From this morning’s edition of the Jolt:

So is this year’s Mardi Gras going to be big or what?
So She’s Sorta Kinda Maybe Open to Running
Sarah Palin can create headlines, and a conniption from Andrew Sullivan, just by clearing her throat. So a statement that appears to suggest she’s interested in running for president in 2012 is, of course, huge.
“Sarah Palin has President Obama in her sights, telling FoxNews.com she ‘would be willing’ to challenge him in the 2012 presidential race. The former Alaska governor, in an interview Saturday on the sidelines of the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, said President Obama’s ‘lack of experience’ has held him back his first year in office and that she would put her credentials up against his any day. ‘I would be willing to if I believe that it’s right for the country,’ Palin said when asked if she would run for president in 2012.”
That’s not exactly a “yes.” In fact, it sounds like a bit of “I’m going to survey the field,” and if she doesn’t see anyone who can beat her or Obama, she’ll take the plunge.
NRO’s Robert Costa summarizes her appearance at the Tea Party Convention: “Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin blasted the Obama administration on Saturday night during her 45-minute keynote address at the inaugural national “tea party” convention in Nashville. Palin said the president must “stop lecturing and start listening” and questioned whether Obama’s 2008 campaign theme was succeeding: “How’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for you?” she asked, to cheers. “It’s time they stop blaming everyone else.” America is “ready for another revolution,” Palin said. The tea-party movement, she added, “is about the people” and “it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter.” (Palin, interestingly, gave the speech without one.) The 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee also urged the GOP “to absorb as much of the Tea Party as possible.” The Tea Party, she said, “is the future of politics.” It is “inspiring,” she said, “to see real people, not politicos, inside-the-beltway professionals, come out, stand up, and speak out for common-sense conservative principles.” In a sign of her support, Palin pledged to give her compensation from the appearance (reportedly $100,000) “right back to the cause.”
Mark Tapscott is enthralled: “I believe Palin is miles ahead of every other national figure in understanding where the country has been in the last year and what the Tea Party movement means about the future course of American politics. That doesn’t mean I think Palin is or even should be a candidate for president or any other elective office in 2012 or any other time. What it does mean is I believe Palin has a unique insight into the state of things and is moving systematically and intelligently in concert with that insight. Where that leads, nobody, including Palin, likely knows at this point.”
Kleinheider is not happy: “The tea party movement is dead. The one I was familiar with anyway. Judson Phillips held it down and Sarah Palin drove a stake right through its heart live last night on C-Span in front of an unsuspecting audience. Sarah Palin didn’t give a tea party speech last night. She gave a partisan Republican address. It was a purely political speech designed to position her for a presidential run in 2012 or 2016. Period. She wasn’t there to celebrate the organic nature of a movement she had nothing to do with creating. She was there to co-opt the name and claim the brand as hers. And she did.”
Glenn Reynolds sees something big at the Tea Party Convention, but it goes well beyond Palin: “I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important. The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger: America’s Third Great Awakening. America’s prior Great Awakenings, in the 18th and 19th Centuries, were religious in nature. Unimpressed with self-serving, ossified, and often corrupt religious institutions, Americans responded with a bottom-up reassertion of faith, and independence. This time, it’s different. It’s not America’s churches and seminaries that are in trouble: It’s America’s politicians and parties. They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent. So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves.” . . .
I don’t know if Audi’s Super Bowl commercial, featuring a draconian and ruthless “Green Police” jailing citizens for making any choice that wasn’t green, will sell a lot of cars. But I’ll bet it sells a lot of copies of Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
Every Mark Steyn column is awesome, but anytime a phrase that was born right here on Morning Jolt is featured and credited so prominently, it’s doubly awesome: “Since Obama’s mispronunciation is a pithier summation of the State of the Union than any of the dreary 90-minute sludge he paid his speechwriters for, let us consider it: Is America a Corpseman walking? Well, we’re getting there. National Review’s Jim Geraghty sums up Obama’s America thus: ‘Unsustainable is the new normal.’ Indeed. The other day, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, described current deficits as ‘unsustainable.’ So let’s make them even more so.”