I liked Sarah Palin's speech a lot. Eric Zorn allows that the speech was "well-wrought" and that "as an orator, as a presence on the stage, as a personality she was, let's be honest, OK." That sounds like very faint praise, but in context Zorn means she was far from being the embarrassment Democrats prayed she'd be.

I maintain she was way better than OK. I hear the defensive muttering and I dismiss it. The first words that come to mind are "gleefully, shamelessly unfair," and where convention oratory is concerned, there's no higher praise. Palin kicked Barack Obama's ass. Obama, not being in the hall, was in no position to kick back, but Palin showed how to do it. She painted a bright red circle around every one of his vulnerabilities.

She cleared the air. Now Obama knows and we know how the Republicans intend to mock him, belittle him, insinuate against him. The other candidates during the Democratic primary debates had sputtered that Obama was inexperienced. Palin said to America, he's a posturing ninny.

I'm happy to see that my Reader colleague Whet Moser had pretty much the same reaction.

I kept thinking as Palin rattled on, "Now we see what he's made of." Game on.