Saracuda ROCKS THE HOUSE! (Updating with new links all day)

I was afraid to get my hopes up last night - I mean, I adore Sarah Palin, I think she's a breath of sorely-needed fresh air, and I think she's a brilliant choice to the Republican nominee for Vice-President, but I've had high hopes dashed before.

Well. What the heck was I worrying about?! Michael Steele was wonderful at the beginning, although I didn't hear all of his speech. Mitt Romney seemed a bit rushed, and although he made some good points, he didn't get me revved up. Huckabee started slowly, but finished strong. Gov. Lingle of Hawaii was a surprise and delivered an excellent speech in a rather wooden manner (again, excellent points, just not terribly exciting).

And then Giuliani came out... Wow! I hadn't heard him give a long speech before, and ooooooooo he scored some serious hits! He spoke for just under 30  minutes, engaged the crowd, and got them revved. Here's the video of his remarks as delivered, and here is a link to his remarks as prepared. There are quite a few additions, starting early in the speech, and I think they make the speech far stronger: watch closely!

But then Sarah Palin came out onto stage, and the house... ROARED!!!! Oh, the welcome she got! And boy, did she step up to the plate and live up to that welcome (UPDATE: here's a link to the actual transcript)... John Hawkins at Right Wing News has a 3 and a half minute highlight video:

My only disappointment in her appearance was that the RNC didn't blast Heart's song, "Barracuda" through the speakers ;-)

And don't you just love Piper Palin? That shot of her spit-combing Trig's hair is just adorable! That little girl was completely in her element all night, and did great credit to her parents - I wish *I* could be so charming and unselfconscious!

But to get the full scope of Sara Palin, you must - of course - watch the whole video:

Impressive. Impressive and inspiring - and if Sarah Palin is the face of Republicans to come, I can finally stand up again and proudly rejoin the Republican Revolution!

And, of course, the brilliant, witty and wonderful Chris Muir thinks the same as I do:

Don't forget to go enjoy Sarah Palin Facts - Stop the ACLU has a selection of them, too! My favorite (which was at MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy) is

When death came for Chuck Norris, he kicked his rear, busted down the gates of hell and trashed the place. Sarah Palin yelled out “ONE! TWO!…” before she got to three, Chuck had apologized, cleaned up the mess and went to his room…

Here are some links with reaction posts that I think you'll enjoy reading:

• CalTech Girl is blown away
• BSC Beth, writing at RightPundits, says "a natural leader... dazzling"
• Both Kim Priestap and Kevin of Wizbang! are overjoyed about finally having an advocate for special needs children in the White House. Lori Byrd, too, was deeply impressed.
• Did you know that a good portion of Sarah's speech was given while the teleprompter was broken (apparently the same thing happened to Giuliani, which explains the significant - and excellent - deviations from his written speech)?
• Fausta did some live blogging, and also has the video
• Michelle Malkin "Lady Sarah is a Champ"
• Michael Crowley at the Stump says "Palin was (alarmingly) strong"
• Mark Halprin of Time Magazine gives Saracuda an A+
• My blog-brother, Michael posts his initial reaction (a picture is worth a THOUSAND words!) and points me to
• John Fund in the Wall Street Journal: "She Shoots, She Scores"
• badrose wonders how this Southern Woman could come from Alaska? ;-)
• Okie On the Lam says "Magnificent! ...she is real heavy-metal"
• See Jane reminds us to beware of the all-powerful Palin pointer finger
• MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy says "Home freaking run! She was death in a skirt!"
• Riggworld says "I'll take the Hockey Mom over stuffed shirt pencil necks any day!" (also a round-up post)
• Jules Crittendon round-up
• "Barack's world got rocked!"
• Rightwinsparkle says "Sarah Palin is amazing"
• The Anchoress does an impressive, must-see round-up, adding "There is a general consensus, from reading around, that the Obama camp coming and with 'hey, someone WROTE that speech for her' was an incredibly dumb move. Incredibly lame and laughable."
• Hugh Hewitt: "Sarah Palin is terrific!"
• Big Lizards: "Saraphobia: Fear the Teddy!"
• Another of my blog-brothers chimes in: Jim Riley at Virginia Virtucon "Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech tonight was amazing, pure and simple.  There’s only one problem with it — John McCain has to follow it tomorrow night." Yeah, I was thinking the same thing...
• Dirty Harry's Place: "We chant 'U.S.A.!' they chant 'O-ba-ma!" (another excellent round-up, too)
• Betsy Newmark (I wish she'd activate the RSS feed!): "Sarah Palin is knocking them dead!"
• Ankle Biting Pundits: "Damn, Sarah Palin was good tonight! ... Me thinks this 'hockey mom' is going to body check you into the boards and leave those choppers - and the arrogant smugness - in a bloody pool on the ice."
• Crystal Clear Conservative (a blog-sis from Virginia) has an excellent live-blog
• NoVa Townhall say, "Obama, see your doctor"
• Cotillion blog-sis Ithildyn "... realize how blessed we are to be American women." Indeed, and AMEN, sister!
• Blog-brrother DJ likes this line (but I also liked the styrofoam one...)
• Zoey at Blatherings (another Lady of the Cotillion!) agrees with me that "Barracuda rocks the house!"
• Beth at Yeah, Right, Whatever also has a good round-up you should check out
• Emperor Misha was suitably satisfied with Lady Sarah-Cuda's speech. Mae sure you go over to His place and read, because the Emperor's pithy and pointed commentary is always worth reading ;-)
• Maxed Out Mama has a quote from the Dhummy-cratic Underground which is full of incredible eloquence. Well, I suppose that "f*ck, b*tch, c*nt Oh, excuse me, they didn't say that, they said sh*t instead" is eloquent for them...
• Little Miss Attila says, "She killed 'em. Softly." Yesiree, she sure did!
• Big Dog (I always want to spell that "Dawg"...) says "Sarah Palin cleans their clocks" Yeahsureyoubetcha she did!