Palin needs to get on TV -- real TV, not just 20-second "stories" with 5-second sound bites -- ASAP. The thug who is heading the phony "troopergate" investigation is clearly part of the campaign now -- against her. The Dems will use as many of these Alaskan surrogates, including disgruntled corrupt Republicans and their friends and kinfolk, against Palin ASAP. You can bet these vermin will be ALL OVER the media. Sarah needs to be as well, before her initially good image is ruined. Yeah, she'll make a mistake now and then in interviews. The risk is minuscule in comparison with the risk of keeping her quiet. Like Ken Starr and Robert Bork, for instance. Or, for that matter, George W. "change the tone" Bush. In addition to getting Palin out there immediately, we need to TRASH everyone and anyone who says a substantive word against her. Whether Palin was a smart choice or not, she's a great lady and deserves a 110 percent, broken-glass defense ON THOSE GROUNDS ALONE. In addition, there's the little matter of the future of the country and the world. Kiss both goodbye if Obama wins, ladies and gentlemen. It's that serious. Peggy Noonan is quite right when she says this campaign is going into a "dark place." The enemy will be fighting us harder than we naive, milquetoast conservatives can imagine.
We need to respond in kind or it's all over.

I was with you 110% (even as I hate that overused and nonsensical verbage--or is it a "numerage") and I was going to write an unequivocal song of praise for you until I pressed on and saw that your barrel started to go over the falls there, Plain Vanilla Con. Whoa! Slow down. Your first counsel is wise . . . she should do as you say and get out there ahead of the story. But in defending her we don't have to act like storm troopers to our friends and fellow Americans if they aren't inclined to toe the line you fancy. I think there is still room for the skeptical. Even I was skeptical until I heard her speak and saw that she had the command of herself (and her family) that others had argued she did. It will be bad if Barack Obama wins. But it won't be "all over" until we start singing the kind of tune you're dangerously close to humming in your breathless closing lines.

I agree with Jule. She has to be tough, but not angry.

Plain Vanilla Con's partisanship burns hot, like that of many others on both the left and the right. We'll survive it, but it is worrisome. Environmentalists talk about "sustainability." Partisanship, too, is best when it is sustainable. American partisanship should want to survive defeat without demoralization, and to survive victory without vainglory. That requires both toughness and Julie's "skepticism", a skepticism that remembers underlying political friendship. I recall that in 1968 and 1972, some young people strutted about, giving the system "one more chance" to agree with them. A generation of activists thereafter retreated to quiescence or - some say - to trying (vainly) to proselytize their students. To believe that our elections are Good versus Evil is to disbelieve in the American republic. Some such people, ironically, continue to tout American exceptionalism and, still more ironically, continue to disdain "European" ideas.

Teevee won't give Sarah a break. Any appearance would be double-edged. She's better off campaigning live, introducing Mac, whacking Obama now and then, flashing her smile, and shaking hands with the many people, especially women, who come to see her because they identify with her ordinariness, the real change she represents. She has the common touch and she should use it to the hilt.