‘Cuda Attack!

I’m not going to mince words. Sarah rocked the house! Biden is still licking his wounds.

She got under Biden’s skin, put him a little off his game, and caused him to make some factual errors. See Ace for the 14 lies.

And if you were hoping that Palin would tie the Democrats to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, (and she didn’t)…don’t you fret. It will come. It. will. come.

Michelle Malkin is pumped:

Sarah Palin is the real deal. Five weeks on the campaign trail, thrust onto the national stage, she rocked tonight’s debate.

She was warm, fresh, funny, confident, energetic, personable, relentless, and on message. She roasted Obama’s flip-flops on the surge and tea-with-dictators declarations, dinged Biden’s bash-Bush rhetoric, challenged the blame-America defeatism of the Left, and exuded the sunny optimism that energized the base in the first place.

McCain has not done many things right. But Sarah Palin proved tonight that the VP risk he took was worth it.

Downside?

Watch for a whole new, severe strain of Palin Derangement Syndrome to begin tonight.

They hated her before tonight. They are going to pour on more unfathomable hate at a level we have never seen before.

Sarah, we’re praying for you.

You know what’s funny? Apparently Andrew Sullivan, (SULLY!) lamented the Palin steamrolling of Biden, although he eventually spinned it somehow to Biden’s advantage. Safe Dan Riehl link. (I would never link to that stanky thang!)

More good news: Luntz focus group Independents overwhelmingly think she won the debate.

Peggy Noonan says “she killed”.

A highlight:

“Cuda: “Your plan is a white flag of surrender”:

Jonah Goldberg:

What struck me the most about the debate – and it probably helped having quintessential Obamaphiles in the room – was how Biden’s “gravitas” is derived almost entirely from the fact that he can lie with absolute passion and conviction. He just plain made stuff up tonight. I read a long list tonight in my debate with Beinart here at Wash U, we can visit the details tomorrow.

Just a few: Flatly asserting that Obama never said he’d meet with Achmenijad; that absolute nonsense about spending more in a month in Iraq than we’ve spent in Afghanistan (“let me say it again,” he said as if he was hammering home a real fact); the bit about McCain voting with Obama on raising taxes; his vote in favor of the war etc.

It’s amazing how the impulse to see Biden as the more qualified and serious guy stems almost entirely from his ability to be a convincing b.s. artist. I’m not saying Palin was always honest or unrehearsed, but when she offers up a catchphrase or a talking point, you can tell. When Biden spews up a warm fog of deceitful gassbaggery the response seems to be “what a great grasp of the issues he has!”

Read the whole thing. I was thinking along the same lines.

Heh! You could say David Brooks liked her performance.

An Aussie’s view:

In Palin, the Left has found a new conservative to fear and loathe.

Had she been a community organising Democrat woman who bore a child out of wedlock and favoured affirmative action, abortion on demand, gun laws and gay marriage, they would be saying very different things about her.

Give her a break, they would say. Stop poking fun at her private life. The White House is replete with examples of inexperienced politicians, they would argue.
Palin has attracted the blowtorch from progressives for one reason alone. What really scares them are her conservative views about family, faith and country – not her political inexperience.

And what frightens them even more is the fact that Palin speaks directly to a broader audience of social conservatives whom progressives can never really understand because they don’t want to.

That she spoke in straight-talking language with humour and charm to middle America during yesterday’s debate will mean that after progressives have wiped away their tears of disappointment, they can return to their infuriation at the Palin phenomenon.

She may not win McCain the election come November. But yesterday at Washington University, Palin certainly didn’t lose it for him.

This is just so darn cute of Rich Lowry:

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.” And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can’t be learned; it’s either something you have or you don’t, and man, she’s got it.

“And they called it…Puppy Lo-o-o-ove”….

Photo courtesy of Luciannne.