Rockwell likes Palin but can't imagine it ending well...

From Lew Rockwell on Palin's past, present, and prophesied future (at least if McCain wins)...

The frenzied reaction of the middle class all over the country toward Sarah Palin has no real precedent that I can remember....completely understandable. She provides a much welcome cultural break from the chip-on-the-shoulder, grudge-against-the-world model of public women that have been held up to us for years, embodied in the belligerent and insufferable person of Hillary Clinton.

Sarah, on the other hand, is both beautiful and professionally accomplished, a wife and mother and a natural politician, both religious and secular, both feminine and fears no tasks such as hunting that are usually associated with men....

What's more, her political outlook has much to recommend it, from what we can gather so far. There is a libertarian impulse here. She has rejected the perks of public life in favor of common sense. She is friendly to business interests but unfriendly to special privileges. She has praised Ron Paul and rejected the party mentality of GOP regulars.

It strikes many people as a brilliant choice on McCain's part, and I would agree. Social conservatives have forgiven all of McCain's deviations. Many people who just last week didn't give a fig about whether he wins or loses have come around completely....

Now, the sad part begins. The first job of anyone who works for the government – and that is the job of the vice president – is to echo the line of the government....It really comes down to a matter of job loyalty....

When a decent person accepts a job such as vice president, our first instinct is to celebrate that good people are in a position of power and influence. This is what the McCain campaign is counting on. But this is an illusion. The influence runs completely the other way. Good people become part of the party machine and surrender all their principles in order to survive....

There is something about Sarah I really like, especially that she seems to have had some sympathy for an Alaskan secession movement, which, contrary to media hysteria, is a perfectly reasonable and liberal position to take. But you can be sure that if she plans to be a successful vice president under a McCain administration, all of this will be swept under the carpet and her primary accomplishment in life will have been to dupe many people into supporting an administration that promises to be the worst thing that has happened to this country since Bush was sworn in.