It was a strange and disconcerting experience, watching the press conference in which Sarah Palin, for reasons known only to herself, ended her political career. Our country is surely better off for it. It's a little frightening to contemplate someone that unstable a heartbeat away from possession of nuclear codes.

In her press conference, she spoke of herself as a point guard. Here in Utah, we've had considerable experience, both in the past and recently, with excellence at the point guard position. And Gov. Palin is right when she says that the job of a point guard is to break a full-court press and pass the ball to a teammate.

But a good point guard doesn't follow a good pass by walking off the court.

Eric Samuelsen

Provo