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Columnist David Brooks is a conservative that isn't blindly devoted to former Gov. Sarah Palin. "She's a joke. I can't take her seriously," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday. "The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the republican nomination, believe me, it will never happen. Republican primary voters are not going to elect a talk show host," said Brooks.

But the other conservative on the panel with Brooks wasn't buying into the Palin frenzy either. George Will thinks Republicans can do better. "Some conservatives think they have found in Sarah Palin a Republican William Jennings Bryan. Now, Why would they want someone who lost the presidency three times?" asked Will.

John Amato: David Brooks has never been much of a fan of Palin. This is from a piece in Oct, 2008:

[Sarah Palin] represents a fatal cancer to the Republican party.
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But there has been a counter, more populist tradition, which is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely. And I'm afraid that Sarah Palin has those prejudices. I think President Bush has those prejudices.

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There's a whole lot of rationalizing going on in media circles over the laughable and admitted stump-speech-disguised-as-a-Vice-Presidential-debate last week. Moderator Gwen Ifill apparently thinks that if the candidates themselves weren't worried about staying on topic or engaging one another, it wasn't her job to make them do so.

The understanding was that we were going to have a debate. And one of the interesting things about debates, that people forget -- especially with this one, there was so much obsession about Sarah Palin -- is that there are two people on stage. And their job – you know this, you’re doing this Tuesday night – are to debate each other. The moderator’s job is to control their debate. If they have decided, as Joe Biden decided, that he was going to debate John McCain and she decided she was going to give a stump speech to the American people, there’s very little a moderator can do, other than say, “No, no, no, listen, I ask the questions! Please, please answer!” So I guess I knew going in that they all had their goals for that debate.

I was taken, going in, it can now be said, by how many of the questions that people volunteered to me were all about her. There was 99%, I would say, was all about her. 99% of the analysis afterward were about her. It was as if Joe Biden wasn’t part of this deal. And if she wasn’t challenged on the things she said that were not completely correct, or if she wasn’t challenged on changing the subject and answering the questions, by her competitor, I had another job to do at the table.

By her own admission, Ifill recognizes that it's the moderator's job to control the debate--and says that Palin "blew her off"--but since neither of the candidates called out the other for not following the debate rules, she has "another job at the table". Um, huh?

Why bother having a moderator at that point, Ifill? What other job was monopolizing your time?

Transcripts below the fold:

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Saturday Night Live offers yet another instant classic with their take on last week's Vice Presidential Debate:

IFILL: Now, tonight’s discussion will cover a wide range of topics, including domestic and foreign policy matters. Each candidate will have 90 seconds to respond to a direct question and then an additional two minutes to for rebuttal and follow up. As moderator, I will not ask any follow up questions beyond, “Do you agree?” or “Your response?” So as to not appear biased for Barack Obama in light of my new book, The Breakthrough: Politics of Race in the Age of Obama, coming out on Inauguration Day and available for pre-order on Amazon.com. And finally, we would like to remind our audience that , due to the historically low expectations for Gov. Palin, were she simply to do an adequate job tonight, and at no point cry, faint, run out of the building or vomit, you should consider the debate a tie. All right, let’s begin. Sen. Biden, how as Vice President would you work to shrink the gap of polarization that has sprung up in Washington?

BIDEN: Well, I would do what I’ve done my whole career , whether it’s been dealing with violence against women or putting 100,000 police officers on the streets. I would reach across the aisle. Like I’ve done with so many members of the other party. Members like John McCain. Because look, I love John McCain. He is one of my dearest friends. But at the same time, he is also dangerously unbalanced. I mean, let’s be frank. John McCain – and again, this is a man I would take a bullet for – is bad at his job and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, God love him, but he’s a raging maniac. And a dear, dear friend.

IFILL: Gov. Palin, how would your administration deal with the current financial crisis?

PALIN: Well, first of all , let me say how nice it is to meet Joe Biden. And may I say, up close, your hair plugs don’t look nearly as bad as everyone says. You know, John McCain and I, we’re a couple of mavericks, and gosh darn it, we’re gonna take that maverick energy right to Washington and we’re gonna use it to fix this financial crisis and everything else that’s plaguin’ this great country of ours.

IFILL: How would you solve the financial crisis by being a maverick?

PALIN: You know, we’re gonna take every aspect of the crisis and look at it and then we’re gonna ask ourselves, “what would a maverick do in this situation?” and then, you know, we’ll do that.