I'm pretty disappointed as well. I hope that she can perform the role she's chosen to the best of her ability. I think she has the ability to be a true king-maker and agenda-setter. We shall see.

The closer the announcement, the more I thought she'd run. Especially with Perry imploding and Christie also declining. So much for my political instincts. Just goes to show it's not about her, it's about the people. The people (Tea Party) are the ones who are going to affect change. I think (and Palin too) that it doesn't matter who's in charge as long as they're doing OUR bidding for once. I suppose the focus would be on her too much if she were president and nothing would get done just like in Alaska. I swear her enemies would rather destroy their own country than give her anything. This way, even a Romney (shudder) would have to submit to the Tea Party. I'd like to see OJ's head explode when he sees that.

I don't think I'll even read Judd for a few days, to avoid the crowing. I doubt he'll be a gentleman.

But in a way focusing on the presidency can be a mistake, a diversion, if we ignore the thousands of other battles and messes, state and local. I hope she'll be popping up everywhere, encouraging the troops. This may be for the best long run.

I think we have to chalk this up as a win for the proglodytes. One is left wondering why so many putatively on our side (like OJ) participated so willingly in this personal destruction.

My own theory is that most people react to symbols, rather than consciously thinking. And Palin is a symbol of the possibility that the changes we need now are so big that they can't be done by those who are inside the system, those who are part of the "establishment." That this is one of those times when the outsiders have to take over, because the insiders can't think "outside the box."

It's an "everything you thought you knew is wrong" time. And know-it-all's like OJ feel threatened. He's the classic example of the danger of being really bright--his clever ideas are so real to him that they are all he can see.

OJ's the ultimate smart-aleck little brat kid, whose glee is to stump the grown-ups. Rather than learn something new.

I think you are reading OJ wrong. Conservatives, as a rule, have ground they will fight and die for. But it's varies from Conservative to Conservative. For you and others, quitting the Alaska Governorship was either no big deal or the right thing to do. OJ, I think, saw it as being hounded from office, showing she was too weak for the national stage. I don't believe that, but it is a defensible position.

You could well be right. My take on this was that he was dead set against Sarah from the beginning, and quitting the governorship was just an excuse.

There's a fine lie, hard to pin down, between thinking up a theory and accumulating evidence that supports it... And thinking up a theory and then being blind to any evidence that doesn't support it.

(Of course at those times when his theories happen to be the same as mine, I am far more indulgent of any intellectual sins he may commit.)

Actually, the tip-off with Judd is that he doesn't welcome those who don't agree with him to his commenting community.

A truth-seeker welcomes challenges.

I think you are reading OJ wrong. Conservatives [...]

I think you are reading OJ wrong -- he's not a Conservative, he's a Progressive in conservative guise. Why? Because he believes in the transformative power of the State to make people better. Just read anything he writes about gasoline taxes or public transportation.

I also remember this as Mr. Weidner does, that OJ soured on Palin long before she resigned from the governorship. For me, it's not that it wasn't a big deal, but I put the fault far more on the proglodytes and also on the conservatives who abandoned her before that (like OJ) so she didn't feel anyone had her back in the fight. They just tossed her to the wolves rather than stand and fight. They quit before Palin did. Without that support, she had no choice but to make a strategic withdrawal. Blaming Palin is just making excuses for their own failure.

being blind to any evidence that doesn't support it

You mean by, for instance, editing other people's comments that contained that evidence?

Did he really? Big baby.