Ms. Parker is far too kind to Gov. Palin. Not only is she uninformed on issues crucial to national leadership, her "brand image" is a sham. Far from the champion of clean, open government unreliant on earmarks that she has proclaimed: she has accepted some $25,000 worth of gifts since becoming governor, including gifts from lobbyists with business before the state; after campaigning for governor in support of the Bridge, she quietly canceled it after it became notorious, and kept much of the money, including enough to build "the road to nowhere", the approach to a bridge that won't be built; while she did reduce the amount of earmarks she requested from her predecessor, she took almost $400 million worth, less than the amount she gave away from the oil company tax she imposed -- i.e., she bought popularity with local tax money while building infrastructure with Federal earmarks; she promised to cooperate with the abuse of power investigation and now refuses, opting instead for a much more secretive process before a board she can fire -- so much for transparency; she became mayor of a debt-free Wasilla and left it nearly $20 million in debt -- about $3000 per person; she hired Wasilla's first lobbyist who got Wasilla $27 million in Federal earmarks over a few years, averaging $1000 a year in earmarks per person, the waaaay highest in the nation, including earmarks to which Mr. McCain objected. Which brings us to the bigger issue, what this says about Mr. McCain. I assume the senator did not know of the above record. So what Ms. Parker also fails to mention is what this says about Senator McCain's decision making skills. "Impetuous" is an adjective usually used after "young and..." Now it has to be applied to the nominee. "Old and impetuous...." That's not a good thing in a president. So while it's good to see the rose colored Sarah Palin glasses start to come off the eyes of conservatives, they have a lot more still to acknowledge about the dangerous weaknesses of their candidates.