossip from staffers who refused to go on the record.”

None of these men were approached by Vanity Fair to discuss their experience working with Mrs. Palin for Mr. Purdum's piece.

suggested that Governor Palin needs to concentrate on serious policy issues. Now, check out the issues that Ms. Dyck mentioned as possibilities for Governor Palin get involved in: energy and foreign relations.

Ms. Dyck should be made aware that over the last two weeks Governor Palin has moved her AGIA pipeline forward, and visited Eastern Europe and the Balkans.