Reviews of Sarah Palin’s speech last night are all positive, but some are more fun than others. I like the London Sun’s writeup:
A WEEK ago nobody had ever heard of her. Today she is the most talked-about woman in the world. And with good reason.
Sarah Palin’s sensational performance at the Republican Party Convention may turn out to be the tipping point of this rollercoaster American election.
Obama fans hoping she would fluff her big night were in for a nasty shock.
This speech has turned the election upside down. It was simply stunning.
Democrats and their Lefty media backers had been sneering that she was a small town nobody, a hick from the Alaskan sticks put into a job way beyond an inexperienced woman.
Believe me, you will not be hearing that again.
Palin turned out to be an electrifying mix of intelligence, passion, energy, optimism and plain speaking. …
From the moment she walked on stage in this cavernous bear pit, bandbox smart in cream jacket, trim black skirt and black heels, she proved that John McCain knew exactly what he was doing when he picked her as running mate. …
She is popular with voters for the very reason America’s snooty political establishment despises her: She isn’t one of the Washington gang.
She’s a moose-hunting mum of five with a sledge-load of problems behind her own front door that workaday Americans can relate to. …
Compared to the journeyman career politicians dominating both parties here she seemed fresh, natural, one of us and not one of them. …
What will have scared the enemy camp most is the devastating series of prime-time punches she landed on the jutting Obama jaw. Showing steel beneath her magnolia jacket, she slaughtered his lack of experience, his vanity, his emptiness beneath the windy waffle.
It was the most powerful demolition of the Democrat hero I have heard in two weeks on the US election trail. The St Paul audience adored her. …
And when McCain joined the Palin gang – babies and boyfriends and all – on stage after her speech there was a sense of cheeky fun absent from last week’s solemn Obama coronation.
The Sun also came up, somehow, with photos from Palin’s past. Here she is as a kid:
Here, with a caribou she shot:
UPDATE: RedState is reporting that the teleprompter broke half way through Palin’s speech. This explains why, as I noted last night, she started deviating from the prepared text. She apparently delivered the remainder of the speech from memory. She also had the text of the speech on paper at the podium–a useful backup any time you’re using a teleprompter!–and she might have consulted it a time or two during applause breaks, but she certainly didn’t read from it. So what could have been a disaster instead appears to be more evidence of Palin’s steady nerve.
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