While we’re waiting for the verdict in the Ted Stevens trial, let’s consider other big moments in the Senator’s political history …

AP headline smirk:

“Lieberman skirts issue of Palin’s readiness”

Sure sounds like far more cheers than boos in St. Louis when Sarah Palin drops the hockey puck to start last night’s game in St. Louis between the Blues and the Los Angeles Kings.

Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson remains gimlet-eyed as always:

As for plot twists, I can think of few in literature that compare with the sudden emergence of Sarah Palin. If you look closely at the video clip of her appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” when she’s in the hallway talking to Alec Baldwin and SNL honcho Lorne Michaels, a man dressed like Abraham Lincoln is in the background with what appears to be a llama. That’s the kind of year it’s been.

Actually, that’s the kind of show it’s been.  A long-running “Saturday Night Live” gag stipulates that any time the camera goes backstage there has to be Abe Lincoln, a llama — and showgirls.

Makes sense to us.

CNN reporter John King, asked by South Carolina ETV host Mark Quinn whether Sarah Palin has been treated much differently by the press than her counterparts:

“Part of that may be legitimate. Part of that may be how the McCain campaign put her out there. We whine too much sometimes. If the McCain campaign doesn’t want to make Sarah Palin available for interviews, OK, just say they won’t make her available for interviews. We don’t have to jump up and down and scream and cry about that…In today’s democracy, if she is doing talk radio, if she is going to town halls, if she is out campaigning, we should make note of it…it is not our job to whine or complain…If (people) think that’s important, if a voter thinks it’s important that she’s not doing the Sunday shows, then the voter will make their decision based on that. Other voters will think, ‘So what? Why do I want to listen to you? I want to see her in a town hall. I want to see her giving a speech.’ So, we need to observe, not object so much…”

May be the first time a candidate for national office has cited “Saturday Night Live” in a message to supporters.

A Sarah Palin e-mail just now, subject lined “My guest appearance on Saturday Night Live”:

If you caught my guest appearance on Saturday Night Live this weekend, you may have seen an ad or two (or twenty) from Senator Obama’s campaign.

This barrage of advertising is adding up to the most expensive negative ad buy in political history. And these ads are funded with the nearly $200 million the Obama campaign and the DNC raised in September.

With this new money, they’ll only step up their media buying efforts to flood every network with ads attacking our shared values. These ads are full of inaccurate information designed to mislead voters in key media markets. …

This ant-Sarah Palin ad spotted at Hot Air …

The ad sparks the funny folks at Famous DC — who, by now, are deserving of the next Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor — to wonder …

Does this mean Big Mouth Billy Bass is on the line for McCain?

(from Instapundit/Top of the Ticket)

Sarah Palin in Dover, New Hampshire yesterday (from Now Hampshire via GraniteGrok):

“I know that we can count on the good people of New Hampshire because you’re a lot like the people of Alaska. We all love good moose hunting, I know that, and we both so enjoy our great lands - the clean water, the fresh air, the abundant wildlife, and good fishing, we love being outdoors, I knew that that was New Hampshire also. And we both too take seriously your state motto, I think it should be ours also, Live Free or Die!”