So, Anchoress, what do you think of Palin, now?

I’ve had several – more than several, actually – emails from both left and right asking me what I think of Gov. Sarah Palin in her performances over the past weeks and what I think will happen at the debate.

From the left the missives have been jeering. They remind me a little of Edward G. Robinson saying, “ya, yah, how do you like yer Moses, now?”

From the right, I get hand-wringing…”what do you think, will she pull it off???”

I have no idea how Palin will do at the debate because none of us have seen enough of her – unfiltered through media edits – in the past month to know her very well.

But I think McCain made a HUGE mistake in not simply letting her go out into the stream right after the convention. He should have let her go – like a wild salmon – and allowed her to sink or swim on her own flippers and her own instincts. Instead, he plucked her out, put her in a tank and tried to refine her. And I hope he has not ruined her, or by shielding her destroyed the instincts that would have kept her alive out among the grizzlies.

A wild salmon is much tastier and feistier and more exotic than a farmed one. They’re also healthier fish, and healthier food. Now, Palin – tanked for a month – may not be the same wild, intriguing thing she was. The problem is, she won’t be the optimumly mellowed thing the McCain camp seems to have wanted – there wasn’t enough time for that.

So…she’s just going to be a fish out of water.

There. Have I used the fish metaphor to death?

Here’s another. In Palin, McCain picked a diamond in the rough. He then proceeded to try to overgrind and overpolish it, until it was too smooth, unnatural-seeming, and – because it no longer had ANY edge – lacking value. He has done NOTHING to release its intrinsic brilliance and glow.

Hmmmm….do I seem pessimistic about Palin’s chances in debate?

I’m not really. I have no idea what is going to happen. Palin may come out overprepped, overstimulated and too flat to do much but hurt herself, or she may surprise everyone and reveal a core strength that could not be destroyed in all of this over-handling from the right and poison from the left.

Given the utter hatred the press has for her, and the venom of the left, Palin will have to do ten times better than Biden, simply to get a grudging “well, she didn’t totally blow it.” And she’s going to have to do five times better than Biden to convince some on the right, as well.

So…this debate has now – thanks to some bad judgment on the part of the McCain camp, and the press’ unrelenting nastiness (yes, yes, I know that the Boston Globe had a front page lie about the rape kits today, and I linked to it!) – the veep debate may be the hour which Palin was meant to face her whole life.

I hope she’s up for it. And yes, I’ll pray for her good. Because so many people and deatheaters are directing such hate toward her, that it seems only fair to do so.

But my expectations are nil. I have NO idea what to expect. What she’s capable of and what she’ll deliver may be two different things.

Patterico is worried and becoming disenchanted with Palin