MSNBC has spent all morning (and all night last night) assessing the theater of Sarah Palin's speech. They've taken a pass on assessing the content, or fact-checking Palin's claims. Instead, they keep speculating about whether Palin's speech would be successful with regular Americans (and almost universally agreeing it would.)

If they're going to focus entirely on the theater and on whether the speech will appeal to Middle America, maybe they should tell us how actual people reacted to it? The Detroit Free Press and Huffington Post have articles about focus groups that found undecided and independent voters weren't particularly impressed.

No, instead we're treated to a bunch of highly paid coastal elites like Brian Williams telling us how people in Middle America will react to the speech. Well ... how does he know? He doesn't. We'd be better served if the media would scrutinize the content and accuracy of the speech than guessing at how it will be recieved. But if they're going to focus on the speech's reception, they could at least include some actual reactions from actual undecided voters rather than presuming to speak for them.

UPDATE: After this post, MSNBC finally got around to telling us how some viewers reacted to Palin's speech -- people in Sarah Palin's hometown. After telling us that Sarah Palin's friends and neighbors liked her speech and dislike criticism of her, reporter Savannah Guthrie did admit “You can't expect this town to be objective.” Right. So maybe MSNBC could find some people who are objective and tell us how they reacted?