Alaska Dispatch

Former Gov. Sarah Palin's speech Saturday to close out the first National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn., certainly did not disappoint people who expect her to announce her candidacy for president in 2012. You can watch her full speech and the subsequent, sympathetic Q&A, here, from CSPAN (via YouTube) -- and keep an ear out at about 15:12. At that point in her speech, Palin (accidentally, we assume) inserted the word "Alaska" where the context had us (and probably everyone else) expecting "America" or "The U.S." We're still trying to figure out what implications might lurk behind that mix-up.

At any rate, MSNBC's "First Read" has posted a useful round-up page of links to reports and columns about her speech from major news outlets, here. The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan live-blogged during the speech itself, focusing mainly on the speech's lack of specific policy solutions to the many problems Palin spoke of. Sullivan also made subsequent posts after the broadcast that are worth reading, here, and here. A few commentators have noted that Palin's speech contained a great deal more foreign policy material than they expected from a speech to a political group that until then had leaned toward isolationism. A blogger and tea-party movement supporter writes in the Nashville Post's "post politics" blog that Palin's focus on international matters and frequent invocation of Ronald Reagan's name should be clues to Tea Party members that Palin's address was intended, whether on her part or on the GOP's, to "co-opt the name [of the movement] and claim the brand," calling her speech "a partisan republican address." Also, Raw Story found basis lacking for a few of her attacks on President Obama's national security policy. Talking Points Memo has a recap column, tangentially referring to Palin, that focuses on the tea party movement's "dark underbelly" that came to light last weekend.

But, probably the funniest part to come out of the speech in Nashville is the revelation that Palin had brief crib notes written on her left hand in black ink. Stefan Sirucek posted exclusive photos at The Huffington Post, here. What's more, Entertainment Weekly found a spot in the post-speech Q&A session where -- indisputably -- Palin can be seen consulting that hand while searching for an answer. Read more about that, and see the short video clip here.  Breitbart.com reports that Palin had "Hi Mom" written in larger script on the same hand on Sunday (the day after the Tea Party speech) at a rally in Texas for Gov. Rick Perry. This entire cheat sheet nonsense might or might not have been contrived as a bit of cynical political theater, but either way, it's pretty funny.