Former Republican John Cole on Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin is the distilled essence of wingnut. She has it all. She is dishonest. She is a religious nut. She is incurious. She is anti-science. She is inexperienced. She abuses her authority. She hides behind executive privilege. She is a big spender. She works from the gut and places a greater value on instinct than knowledge.

And most dangerous of all, she is supremely self-confident to the point of not recognizing how ill-equipped she is to lead the country.

Why do you think they love her so? But Cole really nails it here:

George Bush in a dress. The Palin interview should be a gut-check for Republicans and conservatives who think the last eight years has been a perversion of conservative principles. I am betting most of them will not even put down their pom-poms, though.

Conservatives are trying to rescue the reputation of their battered ideology by claiming that Bush was either incompetent, or not a good enough conservative. It may be laughable, but they've got to somehow explain away why conservatism has failed this country so disastrously. Their ideology is sacrosanct, infallible. Conservatism can't fail, only people can fail conservatism. Yet as Cole notes, the very qualities that made Bush such a failure are perfectly encapsulated in Palin (with a healthy dose of Cheney-style abuse of power for added spice).