The Palin saga of the past week, culminating in last night’s speech, might go down as the most colossally botched moment of the campaign for the Democrats. The chronology went something like this: the Daily Kos, the New York Times, US Weekly, and many others thought that they had discovered a mortal weakness in McCain’s VP selection, and set about tearing down Sarah Palin and trying to force the Republican convention to start under a cloud of scandal.

But they also created a level of curiosity, suspense, and drama about Palin that the McCain campaign could never have dreamed of being able to drum up on its own. Conservatives became energized in defense of Palin and the general public started tuning in to the brouhaha. Sure, the attention was negative, often painfully so; but it also depended for its coup de grace on a Palin appearance at the convention that confirmed the media narrative, that she is a simpleton from a backwater town with a family that belongs on the Jerry Springer show. I think some people actually thought that Todd Palin would be throwing chairs in the bleachers during his wife’s acceptance speech.

The participants in the Palin feeding frenzy apparently never stopped to ask themselves whether they were setting up a terrifically embarrassing trap for themselves. What if she showed up on stage and didn’t fit the narrative? What if her speech and her demeanor at the convention were pitch-perfect? What if her audience connected with her instead of laughing at her with the rest of the cognoscenti? What has happened, of course, is that the attempted humiliation of the Palin family and the attempt to cast John McCain as an impulsive risk-taker has exploded rather spectacularly. The foolishness of the past week does not bode well for the Democrats. Let the recriminations begin.