It was in the news this morning that McCain campaign staff was writing Sarah Palin's speech. How, then, to evaluate Palin herself?

I'm taking a few minutes away from the serious newscasts on Comedy Central to watch Wolf Blitzer literally praise her for her skill in reading a teleprompter:

And if there was any doubt that she could deliver a speech like that, Campbell, she dispelled that because she certainly -- it's not easy reading that teleprompter and knowing how to pause and that delivery. It was a well written speech. And she not only hit a home run, it might have been even a grand slam.

She didn't write the "well-written speech", but she's good at reading it off a teleprompter. Mind you, you might have to go phonetic with some of the tougher words, like "nuclear", but if you do that, you'll get a very effective delivery. A delivery for which Blitzer's mixed panel of network staff, Republican operatives, and former Republican operatives now on network staff also lathered her with legitimate, high praise.

So if this veep thing doesn't work out, I'm sure she can make a ton of money in commercial voice-over work, where quick, accurate, effective reading off a teleprompter is pretty much the whole of the job.

And if she does make it, and folks like me object to what the new administration is doing with social programs, I'm sure at some point someone's going to dust off Pat Moynihan's old line about the soft bigotry of low expectations.