From The Daily Show Feb. 8, 2010:

Barack Obama's teleprompter rhetoric is no match for Sarah Palin's hand-scribbled buzzwords.

Chris Matthews talks to former McCain advisor Mark McKinnon and Richard Wolffe about Sister Sarah's flame throwing speech at the National Tea Party Convention this past weekend and her performance there is finally enough to scare the crap out of even Chris Matthews. He blasts her for war mongering on Iran.

MATTHEWS: I don`t know what to make of it. It gets worse, Richard. Let`s look at this. Here she -- asked her about what -- well, should Obama would be -- would it take to defeat Obama in 2012? And here`s what Palin said. This is getting truly scary. This isn`t just not knowing what you`re talking about, or pretending you know what you`re talking about. Here is scary thinking you know what you`re talking about. Let`s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: Say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do. But that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years because I think if the election were today, I do not think Obama would be reelected.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS: You`re not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?

MATTHEWS: I`m not suggesting that. I`m saying if he did, things would dramatically change, if decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Is she a balloon head? I mean, Richard, listen to this. I`m asking the question. She said it would be popular in this country to go to war, to declare war on yet another country with 77 million people and a pretty darn modern air force to fight with. To declare war on Iran would be popular in this country. What world does she -- and then she puts the oath up, like to Israel. What was that putting the hand up, kind of an oath there, and bringing in Israel into this? What did that have to do with anything that`s reasonable?

WOLFFE: Well, number one, I think she suffers from living in a pre- Iraq war mentality, which is that, you know, you can go out and prove you`re tough by invading another country. Two problems with that. First of all, it ignores the fact...

MATTHEWS: Declaring war on Iran, she`s talking about.

WOLFFE: First of all -- right. First of all, it ignores the experience that we had in Iraq. Secondly, her brand is that she`s an authentic politician, that she is somehow bringing a sense of reality to the Washington dynamic. And here in this question, she`s engaging in some nakedly political scenario, role playing, as if it`s acceptable. It isn`t! It isn`t to regular voters. It`s not acceptable to foreign policy folks. I -- I -- you know, what can you say except she`s ripping off Pat Buchanan`s column, apparently.

MATTHEWS: Mark, I don`t get it, declaring war on Iran. I mean, everyone knows that Iran is a hell of a lot more sophisticated country than Iraq, a hell of a lot more fierce a war to take on. To go into a ground war of any kind, even -- I would think the most far-right hawk in the country would say drop a few bombs on them, knock out their plant, their nuclear plant. But the idea of declaring war and going to all-out war with -- well, I don`t know what to make of why she`s doing it and saying that would be popular in this country. Where?

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On Morning Joe, Andrea Mitchell mocks Sarah Palin's crib notes during the National Tea Party Convention by holding up her own hand with notes written on it. When you've finally got Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd throwing you under the bus, you've got problems with ever being taken seriously as a future presidential candidate. They make some comparisons to how Ronald Reagan was treated and not taken seriously and Todd points out that unlike Sarah the quitter, Ronald Reagan didn't quit being the Governor of California just because he thought the job was too hard and if she would run, the other presidential candidates are going to beat her up for this.

Why it's taking this long for some of the media to finally start admitting what's been obvious for a very long time is another story. I guess the crib notes and her partisan, know-nothing attack speech were too much even for them to continue to ignore since they know full well if they don't finally admit how bad she is, the late night comedians, the blogs and the other candidates will tear her up even if they weren't ever going to be willing to do it.

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I don't agree with Mark Halperin about very much, but I agree with him on this one. After a discussion on Sarah Palin going to speak to the Tea Bag Convention and whether or not this is an independent movement or disgruntled Republican voters, Mark Halperin lists the reasons Sarah Palin will never be President.

Brzezinski: Mark Halerin is there a third party wave brewing? Is it real?

Halperin: It’s real and there for someone who has a lot of money that they could spend tens of millions on a campaign and who had real ideas about how to unite left and right because there is commonality such as going after Wall Street. I see no such person. Can I state three other reasons why to date Sarah Palin will never be president?

Brzezinski: Yeah.

Halperin: One is that Republican elites behind her back think she’d be horrible for the party. Two is, she’s not appealing to anybody but a narrow slice of American life and she’s heading more and more in that direction based on her rhetoric.

And finally and I think it’s best for the country. She has no ideas. She stands for nothing specific. To go into an event like that with the opportunity to say “I hear you disaffected Democrats” and here’s where we need to go. Great opportunity—she wasn’t woken up and kidnapped and flown to this event.

It’s been on her schedule for a long time. To come in so ill prepared for both the event and the interview with no ideas I think forfeits any claim on being a credible national leader right now.

Anyone believe Halperin or the rest of them are just figuring this out now? I sure don't. Don't you just love Peggy Noonan making sure everyone knows what John noted here earlier—that Sarah Palin now owns the tea bag movement which has been co-opted by the Republican Party and Fox News. But that’s been obvious since Dick Armey and Tim Phillips and other astroturfers got in there and started planning rallies. She made sure to let the rest of the cast know that these people will be voting for Republicans even though she and Mike Barnicle tried to act like there were a bunch of disaffected Democrats in that crowd. I doubt there were very many of them if any.

Noonan also claims there were a thousand people watching her. I thought they were only trying to sell 600 tickets and they couldn’t get those to sell out? Nothing like over-hyping the crowd size and calling it a movement when we had quite a few more show up for events like Netroots Nation. They weren’t giving that prime time live coverage on all the cable news stations and saying that the Democrats had better listen to the netroots or they were going to be in trouble the next election.