It turns out, according to this lady I’m watching on the Colbert Report, that nine out of forty-four Vice-Presidents have become Presidents, either through assassination, death of natural causes, or resignation.

Which means we’re starting with a base 20% chance of losing any President.  It’s also been a while, which doesn’t raise the odds, but seems to.  And since McCain would be the oldest President ever elected (for a first time) we can kick that up to an even 50%.

So…is this sarcastic, smart-ass person 50% of a President?

read more, and the fact-checking after the jump…

Basically the speech was the same one she gave in Dayton, OH.  The main difference was that McCain wasn’t behind her staring at her ass.  The other was that she spent a good half of the speech in vicious attack dog mode.  Really.  Sarcastic and nasty.  Making fun of people that try and serve their communities and talk about how Wasilla is bigger and more diverse than Chicago.

I found the speech rather underwhelming, a bit short on hard facts and reasoned analysis.  Waaay long on partisan and personal attacks.  As I’ve mentioned previously here, this woman has some seriously whacked out basic viewpoints. I also noticed a whole bunch of talk about “reform” but not a lot of specifics about what needs to be reformed into what.  From what I can tell, it’s the Republican party that is corrupt and needs to do some house cleaning.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone run on the platform of “Elect Us Because We’ll Clean Up Our Corrupt Party”.  And then got a standing ovation for it.  Ted Stevens is currently being tossued under those dump trucks he was so fond of.

Oh, and she’s got a retard baby.  Really, they kept showing it on TV.  Her husband even made it wave.  It was very cute.

I’ve got nothing against retard babies.  And I’ve got nothing against pregnant teens.  I do have something against politicians with the viewpoints that it appears a mother of a pregnant teen with a retard baby shares, if ya follow.

In all seriousness, I heard very, very little policy discussion, a whole bunch of POW, a number of sarcastic low-blows, some obviously rehearsed “furriner” country names, and a long family introduction.

I was thinking, maybe, possibly, I might hear something that would convince me she wasn’t a radical fundy, who had some real intellectual curiousity about the world and how it works together.  Instead she laughed at the idea that the world is a community.  Since she didn’t even attempt to talk about what she actually believes and/or why she thinks that way on any number of topics…I have to go with what I’ve read and heard other places.

Ultimately, I think we are still in joke territory.  I’ll predict polls with Obama over 10% by next week and maybe 12% the next.  Then it gets interesting when the Republicans panic or Obama admits he really is an America-hating-secret-Muslim-married-to-an-oil-man-who-fires-cop-for-revenge and things get really interesting.

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UPDATE: Oh, she is fraked.  Big time.

I expected a good speech, and I expected to blog that it didn’t make much of a difference: She’s still not qualified for the job. But I am surprised by Palin and her team of speechwriters, with whom she has been sequestered since Friday.

I expected more about what she and John McCain would do for the country, not all these immature cheap shots at Obama.

And just to be clear here: I have never voted for a Democrat above the county level in my life. But I am so tired of tearing down and mocking opponents, of implying that people who disagree with you do not love their country just as much as you do, and of empty rhetoric attacking empty rhetoric.

Aside fromenergy policy (which I agreed with 100 percent), this was a speech devoid of a hint of what she might actually attempt to accomplish in office. It was 10 percent a family history, 10 percent an hommage to McCain and 80 percent a schoolyard attack on Obama.

That’s from the pretty-damn-conservative Dallas Morning News.

UPDATE2: Some fact-checking.

I thought Palin’s speech was quite good: well-written, well delivered. And, as I said earlier, I think she’s a genuinely engaging person, and comes across very well. There were just a couple of problems. One, which I have seen people notice, but which I suspect won’t be a big deal for a lot of voters, is that it had very little substance. The other, which the commenters I saw on TV for some reason neglected to mention, was that she told a lot of lies.

The author then goes through a list of the biggest whoppers that got huge cheers up in Minn-a-soda.

UPDATE3: The liberal media elites who-know-nothing respond…

Small-Town Ways Will Play Big Across U.S. – Chicago Tribune
Sarah Palin’s Perfect Premier- New York Daily News
Palin Rises Above the Feeding Frenzy- Boston Herald
Major-League Performer- Time Magazine
Sarah Palin’s Breakout Night- Time Magazine
Alaskans love their hockey mom VP candidate- CNN.com
Palin fires fresh salvo in GOP’s ‘elite’ fight- MSNBC
McCain Driven to Serve, Succeed- MSNBC

Ya, damn those liberal media idiots! They’re only half-heartedly giving Palin a reacharound for last night.

Via fark comments.