Sarah Palin's decision not to run for president is devasting news for the Republic.

America should take Sarah Palin at her word, and family comes first. From tawdry gossip published as fact to assaults on Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, at a club, is it any wonder she decided against exposing her family and grandchildren to further hate and vitriol?

As if the news weren't bad enough with the Republic being denied a potentially great president just when needed most, we are doubly wounded with the precedent now well established of how the left can hound our best and brightest from even competing.

What does this mean long-term? Every time a constitutional conservative stands up will the media and left-wing haters be allowed to force them to choose between the physical safety of their family and saving our country?

Are we to sit idly by and allow the left to turn our most promising and reform-minded leaders into "radioactive" or "toxic" figures the feint-hearted and sunshine patriots are scared to support in public?

How is this different from the character assassination attempt on Justice Clarence Thomas, the public flogging of Katherine Harris, or the original target of the politics of personal destruction, Robert Bork?

They succeeded. They so poisoned the well as to take out one of our own. Worse, they took out a dynamic leader.

Yes, she'll still be here. They failed to silence her and they can't destroy her completely because they didn't create her. She will continue to exercise influence, lead, and organize efforts to restore America. Still, they circumscribed her and created such a hostile and vicious environment as to make her choose between her family and her country.

After everything she's endured, from attacks on all side, few reasonable people can seriously question her decision or motives. She's earned plenty of red badges of courage.

The issue was never Sarah Palin. The issue is the radioactive and toxic environment created by those who are willing to undermine our representative republic to promote their own selfish agenda concentrating more power in their own hands.

In this environment, what kind of leaders will willingly subject themselves to the public assault and verbal stoning? Instead of authentic conservatives willing to lead with a servant's heart, Americans will be forced to choose between egomaniacs, elitists, and some suffering from delusions of grandeur.

Certainly all candidates have flaws, including the great President Ronald Reagan. Sarah Palin is no exception. She is not perfect and her path to victory was uncertain. The crime is Americans were denied the opportunity to decide, not because of any doubts she had -- she had none -- Americans were denied the decision because small-minded haters used the tools of hate to deny Americans the choice.

If small groups of radicals and elites in the media can deny American's options in elections, how is our process essentially different from Iran or the former Soviet Union? Does every candidate need to be approved by the media, the bureaucratic elites, and the DC-New York axis of power or face certain personal destruction?

If the system is ever going to change, leaders like Sarah Palin are precisely those who need to be running and winning. The very fact she was an outsider who scared the elites was one of her most prestigious credentials. The fact she decided against running is a powerful indictment of a broken system and a Republic teetering on the brink.