I don't know whether any diarist has touched on this, but I think it is worth noting.
Palin is terrified.
She has been protected from scrutiny by a wall of silence that is unprecedented even in GOP circles. There must be a reason for a public relations policy that accepts this embarrassment, and as we all know here, it is because she can't be trusted to open her mouth in public without a script to read from.
Sooner or later she will have to, and she is terrified of that day. Right now she is in a protected comfort zone of screened audiences and rote speeches, but that can't go on until election day.
As a practiced politician, she can handle the rehearsed events and look confident while doing so, but that does not change the fact that this woman knows she is in over her head. Maybe it's too much to ask that she crumbles like a witness in front of Perry Mason, but she will eventually be revealed, and she knows it.
And that is what terrifies her. We should keep in mind that we are looking at a very scared woman.
Too long for a comment, and short for a diary, but that is all I had this morning. You may now resume serious discussions.