Live blogging

Andrew Sullivan's live blogging of Palin's speech was more interesting than the speech itself. Sullivan, a former conservative whose hero is Reagan, gay, Catholic, bright, is an interesting commentator. He also has become one of the most vocal critics of Palin and is, in fact, terrified of her potential to harm this country. In a way, I hope she is the Republican nominee in 2012 so we can get this show down over with. Then I might still be around to see the results. But it's astonishing to see all this only one year after such an historic election -- although "all this" well may be grossly exaggerated by the media. Yes, let's have a show down, let the right fringe put up or shut up.

Highlights from Sullivan:

9.30 pm. The first mention of the debt after half an hour. This is a brutal, take-no-prisoner attack on Obama. She's running for president.

9.33 pm. Again, she's reprising fantasies of her alleged record in Alaska as fiscally conservative and reformist. "Get government out of the way." On healthcare, she favors meaningful "market reforms." The same old "across state lines purchases" and tort reform. That's it. Nothing else.

9.42 pm. Now the resentment. "Considering a candidate's children fair game." She's railing against the "elitists". Her invocation of Ronald Reagan is, to me, sickening.And in the peroration, the key proof of her being a genuine person: her son, Trig, and people with special needs. That has gotten the biggest applause of the night. It will be code for banning abortion. And she will be its talisman.

9.46 pm. There is no question in my mind that Palin is the leader of the opposition in this country. And there is no question in my mind that she is the leader of the Tea Party movement. Listening to her completely content-free rehash of every Fox News truism, underlined with the classic claim that Obama is on the side of the terrorists and is incapable of being commander-in-chief. Cheneyism is behind her.

Q&A

9.51 pm. She says that the key to the future is to seek "divine intervention." Reliance on the Creator. Maybe God can balance the budget.

9.56 pm. Her plan: support those who understand the foundation of our country. Free market principles, hard work, and then in national security: "We win. They lose." By they, she means, I think, Islamism. But how do we win? Does she think we "won" under Bush and Cheney? Again, there's nothing here but slogans and cliches - no specifics, no proposed cuts, no actual strategic arguments in foreign policy. Just fight our enemies and win.

My favorite summary after the speech: a cogent speech for a policy that was incomprehensible.