According to the news reporting, an elderly lady in Palm Springs, Calif., was simply trying to make her way past demonstrators, not aggravating or arguing with them. But the sight of the cross she was carrying made her a target for their anger.

“But Daddy, where does this new road go?”

“I don’t know, son. Nobody does yet. It’s never been traveled by anybody. And even the man who sold us on it doesn’t know yet where it will go. But he gave such great speeches about it, and did such a super job of selling the public on it, that a slight majority of our friends and fellow citizens bought the idea — hook, line, and sinker — of taking the new road.”

Well, here we are. We’ve arrived at the intersection of two roads, one of which this country will decide to take. We’ll choose between Resolution Road and Capitulation Highway.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, it’s reported that a lady approached the venerable Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?”

And the grand old man responded gravely, “A republic—if you can keep it.”

Boy, ol’ headmaster Charlie Gibson and cute, cunningly earnest Katie Couric really got poor helpless Sarah Palin, didn’t they?