For all those who waited breathlessly last night for Senator John McCain’s appearance on Jay Leno for words of support for Sarah Palin, their faces must be pretty blue today.

There just wasn’t much in the way of words of support for Sarah.

Oh, McCain was grateful and proud of Sarah but sort of dismissive. Kind of like a principal talking about a former teacher he had personally caused to be transferred.

For Joe Lieberman, yeah. McCain’s eyes lit up when he talked about him. Joe’s one of the the good ole boys, yeah.

As quickly as Fox called Ohio for Obama on Election Day, Steve Schmidt scrapped Sarah’s speech, the Republican National Committee was called into action to get rolling against Sarah and her family and the blame game began.

Cindy and John made their stiff goodbyes to the Palin family.

The super secret smurfs of scurrilous attacks and smears began immediately. Actually, that part of the blame Sarah operation had started about a week earlier when the McCain strategists had determined that there was no way that McCain could win.

As soon as Sarah and her family landed in Alaska the press was waiting.

Just like spiders.

The Sarah Palin that arrived home in Alaska wasn’t the corset-bound Sarah the McCain campaign had attempted to keep on the Republican bus. She’s speaking her mind now and revealing herself to be talented, keenly intelligent, devoted to and proud of her state of Alaska and able to give great interviews while preparing food in her kitchen.

I watched Greta van Susteren’s interviews with Sarah Palin with pleasure the past two evenings. I noticed that Sarah’s very careful about cleaning her hands between food preparation and cleanup and in addition that she can discuss politics and policy while slicing cheese.

I taught Home Ec as a long term substitute teacher for six months and it is very difficult to talk to students while preparing food. It takes concentration and talent. I can imagine a very unflappable Sarah Palin in an Oval Office setting after watching her performance in the kitchen.

Camille Paglia writes:

I like Sarah Palin, and I’ve heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is — and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English — big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns — that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee — what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry’s nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama’s pick and who was on everyone’s short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin’s. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.

The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan — nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.

Hat tip: The Anchoress

How wrong I was when at first I hesitated at the news that John McCain had selected Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin as his running mate last August. But that is before I knew her. Now that I know about this strong and resourceful woman I have a feeling that she will be giving liberals and the media conniption fits for many years in the future.

For that I will buy tickets.