Gov. Sarah Palin seemed a little shaky as the Veep debate started, but as the night progressed, she hit her stride and did very well, even putting Sen. Joe Biden back on his heels on occasion.

In my view, Palin had to come in and dispel the bad impressions left from her Katie Couric interview -- something the Alaska Governor accomplished in spades. She displayed those qualities that have endeared her to such a wide swath of American voters in such a short time.

Both candidates obviously had their mission coming into the debate. Biden's was to attack the Bush Administration, as if he and Obama were running against George Bush, and not John McCain. Palin's was to attack Barack Obama and not nake it a Palin v. Biden contest.

I do wish Palin had taken to the Obama-Biden ticket a harder on the subject of Iraq. Whenever Biden claimed, incredibly, that McCain was continuously wrong on the War in Iraq, Palin should have leveled a bazooka at him and said something to the effect of:

"With all due respect, Senator, if we had followed Barack Obama's advice on Iraq, the United States would be withrawing in defeat, rather than having victory within sight. if we had followed Obama's advice, the United States would have, for the first time in its history, deliberately chosen defeat in war as a matter of policy.

"Contrary to what you're claiming, Sen. John McCain was advocating the surge in late 2003, seeing before anyone else that our initial strategy wasn't working. If we had listened to John McCain back then, the War in Iraq would already be over."

"The surge worked. You and Barack Obama opposed it before it started, while it was being implemented, and Barack Obama still refuses to admit he was wrong and the surge was the right strategy. We can't afford that kind of inepxerience and bad judgement in our Commander-in-Chief."

But she didn't, and she did just fine.

I was happy Gov. Palin called a spade a spade and pointed out the Obama-Biden tax plan is pure income redistribution. Biden lamely tried to fend that off by calling it fairness, but the lipstick didn't stay on the pig.

During their next debate, McCain needs to pick up and expand that attack on Obama's left-wing economic policies.

Another missed opportunity for Palin was when Biden bragged about his tubing of Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination, and took responsibility for making a nominee's ideology the central confirmation criterion.

Gov. Palin should have questioned why Biden was responsible for the hyper-political enviorment in which we pick federal judges, a partisan sprial that denies eminently qualified lawyers and jurists the ooppirutniyt to serve on the bench.

"I don't know why Sen. Biden would be proud of hs role leading role in permanently poisoning our system of selecting judges."

Impact? Net plus for McCain's campaign. If Palin had a bad night, it would have demorailized Republican and given the Obama campaign possibly irreversible momentum. It also would probably killed Palin's promising future as a national candidate.

As it stands, Palin has assured her future as a Republcian star and strong presidential contender in 2012 or 2016.

Now, perharps the nervous nellies in Beltway conservative cirlces will calm down and abandon their fickel "dump Palin": talk.