Spying on the enemy -- UPDATE: Palin promised to announce her candidacy on 'Bob and Mark' show

Jennifer Rubin writes "Right Turn," a conservative column at The Washington Post. Rubin has a lot of contacts in the conservative world and, so, makes for interesting reading. More can be learned about what conservatives are up to by reading one of her columns than can be learned by watching Fox News for a month. It was from her column, "The myth of Palin's frontrunner status," that I learned that Sarah Palin's early champion, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, had become disillusioned with her.

On August 15, in "Palin goes back to Alaska," Rubin wrote of Palin:

Sarah Palin has taken on a pathetic quality. She’s not in the presidential race and, as I’ve long predicted, won’t be. She nevertheless pines for the spotlight. So her “One Nation” tour bird-dogged Mitt Romney’s kick off in New Hampshire. She spent the last few days weaving in and out of Iowa to lunge for the media spotlight but only attracted a single camera crew. ...

... There has always been a streak of victimhood in Palin’s act. Burned by the media, she decided to make the “lamestream media” her target. It hardly matters whether it is an emotional fixation or a carefully designed strategy to egg on the often-aggrieved hard-core conservatives. Either way, in making that her central concern she has marginalized herself. ...

And, in "Whatever happened to Sarah Palin?" on August 19:

... It’s not like Sarah Palin ever goes away. She finished her “One Nation Tour” (which focused on early-primary contests for the convenience of the “lamestream media,” on which she is dependent for attention) and went back to Alaska. But she will be back soon in Iowa. ...

... The Republican presidential campaigns are buzzing with Palin rumors. She may be hiring advance people. She is trying to round up donors. But, as with all things Palin, it’s unclear whether this is simply one more effort to keep Palin on the national stage without her declaring her candidacy. ...

... And what if, in a flight of fancy, she decides there is some untapped demand for another Tea Party-friendly candidate in the GOP presidential primary? (Notice she was not even a write-in blip at the Ames straw poll.) To begin with, the Mitt Romney camp would break out the champagne. They are already counting on a subdivision of Tea Party and social conservative support between Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and a revived Rick Santorum. Throw Palin into the mix and Romney could well be the only candidate above 25 percent in the early-state contest. (In addition, the more less-than-sterling candidates in the debate the better — less time focused on him, more sniping among the crowd, and the benefit of comparison to lesser figures.) ...

"Sarah Palin has taken on a pathetic quality." Mitt Romney would enjoy, if Palin runs and participates in the debates, "the benefit of comparison to lesser figures." Ouch! That has to hurt. A liberal or moderate might find it difficult to criticise Palin more effectively than Jennifer Rubin does.

Palin will return to Iowa on September 3 to be the keynote speaker at a Tea Party "Restoring America" event. Yesterday, Karl Rove speculated that Palin would announce her candidacy in Iowa, but why did he cite a schedule that appeared to him to be campaign apearances? The only other thing on Palin's schedule is an appearance with Glenn Beck at a "Defending the Republic" event in Missouri on October 7. The titles of those events are interesting and appear to be designed to attract those with a sense of loss: the disillusioned and aggrieved, but that is a topic for another day.

Update: If Sarah Palin runs -- if she can be believed -- she will announce on Alaska's "Bob and Mark" show. From a CBS News story of last September:

... Palin didn't directly answer when Beck asked her if she would run for president, the Anchorage Daily News reports. Instead, she said she'd make any announcement on an Alaskan talk radio show.

"If there is going to be some big national announcement I'm going to do it where it's most worthy," Palin said. "I'm going to do something big, even bigger then Glenn Beck." Referring to the Alaska morning radio show, she said, "It's going to happen on the Bob and Mark show." ...

Does Sarah Palin have a good memory? Does she keep her word? No and no, if she's going to announce in Iowa. Oh! But wait a minute ... there may be work-arounds! Could Bob and Mark do their show from Iowa? Could Palin phone-in her announcement? Could Bob and Mark carry her announcement speech live? What did Sarah Palin mean by saying that she'd announce on the Bob and Mark show? Does anything less than an announcement, live, in Bob and Mark's studio, in Alaska, count as a promise kept?