Even with all the hype, Sarah Palin delivered a knockout speech. I was a bit leery after finding out she would be writing the speech herself, rather than allow a speechwriter to do so. But perhaps we underestimated that small town governor with no experience... For all the talking down of her credentials, people still turned in, with 37.2 million viewers according to Nielsen. As I predicted yesterday, the speech easily blew by the 30 million viewers I originally foretold. It didn't surpass Obama's record setting 38.4 million viewers, but as I mentioned, by getting a viewership of greater than 35 million, the Obama camp is worried. And while she didn't surpass Obama, she edged by Biden's speech with the wee margin of 13.2 million, a 55% increase in viewers. MSNBC's resident jackass Keith Olbermann summed it up best:

Case, I think, closed. If that speech was to be more about tone than content, pitch-perfect. If it was supposed to be more about content than tone, pitch-perfect. If that was supposed to be friendliness and what they call accessibility, couldn’t have done it better. Couldn’t have done it better.

He then went on to add:

It’s wonderful. It really was terrific. And notice—did you notice that throughout that, especially as it built towards its conclusion, the women in that convention hall, the ones we saw at least, we can’t say every one was this way, but there were tears throughout among the women. And it was not a maudlin speech, it was not a—it was not a salesmanship speech, there was just a—I know, I’m beginning to sound borderline sycophantic on this.

Of course, Keith Olbermann wouldn't say a thing like that about Sarah Palin's speech. Didn't you know, she's got an "R" next to her name. No, those comments were about Michelle Obama's speech last week at the DNC. Before blasting her for criticizing the media, CNN had something positive to say:

Well, let's just start with an obvious point that I don't think anyone has made yet. This speech was a heck of a lot better than Joe Biden's speech. I mean, it just was much more dramatic, much more interesting, much more entertaining.

You can watch the speech right here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCDxXJSucF4[/youtube]