Partial vindication

I predicted that the wingnuts would be pleased with Sarah Palin's performance, and have been kind of surprised there hasn't been even more celebration. Maybe it was the instapolls that brought them right down to earth after it concluded. We'll never know.

David Brooks turns in a spirited effort, going as far as to say that she "established debating parity with Joe Biden" and that "[b]y the end of the debate, most Republicans were not crouching behind the couch, but standing on it." But it feels somehow perfunctory, as if he's just going to go back to burying the GOP ticket and/or the GOP generally in his next column.

And besides that the response to Palin on the right has been pretty subdued... except for one man. One man answered the call and lost all perspective on what he had just witnessed. Ladies and gentlemen, Rich Lowry of the National Review:

Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me."

There's much more. When even the very serious Marc Ambinder is snarking, you know you've embarrassed yourself.