Some here seem to have done both. Last night, having seen the short one, I thought she sounded manic. Since then, I've watched the whole thing at the Alaska station website KTUU. She does set up more of a context, and talks more fully about frivolous (sic) ethics lawsuits, etc. Then she goes more off track (er, out of bounds, bad point guard!) near the end, in the second clip.

Like most here, I think quitting (midterm) your elected office for anything smaller than a terminal diagnosis of self or a femily member; or moving to a larger elected office (and sometimes that is dicey, too) indicates no sense of government service. And Palin, being herself, is difficult enough. But I was struck at the different impression watching these two parts made, even though there didn't seem to be obvious editing, aside from time, or getting to the meat of her remarks.

I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that it was Rush Limbaugh who called Chelsea Clinton the "White House dog." McCain said some pretty despicable things during his campaign, but he did not stoop quite that low.

which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding Dong the wicked witch is dead.

....politically speaking, let's hope.

Now maybe her successor will be someone with a shred of decency and will stop the senseless cruel slaughter of Alaska's wolves.

It was Limbaugh that called Chelsea Clinton the White House dog. But in 1998 McCain did tell a tastless joke about Chelsea at some republican gathering, "why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father." Real knee slapper huh?

Your assessment of Palin's appeal is somewhat inaccurate. Rasmussen polled her on independents this spring and found 30% strongly favorable, 15% strongly unfavorable, and did not report on the breakdown in the middle (Rasmussen is a big fan, for some reason, of the strong pro and con analysis).

In every assessment of Republican "favorability" since spring, Palin has beaten all comers -- mowed them down like grass, as Charles Howard said of Seabiscuit -- and the categories are interesting. She wins handily among conservatives, pretty well among semi-conservatives, and closely among moderates. In outright "who would you vote for?" polls (as opposed to personal favorability), Palin has finished first or second in every one, and if you average them, she's first.

Pew reported recently that Palin is 20 points ahead of her nearest rival on personal favorability within the party, and nationwide among all voters, it's either 44-43 or 43-42 favorable with the rest undecided. That's improved over the trough she was in on election day. It no doubt needs to improve more.

Here's a prediction. I think Palin, after swerving like a fox out of her governorship, is now going to pivot and try to emulate William McKinley in 1896. With Mark Hanna's help, the Republicans raised a fortune and hammered their message home in "every town and village." In other words, they became the overdog, not the underdog. Why do I think this? 1. Her self-description in the Runners World interview, re: her dogged preparation for the next steps in her life. 2. Fund raising ability. 3. Getting out now to prepare a real foundation for future success.

Sure, she'll get dinged for quitting early, but that seems a little trite. How emotional can you really get about passing the ball to an apparently competent lieutenant governor? And remember, she's in no way committed to running in 2012. She can bide her time entirely and watch the game unfold.

One final thought. Liberals are wont to say: she's another G.W. Bush. In my view, Bush had two faults: (1) sending in the infantry to Iraq and (2) not apprehending Greenspan's monetary growth mistakes. On the second of the two, conservatives are starting to catch on. On the first, Palin's having a son in the army is very important to me in understanding how she would approach foreign affairs.

Look at uber-hawk Douglas MacArthur, who advised JFK against sending the infantry to Vietnam. The experience of war, first hand or with a child, I think makes you more like Colin Powell in terms of force. And that makes Sarah Palin distinguishable from George Bush. She can still be an uber-hawk when it comes to victory, but not a chicken hawk when it comes to initiating new conflicts. (It also makes her deeply sympathetic, in my heart, having the guts to put one kid on the front line, and giving birth to another with special needs).

Palin is going to get stronger now that she is unfettered by the governorship.

And joanie will increase the vitriol and antifeminisim.

"You are naïve if you don't see a full court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard,"

A good point guard knows how to break a full court press.

About half the press at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC will be laid off and have to find jobs now that their dart board is gone.

I'm not the only one that thinks politics has become fit only for the worst, least intelligent, and most sociopathic in society.

Mark Steyn has a great article about it on NRO - you should read it, it'd do you good!

Always enjoy reading your posts guys.

Reader, you know you have definitely made an impression here. But expecting to actually convince people is ambitious. I figure if I can get one out of a 1,000 to stop and think WTF for a second or two, I'm ahead of the game.

Faulkner, always enjoy your posts as well. You've been spot on about Sarah in this thread, in my (always) not humble opinion.

I disagree with youse guys (and Jon Stewart, bless his pointed little head) and Red (etc) about Obama and the economy. It's not Obama's stock market. That would be socialist. Judging the health of the economy based on the stock market is a good way to lose money. And red, if we have a Japanese style missing decade, that's not the worst outcome; that beats the 1930's hands down.

The reality is that any stimulus plan is going to take more than 2 quarters to show up. That's why many economists don't like government spending. It's crude and shows up late. Also, we are dealing with giant asset bubbles (many trillions) that go at least back to the late 1990s. So it takes willful ignorance to blame Obama for that. We can (and should) hold Obama responsible for any remedies he advocates, but we have to understand that it's going to take awhile. And Red, do you really think people will stop trying to make money, just to prove Obama wrong? That sounds really un-American.