She hasn't declared...yet.  The media is following Palin's bus tour like Dead Heads follow the Grateful Dead or baby ducks follow their momma.  She's kept quiet about her intentions going into 2012 while the GOP candidates and the GOP itself (and media for that fact) looks on wondering when or if the other shoe will drop. 

I have tried to avoid writing about Sarah Palin, partly because any article written gets lost in the noise and partly because I haven't been sold on Palin as a viable candidate. There, I said it.

But I'm starting to come around a bit...a little bit.  And you can thank the MSM for that.

While the media refused to do any real journalism by digging into Rep. Weiner's Twitter scandal, they have been completely gaga about getting access to then Governor Palin's emails prior to her resigning from Governor of Alaska. 

It is a well known fact that the media has created the perception of who Sarah Palin is and the media has played their role in trying to keep Sarah Palin from being perceived as a good leader, a good person and more importantly - Presidential material.

Politico, who recently wrongly attributed a quote to Palin, poured through the emails and found......ready for it?  Nothing.  No smoking guns.  No embarrassing backstabbing of colleagues, friends or subordinates. Don't get me wrong, Politico still got their shots in saying the Palin of today - "defensiveness, thin skin, grudge-keeping" - is different than the Palin revealed in the emails.  When you have nearly the entire American (and foreign) media constantly going after you, would you not get a little defensive, thick skinned and hold grudges?  She's only human.  On Anderson Cooper 360 Friday night, David Griffen gave an almost glowing picture of Sarah Palin after reading her released emails.  Of course, you have a better chance of seeing Elvis in concert than seeing other news outlets like MSNBC say anything positive about Palin, even with the emails revealing nothing of importance. 

I would hope the average voter will begin to realize that that the Sarah Palin they know is nothing more than a media constructed and erected cardboard cutout caricature of who Sarah Palin actually happens to be.

More importantly, the media has egg on its face *again* and this time it could help propel the one person they hate the most into the White House.  If Palin uses this story to her advantage (which she has a panache for using the media against themselves), she has the platform to re-introduce herself to voters and the GOP, while the media's blatant hate for her begins to seem like a vendetta than reporting news.  In addition, the media seems to have stepped in it as their drive to find dirt on Sarah Palin may have just helped hand her the tools she needs to re-enter the "mainstream".  As I see it and despite the polls right now, if Palin were to enter the GOP race, it would be between her and Tim Pawlenty for the nomination.  Mitt Romney is running like he already has the nomination, to his discredit and most likely to his downfall (another victim of the Palin email release?).  I'm wondering what a Palin-Pawlenty ticket might be able to accomplish. 

Let me close by saying I'm not on board with the Palin bus quite yet.  I still have my problems with her, but the Palin email release and the media's inability to find the dirt to back up the media's relentless claims and bias against her may have just helped her push to win the nomination if she decides she wants to take a run at it.  At the very least, the lack of anything substantive within the Palin emails and the subsequent media embarrassment has raised my eyebrows and now has me willing to take another look at her going into the next election cycle.